It's "ski week" break for schools here in Brussels. Now, we Davieses are many things, but we are not skiers (get dragged up a mountain then slide to the bottom? Why not just stay at the bottom and save time?!) We do, however, like to take advantage of a holiday, so decided to do what we never did when we lived in Europe. Namely: see Europe.
The key to this was the newly-inaugurated night train from Brussels to Vienna. Fall asleep in Belgium, wake up in Austria! It's a hotel on wheels! Or a train with beds!! Either way, the romantic notions of an era when travel was that much more refined meant I eagerly booked our "couchette".
Sadly, the beds on a train are a lot harder - and lurch around a lot more - than those in a hotel, with more squealing brakes and horns, and then the lights go on in the middle of the night because you're waiting for the train from Amsterdam to join on at the back. So when we eventually trundled into Vienna, three hours late, I understood why they call it a "night train" and not a "sleeper".
But the ability to walk from your door to another city without touching a car cannot be sniffed at, and the ease with which you can leave your bags at major European train stations and just wander for hours is fantastic. We marveled at Vienna's imperialist architecture, all heavy columns and arches and palaces, as well as snapping pics where they filmed The Third Man, one of my Dad's favourites.
We also enjoyed some fine Austrian coffee. When Vienna beat back a Turkish siege in 1683, they discovered bags of brown powder left behind, and soon the city fell in love with caffeine (which I thoroughly applaud, although the amount of whipped cream floating on some of the concoctions is disturbing).
Our 36 hours in Vienna rushed by, with our extensive meandering exceeding all the goals in Hannah's fitness tracker. It was time to catch a train to Prague, one which thankfully I would not have to pretend to get a night's sleep on.
Are cricket and barbies out too?
