Winter interrail 2015-2016

Soon after moving to a new apartment in Grenoble we leave the cardboard box mess behind and go for a two-week Interrail trip. It took us to Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Tallinn, Warsaw, Wien, Ljubljana, Trieste, and Padova between December 19 and January 3. We passed through many other places changing trains, buses, and ferries, like Basel, Hamburg, Stockholm, and Vilnius.

A sashimi set we pick up at Basel station when changing trains. It looks like plastic models displayed at any Japanese restaurant window in Japan or anywhere else in Asia.

Then we are in beautiful Frankfurt in the early afternoon.

We visit the Christmas market to taste Winzer Gluhwein, and stroll around looking for a dinner place.

Eventually we find a very basic, but touristy German restaurant. Tei has wild board with potatoes and Tomi spatzle with some meat, probably veal.

The breakfast at NH hotel Frankfurt Villa is pretty good with the colorful juices and a variety of cold cuts, cheeses, and breads.

We leave for the railway station early. The air is crisp and in the early morning haze the city actually looks quite lovely.

Our destination today is Copenhagen via Hamburg.

We change trains in Hamburg and find a tex mex place in the food court to grab quick (and huge!) bowls of food. Their herbs look really pretty.

In Copenhagen we stay at the best ever hostel Urban house: http://urbanhouse.me They have a good craft beer selection and they are cool in so many ways.

We combine the early morning run with a visit to the railway station to buy seats in the Copenhagen - Stockholm train. This is Copenhgen Tivoli.

Urban house is cool in so many ways, ...

and others.

Copenhagen's main railway station is pretty nice, too. Today's destination is Stockholm.

Copenhagen also has a message.

We take a ferry from Stockholm to Turku, Finland. The majority of passengers on the boat are from Asia, and going to visit Santa Claus village in Northern Finland.

We stay in Helsinki just for a couple of days our main mission being to empty the cellar of our former apartment, which already has a new owner. We also visit a relatively new Szechuan restaurant with our friends. The flavors are quite authentic, but the dishes not quite as spicy hot as one can find in Shanghai.

We also enjoy breakfast at Cafe Lasipalatsi with other friends. It turns out that this is the last day the place is open before closing for more than a year-long renovation.

We have a magnificient view over Southern Helsinki from our airbnb apartment.

On Christmas Eve we make a quick trip to Tampere to have Christmas dinner with Tei's mother. That is a tough call, since very few place are open --- we have to resort to a chain hotel's Christmas buffet.

Next morning we are out of Helsinki, and on our way to Tallinn by ferry.

Tallinn Christmas market.

We visit Tallinn Legends, a 40-minute show of Medieval history of the town's legends performed by real actors and mechanical puppets.

We taste some local micro brews in a packed cafe. Afterwards we have a very mediocre dinner at La Tomatina, cucina italiana tradizionale.

Before midnight we take a bus from Tallinn to Warsaw. The whole trip takes about 16 hours, with a connection in Vilnius at 5am. It is a very comfortable bus ride, and we have a good night's sleep; the seats recline well and we have plenty of leg space, especially in Lux Express from Vilnius to Warsaw. It is like being in the business class on an air-plane.

Christmas is perhaps the most idyllic time of the year to be in any of Europe's big capitals.

The following morning we leave for Wien. The weather does not look good until we reach there.

After settling at Vienna CityHostel, we take a quick stroll in the town. We follow all other tourists to Belvedere. This is the Upper Belvedere Palace.

This is Lower Belvedere.

We pass the famous opera and accidentally bump into 1516 Brewing Company. We have tasters of their beers and Wiener schnitzels for a very early dinner.

Then we fight the freezing winter night past the Hofburg Palace,

and this nice alley,

to 7 Stern Brau Brewery. There we have helles, chilli, marzen, and porter.

Early next morning we continue our train trip to Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Gloomy grey winter changes quite suddenly into bright sunshine.

We stay at an airbnb in the old town at the bottom of the castle hill.

On our first evening we climb the hill to have a view over the town.

