Veronika Wild

The ascensor "Gloria" - just one of several ways to get around Lisbon's many hills When I booked our fares to Europe I was offered a 22 € fare to Portugal. I’d always wanted to go to Portugal - I've had the guidebook since 2006, and it seemed like an offer too good to refuse. I didn’t know it didn’t include luggage, a return fare, insurance or sundry other costs which took it up to over $700. The low -cost airlines now have a new wrinkle. They even charge for the emails they send you to tell you that they have randomly changed all your travel arrangements. My German friends and relatives laughed out loud when I told them this. They have all been caught themselves. While it has long been a problem with the likes of EasyJet and Ryan Air, now even the flagship airlines are doing the same things. It cost granddaughter and I an extra $262, just to be able to sit together on the flight to Europe and almost another $200 to get off in Zurich instead of flying through to St...

The town of Tittmoning, just over the Austrian border. Its castle still casts an anxious gaze towards the Alpine regions to its South One branch of the family I was rather fond of hadn’t made it to the family reunion and no one had heard from them in a while, so soon after I took a train to Austria to see how they were faring. The Trains For the most part, the trains in Europe are excellent. Clean, fast, ubiquitous and so smooth that people literally use them as their office on the way to work. One Swiss train even had proper tablecloths and real crockery and cutlery in the dining car. Some of the regional trains in Germany had compartments which were set up to easily transport bicycles, wheelchairs scooters and strollers and they were very frequent, if not always on time. I am so jealous that so much of Europe is so   easily accessible by train. Train - bike holidays are encouraged in Germany with special compartments to accommodate cyclists   The bad news is that – Sho...

  Grapevines were introduced to the region by the Romans in the C8th A Wine Trail of   Different Sort The Wine Trail wasn’t so much about liquid refreshment as a self -guided educational experience. Wine has been grown around Stuttgart since Roman times and you can still see the style of cultivation which they brought with them. While you can practically walk among grapevines in the city of Stuttgart, those at nearby Esslingen , are some of the oldest in Germany. The vines are all on stony South – facing slopes to make maximum use of the available sunshine. Struggling up some of the steep steps, I hate to think what it must have been like for workers carrying huge baskets of grapes. At regular intervals there were cute little huts and you could open one of the shutters and look inside. Round about were little stories and homilies about wine and nature notes about the kinds of herbs and plants which grow on these hillsides and which add their unique flavours to the wine fro...

  My trip didn’t start out all that well. Almost as soon as I got to Europe I came down with a particularly nasty 'flu -Influenza A to be precise, which put me in hospital for the best part of the first week, despite having had a 'flu shot before I left. Although the hospital cleared me in time for the reunion and my granddaughter had to explore Europe on her own, I was often really tired and miserable and didn't manage to do half the things I'd planned. Nevertheless, it was lovely to see everyone again and I did manage to do a couple of side trips as well as a few excursions in the Stuttgart area.  This is about all I saw of Switzerland, apart from the train in and out I never want to see hospital food again, despite the appealing menu!  Coffee, Cake and Castles You won’t find many of the places I visited on any tourist map. Indeed, had relatives and friends not shown me around, I wouldn’t have seen them either. Some were to do with my early childhood –the  plac...