From Vienna to the East

Many of you will remember how excited I was to arrive in Vienna in November 2024 after walking from Prague. This post continues the journey - I realised that I could walk to Bratislava quite easily. I thought that I could do it in two days, but a warm day on Sunday put paid to that idea. What it does mean is that I now have less than 20km of walking to reach Bratislava, so I can do the last part in just over four hours, and then visit a few places there. But that's a story for another day.

This story will start and end predictably, but the bit in the middle is anything but predictable. As many of you will know, I research my journey back to base (usually - a counterexample will follow) but I don't research what I expect to see on the way. It means that I miss things, but I'm like a little boy with a new toy car when I discover things. Some would say that I'm like a little boy with a new toy car most of the time, but never mind. The lack of research usually means that I don't have expectations about what I see, but this time I was totally astounded about what I saw, and I came back with more questions than answers. In the words of the song, the more that I find out, the less I know. So prepare for a geography lesson, with several silly anecdotes interspersed.

I said that the story would begin predictably. Here's the start of the walk, taken in the evening when I arrived:

This is the Danube Canal or Donaukanal. It leaves the main Danube in the north west of Vienna and rejoins in the north east, having passed close to the centre of the city. It's a canal to allow boats to access Central Vienna, or so I thought. More later.

When I showed this picture to friends, I had the response "I can almost hear the zither". So let's all hear the zither.

I'd walked along the Donaukanal on the way into Vienna in November 2024, but I was quite tired by then, so I missed things. I probably missed things this time, but there will be another day. 

A Spotty Dog on the cycle path! What's more, it walked like a normal dog. It didn't walk with all four legs in the air at once, like 'the very biggest spotty dog you ever did see'. (For our younger listeners, Ian is talking about a children's programme he watched sixty years ago. Here's what he means.)

Art work, by the Donaukanal. The whole area is a space for public art. Das Werk say that they have been 'an established part of Vienna's nightlife and subcultural scene since 2006'.

Oh look, a council worker removing graffiti. Nah, this is Vienna. A graffiti artist preparing a blank canvas for later.

The new somewhat dwarfing the old, somewhere near where the Donaukanal meets the main Danube. Claude and ChatGPT have given me two different wrong answers as to what the buildings are, so I'll leave the reader to guess. Or to inform me.

After over an hour's walking, at last we meet the mighty Danube. Or, at least, half of it. On the left of the picture is Danube Island (Donauinsel), an island which runs the length of Vienna. Of which, more later.

Do not feed the ducks, geese and swans! Not that people took any notice.

A low level bridge to Donauinsel. The yellow bit in the middle can be raised to let small boats through.

The building on the left is what one of the LLMs thought my previous picture was. Erm, there's three of them. This is DC Towers, Vienna's equivalent of Canary Wharf. The building on the left, the imaginatively named DC Tower 1, is the tallest building in Austria at 220m.

A second low level bridge to Donauinsel. Not sure how this one opens. I could paddle a canoe through the gap on the left - that's assuming that I could paddle a canoe at all, that is. The last time I attempted such a thing, I went round in circles like a Cocker Spaniel.

We've now left the populated part of Vienna, we've left the river, and we're at a sewage works. The first sign is polite, describing it as a 'compost works'. The second picture is less so, describing it as 'bottom loading'. No need for that filth.

Leaving the sewage works, here's a bunker built into a small artificial hill. Maybe it's to protect walkers and cyclists from polluted water close to the sewage works? 

The end of Donauinsel. This is where we see the Danube as a single river for the first time.

Having taken the previous picture, I climb back up the bank, and I realise that it's a flood defence. The landscape has changed completely since I left Vienna. But why? And why the sewage works on the river at the east of the city?

My immediate thought was of this building (By The wub - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116697229 ). Why? It's a sewage works in East London named Abbey Mills. It lies at the east end of one of the Victorian sewers which run across London from west to east, causing the sewage running into buried rivers going from north to south not to empty into the Thames. The case for creating the sewers was strengthened by 'the Great Stink' of 1858 where hot weather transformed an unpleasant and smelly environment into an extremely unpleasant and smelly environment. And, of course, the Thames stank its way past the Houses of Parliament. 

