Elbe River. July 2019
[from FB post: July 26, 2022]
Real life update: on the train between Prague and Dresden in the Elbe Valley. Super scenic. Everyone has their shades down except me and the young guy next to me just photographed his Starbucks coffee cup
A return to the Elbe
Ages ago when I was planning my first round the world voyage heading home to the US from Japan, I read in the Thomas Cook European Timetable (a red tome with EVERY railway schedule in Europe that was updated monthly!!) that one of the most scenic train journeys in Europe was the Elbe Valley between Berlin and Prague. I was so excited to be taking that very route on my trip through the Eastern Bloc before the fall of the Iron Curtain. Most unfortunately, that was in the days of slower rail travel and the only train I could find was overnight which meant that the famed beauty of the Elbe Valley would be a total loss. I filed that experience away -- maybe I would return?
32 years later I did.
I was in the EU, in the Schengen zone and not the Warsaw Pact. I hopped on a train in Prague headed for Dresden, which I could not visit easily on my first trip as the DDR (East Germany) was the MOST restrictive in all of Eastern Europe for tourism. Now that it was just a borderless train ride away, a simple day trip was possible.
Shortly after Prague we started to follow the Elbe Valley. At the outset it was industrial (or rather, post-industrial). Usti nad Labem was particularly dire and reminded me of the Rust Belt back in the USA. After that things started to improve and then we hit the nice castle town of Děčín. From that point onward things became more interesting and I realized that THIS was the famous part of the railway journey (which was only a small portion of the entire ride). The Elbe passed through both a Czech and German national park - Chráněná krajinná oblast Labské pískovce and Nationalpark Sächsische Schweiz. Together they were known as the "Bohemian Switzerland". Both parks most recently burned in the great forest fires of Summer 2022 in Europe. I am happy I traveled when I did.
Switzerland it most certainly did NOT resemble, but the steep valley following the twists and turns in the river course DID make for a beautiful ride. A mixture of small farms and meadows were visible when the hills dipped down to the river, then the valley's sheer gray cliffs would suddenly pop up again to create a deep cleft and recede again to meadow. Many cabins dotted the riverbank which I imagined were all owned by wealthy Germans since it was right across the border and they had far more money than the Czechs. For a "national park" region it was quite developed. Europe really had very little "empty land" left to declare pristine national park. It reminded me more of the Cayuhoga National Park south of Cleveland - land set aside with strict rules for future development, but if a person already owned land there, they were lucky.
I was glued to the window enjoying the view and tried to take a few photos that did not have passing trees, telephone poles, or wires in them. Anyone who has done train photography knows that is extremely difficult and out of MANY photos, only a handful were reasonable and, frankly, I found them disappointing. Add to that, most people were probably just on a familiar commute and took all the scenery for granted. I think I was the only one with my window shade open looking out in the whole carriage. As I wrote the above FB post, one guy was actually taking a photo of his Starbucks cup. I myself have done that many times, but it seemed so ironic that I was passing through this lovely scenery that I had waited three decades to see and someone else was so bored that they were taking photos of their coffee cup.
As for the ACTUAL beauty of the Elbe Valley? To be honest, the lower Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania between York and Lancaster counties is far more scenic. However, there are no more passenger trains between Harrisburg and Baltimore where one could enjoy a similar ride (quite the shame).
I had enjoyed the Elbe Valley. Soon, the land flattened out and I was arriving in Dresden. That city captured my attention far more than the train journey there.
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