2023-12-10 08:27:41
“Where is the dining car?” This is the most important question you ask yourself when the train rolls up to the platform. If you’re lucky, there’s a dining car. And if you’re even luckier, someone like Mr. Popović or Mr. Peterka will be there. Mr. Peterka is a legend on the route between Prague, Berlin and Hamburg, sometimes even to Kiel. Mr. Popović is also a legend, in the Eurocity “Emona” between Vienna and Ljubljana, he is a specialist for the southern railway.
The two men don’t know each other. And yet they would get along well. Because they have so much in common. For more than 20 years, Mr Popović has been traveling on the Semmering route, one of the most beautiful railway routes in the world. When he’s not at the counter, his son, young Mr. Popović, is there. Because this dining car is a family business, a tavern with home cooking that commutes exclusively over the mountains between the Slovenian and Austrian capitals. It is the only regular connection with a Slovenian dining car.
Mr. Popović has to take care of everything on board. Cooking, roasting, making coffee and serving. Mr. Peterka, on the other hand, has a cook on hand. And a second waiter who travels with the trolley on the train. In summer, his Eurocity transforms into an intercontinental connection that brings many guests from North and South America or Asia through Europe. Because of his guests, Mr. Peterka also learned several languages on the train. German, Russian and English, but also a little French, Italian, Japanese and Korean.
Mr. Peterka is a star, his dining car is the theater stage
What: Jaroslav Rudis
He offers guests the finest dishes of Bohemian cuisine. At the forefront is Svíčková, sirloin in a creamy root vegetable sauce, served with six dumplings. Svíčková is an absolute hit here, as is the schnitzel or the slowly braised veal with lentil salad.
There is always a theater on the train
Mr. Peterka actually wanted to become a train driver, like me. Then, like me, he got glasses, trained as a cook and waiter and got into the dining car. But he also loves theater and film. But he didn’t leave his inn. Because this is his theater. It’s no coincidence that he sees his layers as ideas.
The dining car is his stage. The landscape behind the windows is his stage set. The train noises his music. He is the director and the travelers are his spectators. But also actors who take part in his plays. Nothing is repeated, every piece is a premiere and a premiere at the same time. Because that’s how it is when traveling by train. New people are always meeting each other. With always new stories they tell.
Eating with a view: on the Austrian Railjet from Zurich to Vienna
What: Jaroslav Rudis
Because of the theater, Mr. Peterka also travels by train in his free time, for example to Venice. Once he wanted to see Verdi’s La Traviata at the Teatro La Fenice, the same place where the opera once had a miserable premiere in March 1853. And so after his shift in Prague he just drove on. To Vienna. Villach. Udine. Venice. And back again the next day.
Mr. Popović and Mr. Peterka should meet one day and do theater together. Because the always friendly Mr. Popović also has something of a great stage actor. While traveling on the winding Semmering Railway, he sometimes turns into a ballet master with his tray, just like Mr. Peterka on the switches in Dresden-Neustadt. The two know their routes by heart. Every tunnel, every bridge, every switch.
Over the course of his career, Mr. Peterka has seen half of Europe from his inn. He was in Bulgaria and Romania and again and again in Vienna, Graz, Ljubljana and Budapest. He served goulash during a steam locomotive parade on the Gotthard Railway in Switzerland. He served schnitzel and beer in the Eurocity in Aarhus and only there in the north did he understand why the Czechs say “drink like a Dane”. However, he also learned from a Danish passenger that in Denmark they say “drink like a Swede”.
Better in the dining car than in first class
The dining cars are my favorite cars. If the train has a dining car, you will look forward to the journey much more and you can forego a first class ticket. It’s much better to ask for the dining car straight away, take a seat there, have the menu brought to you and enjoy life a little for the money you’ve saved. The dining cars represent the diversity on rails in Central Europe.
I even have my regular spot with Mr. Peterka, right behind the door. I like to travel here, I write here, I can even take a quick nap here. I’m not Mr. Peterka’s only regular guest. He and Mr. Popović have several. They recognize her on the platform and know, aha, the omelet, a cola and then an espresso. Or, aha, a schnitzel and three beers.
Friends of mine from Vienna often meet Mr. Popović for breakfast. You leave Vienna with the “Emona” shortly before eight, eat an omelette, drink two coffees and a bottle of mineral water and get off at Semmering train station. There they go for a short rather than long health walk and get back on the train, because then it’s about time for lunch. This is served on the Austrian or Czech train, with starter, main course and dessert, as it should be. Afterwards there will be coffee and cake on the German ICE train. For dinner, the table is set in the Polish or Hungarian carriage.
