The halfway point, travel to Salzburg, Austria

Friday June 5th

Ughhhhhh...worst day yet. We've been on the train ALL day trying to get to Salzburg. Started with the 9:20 am train to Ceske Budjevoice that was to be our connection to Linz. Our train was at least 9-10 minutes late arriving, giving us zippy time to figure out our transfer. The departure board on the tracks told us the Linz connector was on track IV. Not so much. We scrambled around, found someone that understood us and what we were looking for and practically ran to Track II with less than a minute left before departure. Got to the platform, yelled towards an attendant...who then pointed towards a train that was slowly pulling away from the station. Damme it!!! We were at most 15 seconds too late.

We dropped down into the terminal. From what we could tell from our eurail schedule, the next train was in 6hrs. Damme it again! I went to the international TI and they printed a list of ways to get to Salzburg --the next of which left at 2:20. It was 12:20. Ugh, 2 hrs of wasted time. That brings the trip total of wasted train waiting time to 3.5 hrs, for those who are counting.

Right now its 6:10pm..still on the train, but just saw our first glimpse of the Alps! So theres finally something to cheer about! By the time we get off these trains, we'll have been traveling for 10 hrs. Thats longer than the flight from Washington to Amsterdam. And so begins the 2nd half of the journey!!