The early evening mid-winter light is marvellous.

The newer side of Ljubljana.

Christmas lights in the old town.

We have dinner at Most, a place recommended by our host --- he said all his guests had liked the place. For starters we have scallops (pictured) and pepper soup with crab, and for the mains beef with black truffle, and lamb with chilli pepper and potatoes. All with a local (red) wine variety teran.

More Christmas lights in this freezing night.

Next morning we we take a hike in Tivoli City Park and Roznik hill/Siska hill landscape park.

This guy was here blowing soap bubbles every time and day we walked past this square.

Visitation Church on Cankar Peak. We climb the hill on the early morning run.

Ljubljana city plan.

On our last morning we spend some time strolling around, looking for a wifi cafe to book the accommodation in our next destination, Trieste, Italy.

We have lunch at Eksperiment Brewery restaurant and bar. They only make two beers, light and dark. Their food is nothing special, but it is not expensive either.

We spend our last hour in Ljubljana at Sir William's Pub - House of Beer. We have been there before, and found them to have an excellent beer selection, especially Slovenian micro-brews.

From Ljubljana we take the train to Villa Opicina in Italy. We had been informed that from there we can take a bus to Trieste --- there is no direct train connection. When we get off the train we are a bit lost since we don't see a bus or any other connection. A kind train conductor just finishing his shift offers us a ride to the town, where we can take a tram/funicular to Trieste.

The old city stock exchange.

Mastro Birraio carries a lovely selection of beers.

Extensive instructions in the coin laundry.

Piazza Unita d'Italia.

There was some strange ritual going on between the little girl and the bird figure. First the offerings.

"You are welcome."

"Thank you." And this goes on and on.

Castello di San Giusto.

The handrails likely come handy when these steep streets are icy.

We take the tram to Opicina for sightseeing. The tram is a hybrid of tram and funicular trailway. From Wikipedia: "For most of the journey, the line operates as a conventional, electrically powered tramway, with a mixture of street running and reserved track. On the steepest section of the line, between Piazza Scorcola and Vetta Scorcola, the trams are pushed uphill and braked downhill by a pair of cable tractors that operate on funicular principles."

He is the tractor operator.

The tram coming down.

A view from Obelisco stop.

It is new year's eve, and we have not booked a table for dinner. We find out that there is one restaurant that is open and does not take reservations, Fratelli La Bufala. We are lucky since after a ten-minute wait our two-member party is escorted to the table.

Next morning we are in Padova, Italy. We stay near the railway station at an apartment renovated in a former industrial building. All structures and decorations are creatively constructed from recycled materials.

Dining area.

The town of Padova is very quiet, with practically no shops, cafeterias, or restaurants open (it is the New Year Day)

It is almost desolate of tourists and habitants alike.

Piazza dei Signori.

The only places that are open for lunch are very busy (and touristy). Eventually we find a hotel restaurant that has a table for us.

Piazza del Santo and Basilica di Sant'Antonio.

Monumento Memoria e Luce --- 9/11 memorial at night. It was designed by Studio Libeskind (the same architect who designed the apartment complex we last stayed in Singapore: Reflections at Keppel bay). It contains a twisted steel beam that was salvaged from the ruins of the World Trade Center and donated by the USA to Veneto region.

Next morning starts (and ends) grey and rainy. We run around the old town following the old town wall.

Morning market at Prato della Valle (largest square in Italy, and one of the largest in Europe, tells Wikipedia).

9/11 Memorial in daylight, in very grim daylight, though.

Meringue, a lots of meringue.

On our last night in Padova we have dinner at Gourmetteria, a new trendy concept place, which combines a restaurant and a kitchen store. It serves Italian regional specialities.

It is all wintry mix from Padova to Turin.

We spend a few hours in Turin, and have lunch at a place we have found good before, Crudo Osteria Contemporare, near Piazza Castello. From Turin we take a bus to Chambery, France (one cannot buy international train tickets in Italy but through a travel agent), and then a train from Chambery to Grenoble.