Eurotrip 3.0: Wattens (The Home of Swarovski!)

After the high of my Croatia sojourn, I had the long train ride out of Osijek to the quaint little town of Wattens in Austria. I took the night train out of Osijek and reached Zagreb in the wee hours of Monday 17^th (Sep) morning. In a couple of hours, I’d take a train out to Rosenheim in Germany and then onwards on another train to Wattens (station name Fritzens-Wattens) in Austria.

I got a mild shock when the stern lady at the ticket at the counter in Zagreb told me that it would cost me about 140 euros to get to Rosenheim. Yes, it was a longish journey (6 hrs), but 140!? Nevertheless, for me, the coolest thing in Europe is I can just buy a ticket and get on the train. I can’t imagine doing that in India, ever!

The ticket itself was funny. It had instructions in German, Croatian and French. No English! And it wasn’t a fully printed one. The lady had just written out the boarding & destination on a printed sheet of paper (it did look like a ticket). So around half past seven, I was off.

The ride was one of the most stunning ones I’ve ever taken - passing through picture-perfect Slovenia & the Austrian Alps bathed in abundant sunshine! If ever you’re traveling out of Zagreb to Germany, I suggest you take this train. It goes all the way up to Frankfurt, is comfortable and the views are to die for! (Not so sure of the views during winter though :))

Rosenheim to Wattens was an interesting journey in a 2-carriage train. At one point an old grandmother helped with some directions as I was wondering if I had to change trains (most people got off and took a train from the next platform). Later a mother of three came in with an infant nicely fitting in one of those front baby bags. I kept making silly faces at the baby, and soon enough the baby was smiling at me uncontrollably (I probably reminded her of some disheveled clown!) and that delighted the mother and her other two daughters no end. She got off a smiling ear-to-ear a couple of stations before I did and I had that feeling of joy when you know you’ve made someone’s day!

Wattens station was as idyllic as it could get. It seemed literally in the middle of nowhere with a nice little bar right at the station as if the life in the city revolved around just that bar! I couldn’t see much when I looked toward the ‘city’, except the shining logo of the Swarovski factory.

And that’s the only reason we were here. My brother (Shyam), cousin (Hari) & his wife (Vidya) & kid (4-year-old darling Riya) joined me in Wattens. They had made their way from Milan via Liechtenstein (pronounced lick-ten-sty-n). The shining new Mercedes van, hired from Milan airport, and full of wonder-eyed passengers who’d just driven through the Alps, wandered into the driveway at Wattens station right on cue. We drove straight to our hotel and I took a much needed hot shower. Late evening, we took a walk down what seemed like the only street in Wattens and came upon some beautifully crafted modern architecture.

Wattens is one of the more visited destinations by Indian tourists, because it’s the home of the famed ‘Swarovski’ brand of crystals. I can imagine business families loaded with cash coming here on “Star Tours & Travels” & splurging. But I think they would live down in Innsbruck rather than at Wattens.

We woke up leisurely in the morning, and what a splendid one it was. The green hills were gleaming in the sunshine and it looked like a picture right out of the Windows wallpaper (which by the way is a real picture, taken in Ireland I think, or California perhaps)! Destination Swarovski!

A grand, green grass face water gushing out of its open mouth greeted us at the entrance of the Swarovski Crystal World. And the entrance was somewhere around its right ear.

One is transported into a world of glittering crystals as soon as they enter. The door, the upholstery, the photos, everything has a crystal element to it and the attention to detail is clearly visible in every element around you. The whole ‘walkthrough’ builds up to grander & grander displays of art using crystals and light. Particularly, I enjoyed Jim Whitling’s Mechanical Theatre the most. It’s excellently conceptualized with a dazzling array of mechanical exhibits the shine in the carefully placed light sources.

By the time we went through all the exhibits, we had a crystal overload / craving (depending on who you’d ask :)) and the whole thing, very cleverly, led into a massive crystal store where there was everything from Swarovski beads & necklaces, to kingfishers, to elephants. Supposedly at a massive discount... Clearly it was a shopper’s delight, and I never quite have been one. And for jewelry crazy Indians, this was a must visit place.

I wasn’t thus too surprised to walk into an Indian restaurant right after we exited the store. These guys know their key customers well. Some biryani and such later, we were driving off to our next destination – the city where Mozart was born, Salzburg.