But surely the Donaukanal wasn't a sewer? It was a canal built to serve Vienna from the main Danube, surely? Actually, no. The clue is in the name. Kanal often means 'open sewer' in German. The Donaukanal was an old channel of the Danube, not a canal, and a sewer much the same way the Thames was. Vienna implemented a similar system to London with an intercepting sewer, and a sewage works beyond the city.

This doesn't explain the sudden transformation from a pleasant urban walk by a huge river to a walk on a bank above a huge flood plain, though. Let's look at a map.

Note how Donauinsel goes the length of Vienna and no further. Is it artificial? Absolutely. All part of a flood protection scheme from the 1970s and 1980s, it's 21km by 70m-210m. Not quite square then. How does putting an island into a river increase flood protection? Let's look at another map.

Note that the river is little wider, if at all, to the east of Donauinsel. The river to the south of the island is much wider than the river to the north, and there's a good reason for that - the one to the north is artificial too. Dig out an area wide enough so your city doesn't flood, use the spoil to build an island in the middle of the river, plant 1.8 million trees and shrubs on the island to take water from the river. What's more, Donauinsel is now the most popular recreational facility in Vienna. Brilliant. For more detail, see https://web.archive.org/web/20170729015609/https://www.wien.gv.at/umwelt/gewaesser/pdf/donau-hochwasserschutz-2017.pdf. 

Moving on, we're now 6km beyond the sewage works at Lobau, but still no signpost to Vienna. Why? We're technically still in Vienna rather than Lower Austria, so signs are to places within the city. In Prague, the sign would say 'Centrum' as well as the local places. Common sense really.

Mistletoe, and lots of it. I saw it all the way from the Donaukanal. I even saw some in the centre of Dresden at Christmas. Conclusion: the Germanic tradition of having mistletoe in houses at Christmas is not as prevalent as it is in Britain.

Having (eventually) left Vienna, I saw a sign to Bratislava, and to Hainburg, my eventual day two destination. It's more than 12km from Hainburg to Bratislava, but never mind.

 

And, in the other direction, we now do see a sign to Central Vienna, but no distance. For those of you who didn't know, you now know that I grew up wanting to design road signs. 

I ended up taking a taxi back to Vienna at the end of day one. My route on Google Maps was taking me over the river then back by train. See where it says Donaufähre on the sign above? That means Danube Ferry. And it runs 0900 to 1800 or some such. It was considerably later by this point, so no hope. Moral of the story: always have enough charge on your phone to get yourself out of trouble.

(photo credit: Christopher Althuber, https://www.meinbezirk.at/floridsdorf/c-freizeit/ein-blitzspektakel-ueber-der-alten-donau_a2796185)

As I said earlier, it was too hot to walk on Sunday. After the sunshine we had thunder and lightning, so, being in Vienna, Donau und Blitzen. I'll get my coat.

Having managed - eventually - to buy a bus ticket using the phone as I couldn't pay on the bus, I arrived back at journey's end for day one. I've never seen a sign like the one on the right on a cycle path before, and I've never seen cyclists disappear over the horizon before. Talking of the horizon, is that a change of scenery in the distance?

It's a nice touch that there's a bench about every kilometre on this stretch. For the nature lover, you can always see or hear something different, from trees to birds to snakes (I wasn't fast enough to photograph the snake), but for the cyclist, league after league of flat, straight path could be mind-numbing.

 

To show that I'm not just saying that I saw interesting things in nature, here's a native Black Poplar (which I actually recognised - go me) with the ubiquitous mistletoe to the right. There's a posh word, ubiquitous - well, not really for those of us of a certain age from Scunthorpe. 'Ubique' was the name on the side of a bus between Scunthorpe and Ashby run by a brother and sister (?) driver and conductor team. Next stop Sid! 

At long last the 12km is up, and there's a bend. All these places on the sign, but not Bratislava, only 20km or so away. I do like the thought of a place named Marchegg, though.

And if I'd gone straight on - the rather wonderful 'geradeaus' in German - instead of turning right, I'd have gone through a village. These were the first houses I'd seen on the path since the sewage works.

I needed to cross a bridge to reach Hainburg, and what a bridge. 1872m long to cross the flood plain, it opened in 1973. Note the two paths - it's one way for cyclists and pedestrians as there isn't a lot of room. Before this bridge opened, there were no bridges over the Danube between Vienna and Bratislava.

What a difference in the scenery crossing the river! That's Hainburg that you see in the distance. The large hill to the left is what I noted as 'a change of scenery in the distance'.

