I seemed to read books that were either depressing, memoirs, or both in April.

There are a lot of different art vending machines in Vienna.

Vienna has excellent and cheap public transport. Trams go everywhere, and a year’s ticket is a symbolic €365. A week for visitors is around €25. As pretty much everyone has a pass, they don&#…

Made for Margate Zine Fair April 2026 Pretty much does what it says on the tin! When I thought about what I wanted to write about the phrase “a...

I found some more photos of Weyer an der Enns, an idyllic mountain town in the Kalkalpen national park.

The Albertina museum has a sister gallery around the corner that specialises in modern art (where I saw the Yoshitomo Nara exhibition). I collect museum souvenir pencils from my travels, and their …

When I used to travel a lot for work, I think people sometimes got the impression from my photos that I was swanning around fantastic landscapes and world-standard art museums all the time, but the…

I wanted to go in the astronaut exhibition, but it was ridiculously expensive. €14 for a pretty small exhibition space attached to a room full of vintage Leicas. I guess they price it for the pocke…

The Albertina is one of the most popular art museums in Vienna. Originally it was the palace of Prince Albert, a an 18th century Habsburg cousin who collected fine art prints. After the First World…

Angus Trumble on Dante Gabriel Rossetti and company’s curious but longstanding fixation with the furry oddity that is the wombat — that “most beautiful of God’s creatures” which found its way into the...

Here’s an expired roll of HP5 film that went around Europe. I used the Superheadz Wide and Slim, which is an ultra-cheap and basic super wide angle toy camera with a cult following that you c…

What I read over the summer of 2025.

While I was in Hallein I was determined to visit the salt mines, which have been in operation since 5000 BC. The Ancient Celts made a fortune from the salt trade. When the Romans came to Austria, t…

When you say “Celt” to people they think of Ireland or Scotland or maybe Asterix the Gaul, but the Celts were much more widespread across Europe than that, and the definition is much looser th…

Hallein is a commuter town near Salzburg with around 20,000 people. Which makes it a major town by Austrian standards. Historically it’s known for two things: salt mining (see Salt World) and…

Here’s an assortment of general photos from around Graz. Whether Graz or Linz is the second city of Austria is a topic of fierce debate. Graz is a lot prettier than Linz for sure. Although it…

Despite these idyllic photos, Klagenfurt is up there in my list of least favourite places in Austria. Carinthia (which Klagenfurt is the capital of) is known for being particularly racist. The stat…

Here’s some photos of the Yoshitomo Nara exhibition I saw at the Albertina Modern in Vienna. Nara Unabomber cabin

There’s also an archaeological museum in the grounds of the castle. Before you went in though, you had to pay the tax by admiring and photographing this peacock. He blocked the doors until he…

Eggenburg is a posh suburb of Graz where the castle of the same name is. You can get there by tram, and it’s a nice place to walk around. The school by the tram stop is surprisingly Brutalist…

Schloss Eggenburg is a baroque palace on the outskirts of Graz. It was built by the Eggenburger, financiers to the Holy Roman Empire and masters of the royal mint. Normally you have to pay to get i…

Some Fuji Sensia cross-processed in C41 chemicals. I’m not sure what camera it was, probably an Olympus XA2. Mostly taken around the Burggarten palmhouse.

This time assorted places in Südtirol in the deep snow

I forgot to post these photos from summer 2017 at the time, because the ones from the top of the tv tower had LED light reflections on the glass from the rotating bar that I needed to remove, and I…

A short and sweet entry, just to admire the label designs of this Austrian honey brand from Schwaz. Austria produces a lot of great honey from all those forests and mountain meadows full of flowers…

Here’s some older pictures of Horn in northern Austria, a remote place that’s hard to reach in the winter. It’s much closer to Brno in the Czech Republic than anywhere in Austria …

There’s a very pleasant park on an island in the Danube in Vienna. I went there last on Mayday, after my less than fun visit to Prater that day. I always think of it as the park that doesn&#8…

The Architekturzentrum Wien is small, but has some really good displays. If you get a Museums Quarter pass it’s included, or you can pay separately. There’s a surprising amount of stuff…

Recently I dug out an old pocket camera from about 15 years ago and got a new battery for it. The Olympus XZ-1 was a real quality camera at the time, with manual exposure mode and high depth of fie…

There’s also lots of forest around Bad Zell. Bad Zell Forest

The hills weren’t alive with the sound of music so much as with elderly people on healthful walks, armed with Nordic Walking sticks. You had an RPG-like choice. Turn right to the forest, or l…

Recently I dug out an old pocket camera from about 15 years ago and got a new battery for it. The Olympus XZ-1 was a real quality camera at the time, with manual exposure mode and high depth of fie…

Bad Zell is a spa town in the Mühlviertel, whose claim to fame is that the water is full of radon, which is claimed to help arthritis. Almost every other guest in the hotel was old, and they offere…

Murau îs the bigger town near St Egidi. St Egidi is pretty normal despite being so remote, Murau is weird. The nearby ski resort for some reason mostly caters to Hungarian customers, despite being …

St Egidi is really remote. You have to get off the normal train, and switch to this mountain tram thing that runs up and down the border between Styria and Carinthia. Few Austrians ever go here. In…

St Egidi is really remote. You have to get off the normal train, and switch to this mountain tram thing that runs up and down the border between Styria and Carinthia. Few Austrians ever go here. In…

Bischofshofen is a scenic mountain town in the Pongau region of Land Salzburg. The Catholic school I was visiting there was out of town in a grand former seminary building. It had only switched ove…

Alexanderplatz was the old centre of East Berlin, known for its World Clock, and home of the Centrum department store where you could get exotic imports like jeans. When I first started going to Be…

Here’s some other old Budapest photos I found. Városliget or City Park is one of the landmarks of Budapest. The park has the Széchenyi thermal baths, several museums and a castle. It’s …

I found some old photos of my flat in Budapest, on Kútvölgyi út in District 12, where I stayed while studying for a teaching qualification. The street name means something like “Well Valley&#…

St Georgen am Walde (St George in the Woods) is an extremely obscure village of 500 people in the Mühlviertel that even few Austrian people have reason to go to. It’s hard to get to, and when…

Wels is famous in Austria for being boring. It’s much more attractive than nearby Traun, with a pretty riverside and historical high street, but nothing ever seems to happen there. There’s apparent…

I’ve made clear how much I loathe Hallstatt in my other post. It starts at the ferry. To access the town you get off at a small train station and get the ferry across the lake. However ferry …

You may be surprised to find out that Hallstatt is one of my most hated places in Austria. This probably goes some way to explaining why. Everything there feels like it’s designed to cynicall…