What is it that still draws people to the days of the golden age of rail, when trains resembled palaces on wheels and royalty travelled in the lap of luxury? Perhaps we simply yearn for peace in a hectic world and the uncomplicated coddling a fine train promises.
That frisson of pleasurable anticipation is palpable as we tread the red carpet to board the Majestic Imperator, a six-carriage Austrian train painstakingly restored to replicate the fabled imperial train of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
Here’s my story published on April 11, 2018 in Fairfax Media’s The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller and online below.
Apologies for the mistake in the penultimate paragraph where the word “providence” is used instead of “provenance”. A reader has pointed this out.
Read more: http://www.traveller.com.au/austria-a-luxury-train-journey-from-linz-to-passau-via-salzburg-h0yfey#ixzz5CtM4EZee
About alisonstewartwriter
Alison is a writer, journalist and travel writer, born in South Africa, now living in Australia. She has had nine books published - two books for adults and seven for young people. Four of them have been translated into Italian, Danish, Dutch and Thai.
Her latest project, Cold Stone Soup, an unpublished memoir about growing up under apartheid and migrating to Australia has won the FAW 2013 National Literary Awards (Jim Hamilton Award for a non-fiction manuscript). Cold Stone Soup was also runner-up in the 2010 Penguin/Varuna Scholarship.
Her first book for adults, Born Into the Country (Justified Press 1988, South Africa) was shortlisted for the 1987 AA Mutual Life Vita Young Writers’ Award. Heinemann Australia published her next adult novel, Bitterbloom in 1991. Her YA novel, The Wishing Moon was shortlisted for the 1995 Australian Multicultural Children’s Award and was a 1995 Children’s Book Council Notable book.
Her YA dystopia, Days Like This, published by Penguin Australia was a finalist in the inaugural 2010 Amazon/Penguin Breakthrough Novel Award in the YA category.
Alison worked for years as a news and feature journalist. She is now a regular travel writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age and online Fairfax Media publications. Her travel story, Snails in the Mist, was placed first in the Lane Cove Literary Awards 2019 travel story category and was shortlisted for three awards. Snails in the Mist will be published in the Lane Cove Literary Awards Anthology in 2020.
Alison Stewart writer 