Wir fahren fahren fahren auf der Autobahn...

Last weekend found us on a wine-tasting trip to Styria (Steiermark) in south east Austria.

We had a great couple of days with our friends Gerhard and Lotte who took us around and showed us the sights, smells and tastes of "the heart of Austria".

Here are some of them:

We visited woodland pigs (more of them later), a bear sanctuary on the Slovenian border (their penchant for carrots was remarkable) and a deer farm in near Graz.

During our trip we visited several Weingüter (vineyard) including

• Weingut Tement
  
• Weingut Birnstingl
• Weingut Erich & Walter Polz
  

We even found some wine varieties which neither of our jaded palettes had ever tasted! Imagine that if you can!

Morillon - which is a variety of Chardonnay and very tasty

Schilcher - very pink and VERY sharp (apparently, in murder cases in times gone by, it was taken into consideration when sentencing whether the defendant was intoxicated on Schilcher!)

Sämling - normally served colder than other white wines, and referred to by Gerhard as a "für die Frauen". We quite like it!

No post today!

Sorting stuff for the return trip to the UK tomorrow and deciding what to leave for our return in June. We shipped two crates (makes them sound much bigger than they actually are, they were more like big shoe boxes!) of books back to the England on Saturday for a whopping (? was it? I can't tell!) 40 Euro.

Then we have to clean the flat. The dust never sleeps!

Therefore, no proper post today, I shall endeavour however, to update (along with the promised snow photos) soon after we get home.

Einfach Raus!

This is the name of the ticket we have just discovered on the ÖBB (Austrian Railways).

This is a special ticket that is valid on all Austrian trains except the big fast inter-city trains. It is valid for between 2 - 5 people and costs 28Euro for a whole day's travel for all the people in the group.

We decided to investigate the possibilities over the weekend, starting on Saturday with a trip to Eisenstadt (the regional capital of Burgenland). Saturday was a really warm day and the town centre was uphill from the station (oh my aching shins and blistered feet) so we were a bit tuckered out by the time we arrived to saunter through the, rather deserted, town centre (anyone would think it was a bank holiday or something!).

We had a bit of lunch (Würstel with freshly grated horseradish all round) and made our way idly (we had to run at full pelt) back to the station to catch the next train to Neusiedel Am See, which we sort of missed as we got off at the wrong station. We could see the lake twinkling the distance but had just missed the train (well, we had got off it actually) into town, so we got on a different train and came back a different route into Vienna.

We arrived back in Vienna earlier than we originally expected, and decided to tootle off on another train/adventure to Mödling, an outlying small spa town, just because we could. The town centre was uphill, again, and looked really unpromising from the main road. We almost turned around and came back home but didn't, for some reason I can't remember, and ended up somewhere that was so dinky it looked like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang could have been filmed there (was it? I don't know, but if you do, then please tell me).

Then we headed home, via a Turkish-shop stop to pick up some provisions (delicious pistachio nuts,
aubergine dip and (a tin of!) humous).

Easter Sunday, and a new Einfach Raus ticket beckons, but not before finding the rather brilliant journey planner on the ÖBB website called Scotty, which allows us to plan our journey to the minute before we have actually left the house (I think Austrian public transport efficiency is second only that of Germany).

Today we're going to Melk.

Melk lies on a bend in the Danube, about 100km from Vienna. It's a pretty little town (this time downhill from the station!) which boasts the most jaw-dropping baroque "pile" (atop the hill in the town centre) that I have ever seen. It completely dominates the town.

This pile is a still functioning monastery, with a museum, and gallery, and fountains, and gardens, and church, and cherubs, and frescoes, and relics (!!!), and gold-leaf, and general pomp, and, in fact, so much visual pastel confection that at times, you may feel like you're having a sugar-rush.

Easter Monday we set forth again, this time with Payerbach-Riechenau as our destination of choice.

We were thwarted early on in the journey today however, as both of us were daydreaming and missed our first change (Ottakring). We eventually got back to Wien Meidling (our main departure station) and decided to head towards Wiener Neustadt (which is on the way to Payerbach-Riechenau) and review the situation later in the morning.

Wiener Neustadt (New City) is actually medieval, and not an overflow council estate (like Wythenshawe is to Manchester) as I had previously thought and in itself looked picturesque and probably held enough to keep us entertained for the afternoon, had it not been a Bank Holiday and had everything not been shut. So, after a cursory circuit of the old town we headed back to the station to venture forth, to our original destination.

We arrived in Payerbach-Riechenau and "siezed the day" yet again by jumping onto yet another train which was already in the station when we arrived which took us up the snow covered mountain to Semmering.

It snowed when we arrived and was really beautiful.

Snow pix to follow soon, when I have sorted them out!

Einfach Raus? Well, it gets you out of the house doesn't it?

You're the top

After venturing out to buy a guidebook or two from Borders we partook of a little general retail therapy in Banana Republic along the way, we were recommended by the sales assistant to take the elevator up to the 96th floor of the Hancock Tower to the Signature Room for cocktails as the sun went down over the city.

We took his advice. It was astonishing!

Thank you Terry.

How grand are we?

