“The Heart of Central Europe: A Journey on the Historic Vienna-Prague Railway Route”

If you ask the two railway workers where the heart of Central Europe beats, they both immediately agree: “In Vienna. It was like this. That’s the way it is. It will stay that way. You just have to look at the rail map of Europe.”

The timetable change in mid-December is an event for all railway people. But this time it was very special for many. After many years, if not decades, a direct train runs again between Vienna and Prague on the old historical route via České Velenice and Gmünd. “Silva Nortica”, as it was christened, meanders through southern Bohemia and the Waldviertel. On the so-called Franz-Josefs-Bahn, as it is still called in Austria, the route between Vienna’s Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof and Prague’s main train station, which was called “Prague Kaiser-Franz-Josefs-Bahnhof” until 1918.

The Bohemian Paradise is the area I come from. Lomnice nad Popelkou, the small town where I still live next to Berlin. I go to the tavern “Zum Stadion” for a beer with my father, who still calls Vienna the “capital” even though he was never there.

We’re toasting with some friends. And then a short question to the group: “Austria – what do you think of?”

“Vienna.” – “Linz. Linzer eyes, those Christmas cookies that all Czechs love so much. And nobody gives any thought to the fact that they actually come from Linz.” – “My grandfather lived in Vienna before the First World War. As a carpenter. This is where he met his wife, she was a cook there. He is with her back to Bohemia. But first he had to go to war for the Kaiser.” – “The Battle of Königgrätz in 1866, our common defeat, our Waterloo. Here in Bohemian Paradise the dead lie everywhere. The Prussians, the Austrians. . . “ – “Radio Ö3. You could receive it here with us, that was a miracle. That might have saved me from suicide before reunification.”

The delicious beer of Sarajevo

“My first trip to the West in December 1989 was to Austria. Although it actually wasn’t and isn’t the West at all. Vienna is much further east than Prague or the Bohemian Paradise.” – “The same political scandals, the same corruption. Our Andrej Babiš, the Austrian baby chancellor, what was his name again? Oh, never mind, just the scandals, the nepotism.” – “The Czech surnames in the Viennese telephone directory and in shops. And the German surnames in our cemetery.” – “Viennese coffee with whipped cream, which we drink here and which nobody in Vienna knows.” And again and again: “The railway.”