Opinions differ when it comes to schnitzel – every traveler has their preferred way of preparing it
What: Jaroslav Rudis
I always look forward to the journey in the ÖBB inn from Munich to Bologna, where I remember what a friend who often takes this route to Italy told me: “From the Brenner, the coffee and especially the wine get better and better . It’s always the same coffee and wine as before in Innsbruck, but then comes the Brenner Pass and then Bolzano and Trent and Verona, and everything just tastes much better from station to station than before. And then when you get off in Bologna you feel so good and so happy. Just like always in Italy.”
The night train in Italy has the best espresso
I understand the girlfriend. The overall atmosphere on the train is very good and cheerful. At least when you travel from Germany to Italy. On the return journey, many passengers become more melancholic from station to station and slowly fall silent. Not even the Grüner Veltliner helps. When they get off the train in Munich and instead of the large espresso machines in the hall they only see fully automatic coffee machines like those at a gas station, they immediately want to take the train back to Italy.
Or hide from the reality of life in Switzerland, where you can now quickly drive from Munich via Bregenz and St. Gallen. In Switzerland you can also eat very well on the train, although it is of course a little expensive. But the Swiss classics such as minced beef with croissants or Ticino-style risotto taste simply delicious in the dining car. And the coffee is okay too.
But the best espresso on the train is actually in Italy, on the night train from Palermo to Rome. Strong, short and black as the night during the ferry crossing across the Strait of Messina. A simple Italian breakfast is then served in the compartment, as is usually the case on other night trains. But it’s not about the food. It’s all about this delicious coffee.
More experiences on night trains:
The culinary offerings in Italy are, similar to France, otherwise very modest. On the elegant Frecciarossa express train between Bologna, Rome and Naples you will find a small on-board bistro and you can also get good coffee, just like on the French TGV. But in the Italian intercity trains, which are so quiet and comfortable, there are unfortunately no more dining cars. You have to think about this when you get on the day train to Palermo in Rome shortly before half past seven. You need a lot of travel provisions. But there are plenty of them to buy in Roma Termini. For example fresh tramezzini.
A train ride – just for the soup
For me, Central Europe is not just beer, wine and sausages or old castles or trains, but also soups that you can eat in the dining car of these same trains. Like the Polish Źurek, for example. A soup made from sour flour that I like so much that sometimes I get on the Eurocity to Warsaw in Berlin, eat the soup and get off again in Frankfurt an der Oder and take the regional express back to Berlin.
I rarely got goulash soup in the Polish dining car. This is typical for other dining cars. You can debate for hours about which goulash soup is the best. The Czech one from Mr. Peterka? The Slovakian one? The Austrian one? Or Mr. Popović’s Slovenian one? It’s difficult, everyone tastes unique. As appetizer. Main course. Dessert.
Like so many things in European dining cars, it tastes excellent: meatballs with mashed potatoes on a Finnish train
What: Jaroslav Rudis
The best option is probably the one from the Hungarian train, the Eurocity “Hungaria”. The other goulash soups are too thick and hearty for Hungarian standards. In the Hungarian dining car it is served much thinner and with lots of vegetables, almost like a meat broth with paprika, beef and other goulash elements. In Hungarian the soup is called gulyáslev. What we know as goulash in the Czech Republic, Austria or Germany can be found on the menu in the Hungarian train as pörkölt. Also a good choice.
More tips for train travel:
Each dining car also serves different sausages. Mr. Popović offers the very meaty Krainerwurst. Always two pieces. If you order them before Semmering, you won’t have to eat anything until Trieste. At Deutsche Bahn, the classic beer served with beer is currywurst with fries and sometimes Nuremberg bratwurst. In the ÖBB Railjet I like to eat the delicate Sacher sausages, which are reminiscent of the long railway lines. In the Polish dining car WARS you can get sausages from the Sokołów brand, which is popular in the country, for your English breakfast.
And Mr. Peterka serves Spišské párky from a small butcher in a Prague suburb in the Czech restaurant car. They were named after Spiš, the German-populated area of Spiš in eastern Slovakia. They taste like the Hungarian Debrecziners that we know from Austria. The whole of Central Europe then smells delicious on the small plate.
The text is an abridged chapter from the large format book “Ticket to Ride through Europe” by Jaroslav Rudiš, Piper Verlag, published in 2023, 256 pages, over 160 photos, 30 euros.
Source: Piper Publishing
Here you will find content from third parties
In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is necessary, as the providers of the embedded content require this consent as third party providers [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (revocable at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this. You can revoke your consent at any time using the switch and privacy at the bottom of the page.
#Traveling #train #declaration #love #dining #car