All about Austria
Sep. 8th, 2009 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magictreehouseRight, I need to write about Austria before I forget it all! It was a brilliant holiday and I know that I'm getting a reputation for swanning off around the country but it's the longest holiday me and James have ever had, so there. Plus, it was so cheap. I still can't believe how cheap it was. So...
Saturday 29th August
Our flight was in the afternoon which is a nice time to go I think. I'm still in a position where flying is still a novelty for me, especially being fed on the flight. It just seems so swish to me, even when it's a toasted sandwich! However, we really did feel like we'd gatecrashed a Saga holiday. There were no young couples on our flight, at all. Not one. No kids either so we were the youngest there. I'll speak about more later though. Anyway, touching down in Innsbruck may have been a rainy experience (and taking off was full of turbulance. I've never had it before and it was scary!), but you'd fogive it all as you're confronted with proper massive mountains. A theme of the holiday. Honestly, we don't know what a mountain is in this country. We were picked up by Ingams who we booked the holday with. We didn't really know what to expect of the whole thing but we needn't have worried. There are four reps in Ingams and you can make as much use of them or as little as you want and they were very helpful. They took us by coach to Mayrhofen and were allocated a B+B on our arrival. Ours was called 'Vogelsang' which means 'Birdsong' and we were greeted by Margaret who was our landlady who looked after us very well while we were there. We had a lovely balcony in our room and after unpacking we had a wander round and went to get something to eat.
It's a great place to explore on arrival because the whole town is amazingly beautiful that you're just in awe of the whole thing. All the house have that wonderful large alpine look and I have never seen as many flowers in my whole life. Every house is covered in them. I've also never seen so many trees either. They are everywhere! Apparently Austria has a rule where for every tree cut down two have to planted in it's place. Having been there it doesn't surprise me.
I have this fear of speaking other languages. It's exactly the forum where I'd make a tit of myself so I get quite shy when I have to do it. Stupid really as I know enough German to be fine in restaurants at least. Mind you, everyone spoke such good English that we were ok. On the first night we went to La Vita. It's interesting to see how other countries do Italian food. Although the Tirol shares its boundries with Italy so it has a presence in Mayrhofen (a little anyway). I'll write a seperate entry about food at the end of here as it was damn good.
Sunday 30th August
In the morning we woke to wonderful weather (ok, so we woke up to a mountain as that was our view from our balcony but you get the point). I appreciated the warmth as it's how summer should be, I'm not used to it! Anyway, we headed off to a welcome meeting which told us everything we could do. Ingams ran many tours throughout the week and as we didn't know the area we signed up to nearly every one going. The first of which a visit to Krimml waterfalls with Kev the rep, which we did that afternoon.
It was a good first trip to go and we got to see the Ziller valley for the first time properly, and not in the rain. They have a lot of Spar shops in Austria which always seemed weird to me although lots seemed weird to me I suppose. Cows with cows bells being another example! Anyway, we stopped twice on the way for photo opportunities of which there were loads obviously. The waterfalls themselves are amazing. They're very, very tall, although they cascade down a lot of rock, it's not just one fall. There are three tiers and a path right up to the top. However, it's so far up we only managed to get up to stage two. A beautiful place though. There were rainbows all the way up in the spray of the falls!
Even with eating beforehand we were still knackered. Our excuse was that we were rushed for time though, obviously. A nice day and a good opportunity to revel in the beauty of the Alps.
Monday 31st August
Monday turned out to be a long day. We went on a trip to Salzburg and it was a long coach ride there and back. It was worth it though as it's a beautiful city. Beautiful weather again as well. It's funny, we went through the very south eastern tip of Germany and you'd never know. There was no passport check and the scenery was the same. There really are no borders in Europe anymore, except cultural ones. Thankfully the commentary (given by Ruth) was good though, it passed the time.