Here's the tiny station in Hainburg which was journey's end for now. The line ends a little to the east, close to the Slovak border. There is a line from Bratislava to Vienna, but it goes inland via Marchegg, and takes 55 minutes for a two-and-a-bit day walk. Such are the legacies of the cold war, 35 years on.

I promised that the story would end predictably, and it will. All this talk of the Danube means that you've likely been humming this to yourselves.

No, not that one Ian. This one. Bis bald.

Dvorecký Most - what's it about?

The south of Prague lacks connectivity between the two banks of the Vltava. As we see below, south of the Dancing House (Tančící Dům), we see only two road bridges - that's it until you reach the ring road.

So why will the new Dvorecký Most, opening in March 2026 - close to Žluté Lázně on the map above - be for trams, buses, cycles and pedestrians only? It's easy to dismiss as anti-car politics, but there is far more to it than that. Barrandov Bridge, to the south, carries little traffic between the suburbs on the two banks of the Vltava - it's a major arterial road carrying traffic from eastern and south-eastern Prague to the ring road. For someone who wants to go by car between the suburbs of Zlíchov and Podolí at the two ends of the new bridge, it's about a 2km detour via the Barrandov Bridge. However, the buses between the two destinations act as slow traffic on the Barrandov Bridge, so the buses being moved should cause some traffic relief there. 24 buses an hour planned to be rerouted to Dvorecky Most cross the Barrandov Bridge in either direction at peak hour, so this is not insignificant. Also, the 118 bus, running through Dvorce to Smíchov Station, will have a five minute estimated time saving crossing the new bridge.

There is a ferry running 100 metres or so from the new bridge. The ferry will close when the bridge opens. It is never very busy, despite running every 15 minutes. The picture below shows the ferry running with a single passenger at 1845 on a Monday.

Instinct says that the numbers will increase when the bridge opens, partly because it isn't pleasant crossing the busy and noisy Barrandov Bridge on foot or by bike. The photo shows one of the buses which will move to the new bridge.

However, the real reason that the bridge will make a difference is the change to tram and bus journeys. A map, courtesy Pražská integrovaná doprava, shows the trams and buses planned to cross the bridge when it opens.

At the moment, the two tram lines close to the river have no services starting on one side of the river and finishing on the other. 

The new bridge will create cross-river north-south tram services, which are currently lacking. While you could achieve this using Palackého Most further north, it's already a bottleneck. Also, you see no benefit from the reduction of bus traffic on Barrandov Bridge without the new bridge.

Also, there is one benefit few would think of. On a recent weekend, the tram line to the east of the Vltava had to be closed due to maintenance on a cliff. Only about 50m of track was unsafe to use, but passengers were consigned to replacement bus services. Whether this was due to a shortage of trams or of drivers isn't known, but the result was that a lot of people didn't travel. With the new bridge, the trams could serve all but three scheduled stops by crossing the river twice.

One small step towards Prague Airport

This weekend, a section of the railway from the centre of Prague to the railway station opened. Like Dublin, Prague doesn't have a direct airport link by rail from the city centre. It's a bit of an embarrassment, but I can get there from central Prague using my transport pass in less than an hour with one change from tram to trolleybus.

The plans are grandiose - by 2030, the train from the centre of town to the airport will take 25 minutes, (add five minutes for me to walk to the station) and run every ten minutes. The line largely follows what was a single track line from Masaryk Station to the Central Bohemian town of Kladno to the west of Prague and the airport.

Let's look at what's just been delivered, my challenges with the delivery and what is ongoing.

What's just been delivered

The section which has just been delivered is this one. Basically, a kilometre and a half of railway, almost entirely on stilts, with a station at each end (Bubny and Výstaviště). The immediate transport benefits:

• Bubny replaces an old station, but is about 400m further south. The placement puts it next to Vltavska Metro 'C' station. This means that the line from Kladno now has connectivity to all three Prague Metro lines.
  
  
• Výstaviště (Exhibition Centre) is a destination in itself, but it is also a significant transport hub. The existence of the station allows for a number of destinations by tram to be added with a single change.

I've visited both Bubny and Výstaviště over the past couple of days since the opening. For a start, here's Bubny from the path to Vltavska, taken the day before trains turned up.

I've seen the station described as brutalist, but that's unfair - the picture below shows a very pleasant environment. The platforms at Bubny are about 200m long. There are four platforms: in essence, two for the route north to Kralupy nad Vltavou, two for the route west to Kladno and the airport.

