Alpine Rail Passes...
The Semmering is still a bottle-neck in the Austrian Rail network, just starting to be rectified by a base tunnel..  but has romance in its history of hardship from Neil's early train spotting days (they used rotary snow-blasters to get through in winter !)

It's a main line, but loops round on itself wonderfully...

We were on a Railjet, which is 1st class, so Sandra was doing a blog...

as we passed those castles....

and places with funny names...
to Villach, near the Italian/Slovenian border, where there is...

A fun clown figure, beside the river.

Our hotel was just down on the right, on the main pedestrian mall.

Those grassy valley bottoms...
with villages...
& huts..

wayside chapels...





and mountains...

We got into the Dolomites after Villach, on the way to Innsbruck...

my, what jagged peaks !

and glimpses of distant places...


to see next time... ?



& be amazed at Euro roads...

Through the passes...

From Innsbruck you climb out the valley, with breath-taking, (literally) views..

We saw so many young folks on end-of-term school trips, but especially the kinders caught our eye, reminding us of our own very young, & older ones, too..

So we left the Alps behind us.... to head for Regensburg (Germany)
& Cesky Krumlov, in the Czech Republic...