When I finally arrived in Vienna, I felt tired and not very excited at first, but that quickly changed after settling in and taking a walk through the city at night. In the end, travelling slowly by train helped me experience the transition more deeply, turning the journey itself into an important part of my Erasmus.
When I started organising my Erasmus semester in Vienna, I quickly realised that my journey would have several stages. Instead of taking a plane, I decided to travel by train. At first glance, it may seem like a slower choice, but if you consider the time needed to get to the airport, arrive well in advance, and go through all the checks, the overall duration of the trip is not that different after all.
For someone about to move abroad for a few months, this really makes a difference. Moreover, for those who may not know, trains—being electric—are among the means of transport with the lowest environmental impact. My journey began in Rome, where I studied Medicine. From there, I took my first train north to Desenzano del Garda, the town where my family lives. I arrived on Thursday evening and spent a day at home preparing my suitcases. “Preparing” is perhaps not the most appropriate word—it felt more like managing a small logistical crisis. I had just left my apartment in Rome, and suddenly all my belongings were scattered around the house as I tried to figure out what I would really need to live in Vienna over the following months. Winter clothes, books, documents, items that suddenly seemed essential—everything had to find a place.
In the end, as often happens, I left with a huge suitcase, a backpack, and a couple of extra bags. On Saturday morning, I resumed my journey with another train from Verona heading towards Innsbruck. At this point, someone might ask: why Innsbruck, if my final destination was Vienna? The answer is simple: I’m probably not very good at saying no to good ideas.
This summer, I took part in a project in Tübingen, Germany, organised by several European universities. During that week, I met people from many different countries—Madrid, Athens, Germany, and beyond—and in a very short time, we became friends. A few months later, some of them invited me to join them for a few days in the snow near Innsbruck. Since the timing roughly coincided with my departure for Erasmus, I thought, why not turn the trip into a small detour to see them again? When I arrived in Innsbruck, they were still on the ski slopes, so I had a few hours to explore the city on my own. Walking through its streets, surrounded by mountains, felt very different from the frenetic pace of Rome. Later, I took a small regional train that brought me to the mountain village where they had rented a house.
My arrival there felt almost like a scene from a movie. It was snowing, and everything was covered in a silent white landscape. The air was still, and the evening had that particular quiet that only mountain places under snow can create. At that moment, with my huge suitcase, backpack, and bags, I realised that I had definitely overpacked. Luckily, my friends came to pick me up in a car. The evening we spent together was one of the most beautiful moments of the trip. I did the cooking, and I had brought everything needed to prepare a real amatriciana.
A few years ago, I had already visited the city very briefly for a couple of days, and I knew it was beautiful. Moreover, in high school, our German literature teacher had made us fall in love with Vienna through her stories and explanations. She spoke about literary cafés, writers, music, and the city’s cultural life with such enthusiasm that a very fascinating image had already formed in my mind. For this reason, when I arrived, my first impression was somewhat unexpected. Perhaps due to the accumulated fatigue from the journey, or the grey sky covering the city—but I have to be honest: at that moment, I didn’t feel particularly enthusiastic. Fortunately, that feeling didn’t last long.
When I arrived at my new apartment and saw my room for the first time, my mood changed immediately. The room was truly beautiful and incredibly cosy—the kind of place where you can immediately imagine a new daily life. After a refreshing shower, I decided to go out and buy groceries. There was just one small problem: it was Sunday. As soon as I stepped outside—finally a bit more rested and full of energy—I discovered that supermarkets in Vienna are closed on Sundays. So I thought: you know what? I’ll go for a walk and head toward the city centre. In the meantime, the grey afternoon sky had given way to a deep blue night.
The warm, soft lights of the city created a completely different atmosphere compared to when I arrived. A light rain was falling, but instead of ruining the moment, it made everything even more evocative. Walking in the rain, through illuminated streets that were surprisingly quiet for such a large capital, I had the strange feeling of being inside a movie. Or perhaps inside a dream. Step by step, I began to discover the heart of the city that would be my home for the coming months. That nighttime walk completely woke me up from the fatigue of the journey and reminded me why I was so happy to be there. In that moment, Vienna became real.
Looking back, choosing to travel by train completely changed the way I experienced this beginning. Instead of simply arriving at the final destination, I was able to live the transition from one city to another, cross different landscapes, reconnect with friends met along the way, and slowly become aware of the new chapter that was beginning. If I had to give advice to a student about to leave for Erasmus, I would simply say this: try travelling by train at least once. It may take a bit longer, and you will probably find yourself dragging heavy suitcases through stations. But the journey will become part of the story. And sometimes, it is precisely between one train and another that you realise how the way you travel can completely change the experience.
Thinking about it now, I realise that choosing the train was not just a logistical detail, but a decision that gave a different rhythm to the entire journey. Travelling slowly almost forces you to pay more attention to what happens along the way: the landscapes changing outside the window, the stations where the train stops, even if only for a few minutes, time that suddenly is no longer something to compress but something to move through.
It was not just a way to reach Vienna, but a way to truly begin the Erasmus experience even before arriving. If a student asked me whether it is worth choosing a more sustainable way of travelling, I would say yes without hesitation. Not only because of the environmental impact—which remains an important reason—but because the journey itself becomes part of the experience. And perhaps the moment when I truly understood that this choice made sense was that first evening, walking under the light rain in the silent streets of Vienna, with the feeling that the journey had not ended there, but had in fact just begun.