But the trains aren't 200m long: here's a train heading north towards Kralupy.

Here's the departure board at rush hour at Bubny - you could say it's 'future-proofed'. 

Moving to Výstaviště, the 200m platforms seem to go on forever:

Here's a train in the platform - a quarter of the capacity being used maybe:

It's just gone rush hour, and there are three departures in the hour:

My challenges

Lots of stages not yet in construction

If you look at the project site here, five sections which are not yet in construction have to be completed to reach the airport from the city. Of these, only the airport station and the next tunnelled section from Výstaviště to Dejvice are expected to have planning permission by the end of the year. Of the other three, Dejvice to Veleslavín is particularly challenging due to the expensive land under which the railway administration want to tunnel, and the depth of the tunnel. All of the five sections have a construction date of '2027-2030'. So the chances of achieving the ambitious plans on time are small. 

No visual answer to the question "what's next?"

I would have made sure that the next section from Výstaviště to Dejvice had shovels in the ground now, even at the cost of not starting Masaryk Station until now (see 'What is ongoing'). But to do so admits the phased delivery of the project, and the risk of the project being perceived to be a white elephant. I would be looking at transport benefits for each stage of the project going forward, rather than stressing the undoubted community benefits (easier access between the two sides of the railway at Bubny, for instance). 

Express trains bypass Výstaviště 

Let's look first at that awful post-rush hour departure board at Výstaviště. What is doesn't tell you is that an hourly 'express' train to Kladno bypasses the stop. I'm going to be kind and assume this is either down to 'trial operations' or an acknowledgement that half of the trams at Výstaviště are currently not running due to one of the routes being completely rebuilt. But if you are going to make the statement 'the new Praha-Výstaviště stop has also significantly improved the transport services of the entire area', then you should make sure your few trains per hour all stop there.

Could you run four trains an hour to Dejvice now?

It would be a much faster route than the tram this way, but there are a few challenges. 

• You would need a passing loop somewhere on the single track section between Výstaviště and Dejvice. Behind Sparta would be the obvious place.
• Nimbys moaning about level crossings being down. Prague is a public transport city. Get used to it. In any case, once the link to Dejvice is in place underground, the level crossings will close for ever.
• People will say, undoubtedly, that Masaryk Station can't cope with extra capacity while it's being rebuilt. But Bubny can...  

It's a long way to change at the old Dejvice station for Metro 'A', and, potentially in time, for the new underground Dejvice station

So maybe create a temporary station by Metro 'A'? Here's the site from Google Maps:

The walk is about 400m, as you have to go via a level crossing to the east. Two platforms could be built to the east of the pin with access from the said level crossing. Immediate benefit for the cost of two temporary platforms and some wasteland.

Focus on reaching Velaslavín from the airport

Once a delay is inevitable, the railway administration should focus on bringing the train from the airport to Veloslavín. That way passengers don't need to take the trolleybus, as they do now - train to Veloslavín then Metro 'A' to the centre saves about 10 minutes over trolleybus to Veloslavín then Metro 'A'.

Manage the comms better

Much of the discussion on social media over the launch weekend was over headlines saying things like 'Prague opens first railway station in 40 years'. By the time I saw the railway administration's release on YouTube, it said 'major station'. A number of small stations have opened in the last few years, and the confusion may come from 'nádraží' meaning large station and 'železniční stanice' meaning stop - but that kind of language isn't going to translate far outside of Czech, and focuses debate in completely the wrong place.  

What is ongoing

I'll deregard the work ongoing (and close to complete) close to Kladno as it doesn't impact on the route to the airport. Mysteriously, the railway administration's page regarding Bubny and Výstaviště doesn't say that the section is complete, but that trial operation has started and that completion is in 2026. I can see work continuing to tidy up Bubny station and to complete a northern entrance there, but what 'completion' actually means is unclear. The comms could be better.

