Trains!

We often travel by train.  Our most exotic trip was the 54 hour journey on the rickety train between Tanzania and Zambia.   Train museums always merit a visit.  

 

Steam engine in a park in Graz, pen and ink

 

 

Dog Waits for Train to Soller from Palma de Mallorca, pen and ink

 

Train to Soller from Palma de Mallorca, pen and ink 

 

Train from Dar Es Salam to Zambia, watercolor

Contact me for prices on originals and prints

From Torino (Turin) to Graz

From Graz to Torino (Turin)

 

July 10, 2016

 

From Graz you take a railroad operated bus to the train that carries you into Italy through the Alps; the bus avoids a much longer train ride through the mountains.  The scenery alone makes the trip worthwhile.  There are viaducts and tunnels galore.  Human have inhabited this area for thousands of years, although it is  well west of here,in the Oetztal Alps, where researchers unearthed the frozen body of a man who died in the mountains some 5000 years ago.  For more information on that, go to http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/oetzi-iceman-mummy-alps-lyme-disease-lactose-intolerance/story?id=15816788

 

graz to italy1

 

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The Semmering Railroad

Steam engine

The Semmering Railroad, designed and directed by the Venice born  Carlo Ghega, is a UNESCO World Heritage Center (1998) that travels from Gloggnitz to Semmering.   I was constructed between 1848 and 1854.  At the.  time the Semmering was a feat of engineering and the first mountain railway in Europe built on a standard gauge track.  From your seat you see superb Austrian mountains, 16 viaducts and 15 tunnels,  over 100 curved stone and 11 small iron bridges, as well as many mansions.  All this in a journey of just 41 kilometers.

semmering 4

semmering 3

 

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