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hat was the Austrian Imperial Train really like? For
one thing, it was exquisitely furnished in the style of
the declining years of the nineteenth century, when
the famous architecture and handicrafts of the Habsburg
empire enriched the Vienna Ring Boulevard; when opera
houses, theaters and mansions for the aristocracy and wealthy
bourgeois were built in Vienna and Prague, Budapest and
Bratislava. Many of the extraordinary artisans of this era also
worked on the Imperial Train. This is evident in the drapes and
curtains of velvet and plush, the wallpapers made from silk,
the carved and gilded door and window frames, the beautifully
worked intarsia tables, comfortable chairs, and the innumerable
other embellishments. It was not the emerging modern times or
the nascent Austrian art nouveau that dominated in this train but
rather the Makart Style, with its historic pomp and the opulence
of an imperial era.
W
Arrival at the Kéléti Train Station in Budapest
(ES)