But I digress. The main piece of ongoing work is the rebuilding of the platforms at Masaryk station, and providing extra capacity. The page to read is at https://zeleznicenaletiste.cz/modernizace-a-dostavba-masarykova-nadrazi . The construction video shows no roof - the roof is now close to half complete, as partially seen in the photo below:

It's everything about exciting architecture from the outside in the way Bubny isn't. You don't see the platforms which haven't been demolished and rebuilt here, but the whole place was dilapidated before the rebuild started. Here's what the old part of the station looks like today - it's had very little love in the last 50 years:

While completion of the station in 2027 will look fantastic, the only immediate transport benefit will be the quicker walk to the main station due to the exit at the eastern end. Having something so visible of the intent to build to the airport in central Prague isn't a bad idea, but I would have delayed this section, and spent the money on getting to Veloslavín from the airport.

Conclusion

Am I pleased to see the section complete? You bet. Do I think the project is likely to go badly wrong soon? You bet.

From Prague to Vienna - week 11, Nedvědice to Tišnov

Evening all

I was on the same 'mid-morning' train which I caught last time. That's the 0603 not the 0445, which I tell myself means that I can have more sleep. I am always grateful for small mercies.

The map has been edited to include Week 11. 

Scores on the doors.

Starting point: Nedvědice
Time from home: 3h 57m
Number of trains caught: 3
Distances from: Prague: 176km Brno: 40.2km Vienna: 165km Bratislava: 176km

Ending point: Tišnov 
Time from home: 3h 6m
Number of trains caught: 1!
Distances from: Prague: 189km Brno: 24.9km Vienna: 150km Bratislava: 160km

Distance for the day: 24.2km
Total distance travelled: 312.1km
Equivalent distance in the UK: London-York (well London-Fulford, but near enough)

It always amazes me the number of people who are up at this time on a Sunday morning.

1000 - start of journey reached.

You will remember from last time that Pernštejn Castle will be our first destination, so here we go.

The first thing you notice is that the castle is closed! Looking at it, it's closed for the season. Back 29 March 2024.

This car park - empty because the castle was closed - had been planned to be the place where I took close up pictures of the castle. Plan foiled - no view of the castle as it's on a cliff. On we plod.

A Mother and Child painting on the cliff edge. As you do.

I'm attempting to convey just how high up this thing is.

That's as close as you get on a day when the castle is closed. I'll be back next year to visit when it is open. 

It's hard to describe. The castle gives the overall impression of having been created by AI.

Back to reality with a bump - I've been walking 85 minutes and I've travelled the sum total of 150m. Ho hum.

The same spectacular mountainside as last time. 

 

First village. That's a manhole cover, not a pothole.

Just a few logs for the winter.

Cow and calf.

A sign of approaching civilisation - a petrol station in the countryside. The last one was a number of trips ago.

Contrary to appearances, we are not in Croatia.

It's pretty, but not as pretty as its Croatian equivalent. 

We leave Doubravník, the railway and the river, and head uphill. For the first time since leaving Prague, we have no yellow signs to guide us. Route 1 has followed the river, and Euro Velo 4 has no signs in this area. Quite why we didn't follow route 1 and go a few extra kilometres is beyond me...

 

...but the view back to Doubravník is very pretty.

The colour contrast in the colour of the trees really is beautiful.

I partcularly love the larch trees, being the only local deciduous conifer (at least that I know of).

After our brief visit to Croatia, we visit Kazakhstan.

We leave the main road (at long last...), cross the river...

...and rejoin the railway.

A nice new path makes a pleasant change from the main road.

We still have the amazing steep hillside on the edge of the valley.

The rock from the hillside looks like it might be joining us on the path soon...

...or maybe ending up in the river, as it seems a few of the rocks have here.

As we approach Tišnov, we go under a real railway with overhead wires...

...into serious civilisation.

For the first time since Prague, the route is closed. You might be able to see that they are building houses in the distance. It means a 2km detour.

However, the detour did mean that I had this rather wonderful view in the late evening sunshine.

As well as this rather scary walk on the side of a main road.

Not for long though - we were soon back to this country path.

An example of South Moravia being different - a white sign (rather than a yellow one) for a cycle route.

Arriving in Tišnov, a bus on a Sunday. That's something which we haven't seen, rail replacement buses aside, for many weeks.

Journey's end, and a direct train home. I had planned to go another 6km, and I certainly had the feet, but I didn't have the time. My lack of understanding about Pernštejn and the diversion towards the end of the journey meant that I would be running out of light. 

The next instalment won't be until mid-January. In the next episode of Walking with Sergeant:

• we finally reach Brno
• we visit a villa named after a British politician
• we visit a castle named after an American film director
• we note the difference between the Prague and Brno astronomical clocks

Until then, good night all.