Car-free holiday -- almost

Tunnelrettungszug Rettungssprinter "CargoSprinter" in Mallnitz
Originally uploaded by kilux

For the past several winters, we've gone on family ski vacations somewhere in Italy or Austria and this has always been one of the rare weeks out of the year where we abandon our car-free ideals for the sake of speed and convenience. This year, however, we went some way toward rectifying the situation.

In Europe, it's actually quite possible to do a car-free ski trip. There are train and/or long-distance bus connections to virually all resorts and everywhere I've skied, I've always noticed local buses ferrying skiers up and down the mountain. However, at large ski areas, it's often the case that the only affordable accommodations are quite removed from the main roads. And while a half-kilometre walk to a bus stop wouldn't put me off in normal circumstances, it seems like a slog when I'm freighted down with gear and hobbling in ski boots.

This year, though, we went to a smallish resort in Carinthia a couple hundred kilometres south of Salzburg called Mallnitz. We found a decent, affordable pension in the middle of the village that was within a 5-10 minute walk of everything we needed: grocery store, restaurants, ski shop and even a swimming complex with sauna and jacuzzi. A free-of-charge ski bus left every 20 minutes in mornings and afternoons, offering a 10-minute connection to the closest alpine slopes. For those of us on a cross-country regimen, a nicely groomed circuit lied less than five minutes from our rooms in the village.

Our friends who drove us to Mallnitz from Budapest managed to go the whole week without using their car. Among other things, this meant they could have some wine or beer with lunch without worrying about European zero-tolerance drunk driving rules. But probably the nicest thing about Mallnitz was just being in the kind of place where a car is absolutely unnecessary -- a village that you can negotiate by sidewalk, checking out restaurant menus, shop windows and sale prices until something caught your eye.

As it turned out, we hadn't even needed the car to get to Mallnitz. We'd investigated rail options before our holiday, but made the mistake of consulting only the site for the Hungarian Rail Company, MÁV: there we could find only some really difficult connections. As we learned after our arrival in Mallnitz, there is more comprehensive information on the portal for the Austrian rail servoce, ÖBB. This shows daily trips in both directions lasting about eight hours -- almost on par with the car trip if you include rest and meal stops.

So as an experiment, my 5-year-old boy and I took the train for the return trip to Budpest. The train from Mallnitz to Salzburg was completely packed with vacationers, and became more so as we stopped at one ski resort after another up the Gastein Valley. We had an hour stop in Salzburg, and then boarded a brand-new, high-speed Austrian train called the Railjet. This is a fantastic way to travel, comfortable, quiet and clean ... and cruising along at 200 kph (127 mph) on countryside stretches. Aside from the aforementioned advantage of being able to drink -- an essential ingredient to any vacation in my opinion -- the Railjet also included a little "kinderkorner" with a TV showing and endless loop of Disney cartoons. The whole trip from Mallnitz to Budapest wast just EUR 60, including the free-of-charge ticket for my boy.

It seems the longer I go without regularly using cars, the less I like them -- the tight space, the lack of air, the fact you're moving so fast with nothing but flimsy metal panels and tempered glass between you and disaster. This last trip opened my eyes to an excellent holiday option that doesn't require a car. We were so psyched about the trip that we're already planning a return in summer -- and this time bringing our bikes.

Train service improves

The Hungarian Rail Company, MÁV, is at least trying to improve its bicycle carrying services. In June, it posted a couple of PDF tables on its special cycling page http://www.mav-start.hu/mavstart/kerek_par.php listing all the trains that have dedicated cars for bicycles. The regular timetable page http://www.mav-start.hu/ indicates whether or not there's a bike car on a given train when you click the departure time for details. But these tables list all the trains with bicycle cars into four neat pages, which you can print out and take with you so you don't get stuck in the countryside with no train home.

I've taken my bike on MÁV several times, and the experiences have been mixed. The bike cars can make for a convenient, secure place to put your bike -- provided they aren't too crowded. On trains without dedicated bike stowage, you have the option of putting your bike at the end of a car, but this isn't very comfortable or secure, and we've run into conductors who look at this with a very jaundiced eye despite official policy that permits two bikes at each end of every car.

One of my worst experiences in this vein was in the summer of 2004 when my wife and I went for a weekend ride around Fertod Lake on the Austrian border. Going there was no problem, but on the return trip to Budapest on Sunday evening, we got stuck at the Sopron station for several hours, after a ticket clerk refused to let us board a mostly empty train on grounds that there was no room for bikes. We managed to argue our way onto a train late in the evening, and were bitched at by a bike-hating conductor the whole way back. We wrote a letter of complaint, which got a dismissive response, and later I vented in a long letter to the editor of the Budapest Sun, which can still be accessed on-line http://www.budapestsun.com/cikk.php?id=16094.

But it would seem things are getting better. MÁV started a long-term development plan for bicycle service in 2006, and now there are bicycle cars on trains going all over the country. For some reason, MÁV doesn't allow bikes on the Intercities. They're not allowed on the ends of passenger cars and, at least until recently, the Intercities haven't carried dedicated bike cards. However, this apparently is also changing, and now there are a couple Intercity routes -- including the one between Budpaest and Sopron -- that have bike cars. There should be bike cars on all Intercities in my opinion. I guarantee that the ones to Balaton would be oversubscribed from day one.

I base this on our experience in mid-July on a Sunday evening train returning from Balatonfüred. The bike car was so full that people were literally stacking bicycles on top of each other. It was a wonder no one got crushed. We were lucky enough to have gotten on at Füred when there was room to hang and lock up our bikes and get a seat. After Füred, the bikes started stacking up, and the cyclists themselves had to stand in the car for the duration to help unstack and restack bikes at every stop. There was no conductor in sight, and if there had been, it would have been impossible for him to even get into the bike car, let alone count bikes and collect fares.

Based on my experiences, I would advise anyone travelling by bike to plan ahead for both outgoing and returning trips to ensure there is a bike car. On trains without bike cars, you are still allowed to put two bikes at each end of every car, but this is not a comfortable arrangement, and it's difficult to lock up, as well. Also, if you're taking a trip at a peak time, try to arrange your departure as close to the train's origin as possible, so that you can board before the bike car gets too crowded.