The waning days of the trip were spent visiting Heidi’s relatives, exploring Wiener Neustadt and its environs, and pondering the Austrian concept of good health and well-being. Heidi’s cousin Karl lived in the spa-town of Baden bei Wien, midway between Vienna and Wiener Neustadt. Spa is the key word here when it comes to health….
Category: Austria
Nothing to wine about here…
There are two words that take me right back to Austria (“Osterreich” in German). Heurigen. A heurigen [contraction of heuriger (“this year”) and wein (“wine”)] is the easier of the two to explain. For several brief weeks during wine season in the fall, winemakers (at alternating times) open up (in days of old it was…
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So a burg, a storch, and a dorf walk into a bar…
We were wholly unprepared for our first full day of sightseeing; I forgot to pack my ballgown and Bob had forgotten his beer-wench uniform. I should have also brushed up on my Middle Age buildings history. Apparently, if you were at the very top of the royal ladder, you got to live in a schloss…
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IHOT (International Haus of Travel)…
There is something to be said of a big fancy four-star hotel: “not the biggest fan”. I can see it’s merits. Sometimes the foreignness of a place can be a bit overwhelming. The Hilton or Marriott would be considered an oasis. The rooms are air-conditioned and appointed with modern amenities. The food in the hotel…
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Kaiserschmarrn, what a mouthful…
Someone once asked me why I am willing to try so many different kinds of food. Not talking about choosing the tripe Pho over the chicken Pho or the lengua (“tongue”) burrito over the same old carnitas one but the tendency to order dishes from the very bottom or back of the menu. The ones…
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Viennoiseries (“Things of Vienna”)…
Austria, Vienna in particular, makes you feel, no matter your economic or social standing, like an oaf. A lumbering, uncoordinated, unsophisticated oaf. Undeniable refinement pervades the city and extends to the rest of this landlocked country. It makes you wonder though. Why so much fanciness? Could it be because Austria is surrounded by the European…
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So this is Europe (our first impressions)…
I’ll be honest. Austria is not one of those dream destinations if you are a fun-loving thirty-something couple. At least, it wasn’t for us. But Austria is as European as they come. Even more so as it was, we later found, the seat of the great Hapsburg empire. With this in mind, the country is…
