When we arrived in athens and caught the train into town from the airport either we did not think about it, did not see or just forgot to validate our 5 euro ticket.

We were on the train and along came the ticket validators - they wanted to see our ticket so we showed them and they said that they have not been validated and that is a fine!

A man on the seat opposite also did not validate his ticket.

For some reason instead of fining up they said we had to get off the train and validate the ticket and catch the next train.

So we were very very lucky as the fine is 60 times the fare price.

60 x 5 euro = 300 euro each

Well our train arrived 6 minutes late for our 9 minute connection,

All of our documents said platform 5b - NOPE

We find a display board and see it is platform 2b

we have to go down the steps and along to get to 2b - as we get to the top we hear that the train is about to leave.

I give the conductor a loud yell from 50 meters away even though he just jumped up to the train - we are running now - the man heard us and let us on.

The train departed 30 seconds later.

We are now on the last hour of travel in the train. We are actually in a tunnel at the moment and have been for about 10 minutes - no idea how long it was.

We have been on the train for 3 hours and have traveled through some beautiful countryside including mountains and medows.

The Austrian mountains are great, still snow at the tops and lush medows below.

Only about 90 minutes to get to bled now, but we have to change trains in about 30 minutes - we had 9 minutes to connect but this train is running about 7 minutes late.

The story continues...

Well in my last post I mentioned that we just left Hallstat - after about 1.5 hours we arrived in attnang-puchheim.

Pam was worried as we only had 12 minutes to pickup a ticket and get on the train to Villach.

We rushed off the train and I left Pam with the bags as I tried to find the ticket office to pickup our tickets.

.There was a couple of people in front of me so I had to wait a minute or two. I showed the man the reference number and then he said he wanted my passport - Pam had this!!

I had my NZ drivers license so he used that!

I then rushed back to pam and the platform - we got to the platform and had a couple of minutes while waiting for the train.

Our train was suppose to arrive at 10:56 and a train arrived at 11:01

We caught the wrong train!

When we got to a seat i noticed that most people on the platform (about 10) were still there.

I went looking for the conductor to confirm the train was correct, but he said NO

It was not too bad as the conductor told us to get off at the next station and I determined that there was another train going to villach at 11:08

So we got off and waited for a couple of minutes and got on our original train - very lucky.

So we are currently heading to Salzburg and onto Villach and then with a 9 minute connection onto bled.

We caught the ferry from Hallstat over the lake to the train station (2.20 euro each)

We are now sitting on the train travelling towards Attnang-Puchheim where we transfer to a place or station called Villach.

We have 12 minutes to transfer to the other train but we forgot to buy our train tickets while in Vienna so we arranged for a ticket to be bought last night and I need to pick it up in Attnang-Pucheim.

Will we be able to pickup the ticket and transfer in 12 minutes? (the train must not be late arriving as welll)

If we do get the ticket and transfer then later in the day, about 1 hour from Lake Bled in Solvenia we have a 9 minute connection.

Pam is a bit concerned (she says she is having kittens)

All up the trains today will be about 6.5 hours and I think we are then suppose to catch a bus to Bled town from the railway station,

It is however a lovely warm day today!

Depart Hallstatt at 9:11am, arrive into Lake Bled at 3:47pm

6 Hours and 36 Minutes

This is a map of the Vienna West Train Station also known as Wien Westbahnhof. It  (Vienna West Station, or Vienna Western Station) is a major Austrian railway station, the starting point of the Austrian Western Railway (Westbahn) for trains to Salzburg, Munich, Frankfurt, Zürich, Budapest, Bucharest, Belgrad, etc. As well as long-distance routes, local trains (S-Bahn-line S50 ) and two underground (U-Bahn) lines reach the Westbahnhof ( U3 and U6 ).

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We are looking at catching a train from Vienna to Hallstatt – a distance of only 311km. The route we have chosen has 1 stop along the way and takes 4:04.

It departs at 8:44am and arrives at 12:48pm – From what I can find online it will cost 47.50 Euro each for a second class seat.

We are using http://www.oebb.at/en/index.jsp to find trains and their schedules and prices.