After a long, and thankfully uneventful journey (3.00am alarm in Vienna, to be at the airport by 4.30am) we arrived in Chicago tired and excited (a strange combination). After realising that the hotel didn't offer the free airport shuttle as I had thought, we decided after some debate (had I said already that it had been a long day?) to take a taxi.

We sped along, through the wide flat landscapes populated with big skies, highways, overhead railway lines, billboards and low-slung apartment buildings and then suddenly, as if by magic, skyscrapers appeared on the horizon. More and more and more skyscrapers until it felt like we were being swallowed by the city.

Our hotel was rather grand. We stayed at the Drake Hotel in the fashionable (!) Northside of the city and ended up with a room with a lakeside view and walk-in wardrobe that was almost as big as the flat in Vienna!

Just blew in from the windy city...

To continue with the wind theme, we're off to Chicago on Tuesday.

The replacement passport did come through in time. Hooray! Just have to pack now.

They're still expecting freezing temperatures too, so my new warm coat will finally come in very handy.

Haven't you got work to do?

Wow! We've been here for 2 weeks!

We've settled into some semblance of routine now and it's amazing how quickly you become accustomed to change. Initially it felt a bit like we were on holiday (but with laptops), exploring pastures new(ish) and exotic(ish) and while some things still maintain their novelty, and probably shall forever (I may speak of them at a later date when more jaded, world-weary and in the mood to mock... but not yet), once the dust (yes, they have dust in Austria too, and it's just like at home!) starts to gather in the corners of the room, you reailise that you have to tackle the same mundane tasks as at home (unless of course you have a cleaner in either location to do them for you).

I complied a list of inconsequential little observations that I may add to from time to time.

You know you're no longer on holiday when:

• you can finally work the cooker hob
  
• you have to get the hoover out
• you have to do the washing
• the milk goes sour
• the woman in the bakery recognises you
• you know the time the bus/train/tram is due to arrive before you leave the house
• you know which of the three local supermarkets sells the best tomatoes
• you realise that E1.50 for a single leek is quite expensive
  
• you have to buy bathroom cleaner

Dahlink! How was Bratislava?

It was actually really wet and quite miserable when we arrived, as were we after we missed the tram into the town centre and wandered off to the bus stop. Naturally, on the first rainy day of our trip, we had forgotten to pack our umbrella. We eventually jumped on a bus, any bus that was travelling in the right direction!

When we arrived in the centre, we wondered whether we had arrived on some obscure festival day (this has happened on several occasions in several different places) as all the shops were closed and there were hardly any people around at all.

We spent part of the afternoon in the Milan Dobeš Museum. The museum is housed in a very cute14th century residential building in the old town centre and is interesting in its own right, whether you like the art on display or not.

Dobeš is a Slovak son and the museum celebrates his work (over 4 floors) alongside works of other artists (including Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely). The exhibition was good fun.

Below are pix of the main street while waiting for the tram to the station at 6pm. The place was so quiet as to make it almost surreal.

My aunt went to Bratislava and bought...

... a colander from Tesco! That's another thing I can cross off the "what we need" list.

We visited Bratislava several times during our time in Vienna between 1993/94 when we had friends to stay. During these trips, as well as exploring the cultural opportunities the city had to offer, we would also visit the local grocery stores and once or twice, the big supermarket (at that time Walmart) before travelling back, to stock up on luxury(sic) items (coffee, beer, pickles etc). We were quite hard up at the time and the difference in prices of the items we bought and brought back (was it smuggling? I really don't know) would offset the price of the tickets.

For our guests, Bratislava offered a different cultural experience to that of Vienna which I think they all found at least interesting, if nothing else. We also reckoned that in our own small way, that we were supporting the local economy too. So everything was ok!

Now while this isn't intended as a big political statement about local produce, supply and demand, or global consumption, it was interesting to note that the goods we used to buy in 1993 at a saving to equivalent goods in local Austrian supermarkets, were now actually more expensive than than they are in Vienna and at home in the UK! While I imagine that in the meantime, the Slovak economy has generally raised the standard of living for its inhabitants, I doubt it has boomed to the extent where they can afford to pay more for their shopping than we do in the Austria or the UK for that matter.

Surely this makes the "luxury goods" even more unobtainable for the local inhabitants than they were previoulsy, or at the very least, is a great big rip-off.

Servus!

Well, we're here!

Vienna looked very gloomy and monochrome as we landed and the landscapes from the airport looked cold and grey through the window of the new high speed train (the CAT) which has cut the journey time into the city to 16 minutes.

It's not as cold as I expected it to be, but I am glad I invested in long johns, as I'm sure they'll be very welcome quite soon!

The flat is lovely! It is small, but very smart and lots of mod-cons we don't have at home, like a Dampfdusche (steam shower cabinet) which naturally we can't get to work and a whirlpool bath! It's in an Altbau on Oberkirchergasse in Ober Doebling, which has curved stairwells with ornate wrought iron, erm, ironwork on the outside windows, and worked plaster in the walls. I will take some photos soon.

In the immediate vicinity are fruit and veg shops, a fishmongers, butcher and a bio-laden selling all kinds of organic lovely stuff and ecover. i think we're in bio-heaven.

More soon. Auf wiedershauen lieblings!