Austria has a theme of churches and Salzberg has a tonne of the things. Beautiful architecture too, and colourful buildings, with the Salzack river running through it. The water in Austria is this lovely cloudy blue colour, very pretty and there are some great markets and little shops. I ate a massive pretzel and the highlight was going up to the big castle they have there. Although there isn't loads to do up there, the view you get is totally worth it, plus you get to take a little train up to the castle itself.
The day was really hot so after we came back down we went and had a look around the shops, sat in the Mozartplatz and then had an ice cream by the river. That was it really. Oh, and then we went in and sat in some lovely gardens. The great thing about the large number of of flowers in Austria is that there are loads of butterflies too. During my time there I saw Cabbage Whites, Red Admirals, Painted Ladies, and other ones I can't remember the name of. Tiny pale blue ones and orange tipped ones. I think we have all them in the UK but you rarely see them, especially not in Leeds.
Once we were home we had tea at Cafe Tirol. Things went a bit pear shaped as I ordered apricot dumplings, only to turn out that they were a dessert! In my defense the menu wasn't clear! They were very tatsy though.
Tuesday 1st September
Our 5 year anniversary! The tour we were booked on was cancelled due to lack of interest! So instead we had a little shop in town and then went on a walk from our free walking guide book. The whole thing took us over four hours with stops and it was a great way to see all of the surrounding villages in the Zillertal valley though. We went through Burgstall, Schwendau, Hippach, Ramsau, Eckartau and Hollenzen. The day was hot and the last part was especially bad as there was less tree cover. Quite surprised I didn't get burnt actually. I did but sun cream on though and my neck was the only place to catch it. Got a nice tan otherwise :D
In the evening we were booked on the 'Gourmet Zillertal' trip which was a three course meal at a restaurant in Mayrhofen. We expected loads of people to go but we realised that a lot of people would be staying in hotels and so wouldn't need to go. As it happened, there was only another couple who went! So the four of us sat together. It could have been really awkward but it turned out to be a fun evening. The other couple were called Fiona and Gerald and were from Lytham St Annes in Lancashire. The conversation was great. We talked aboiut all kinds of things, politics, history, Austria, all sorts. They'd been to Mayrhofen before and it seems like a lot of people come back time and time again, it's one of those places.
The food I had was a spinach filled ravioli thing to start followed by the most gorgeous trout ever. And then we all had this amazing meringue souffle thing with fruit at the bottom. It came out and it was like a balloon! Amazing. Very sweet but tasty.
Wednesday 2nd September 2009
The morning was gentle. A good thing as we were still full from the night before! We had a little walk around the woods and came out near the restaurant from the previous night! Although the weather was a bit cooler in the morning it ended up being hot again. The excursion we went on was with Carole this time and it began with a steam trian ride to Ramsau. The most disappointing bit of the holiday I think! Our carriage was packed and we couldn't get any good pictures.
Thankfully it got better. Once at Ramsau three Haflinger pony drawn trailers shouwed up and took us up to the farm in Hippach. A lovely way to travel! The farm was ace as well. We we given Kaffee and Kuch and told about cow bells :D We even sampled some cherry Schapps which was damn strong! The farm was great. There were rabbits, goats, geese and, of course, horses. I was stroking one of the ponies which was just gorgeous. So soft and a funny feeling nose which he kept poking through the bars at me! The horses then took us all the wayback to Mayrhofen and we learnt some interesting things from Carole on the way back about remote huts and the valley.
In the evening we had a wnader around the graveyard which was very pretty (more flowers obviously) and then on to a restaurant. We times it just right as we returned the heavens opened and the most amazing thunderstorm occurred. I sat out on the balcony and watched it.
Thursday 3rd Septmeber 2009
Thankfully the rain had gone by the morning and it was hot again. We had a short walk up the valley to a little 165 year old chapel. Austria's very catholic which means great churches. However, it also means that they have awful crucified Jesus' everywhere. Awful. A small price to pay I guess.
Later on we headed off to the Hintertux glacier with Chrissie. This was one of my favourite trips as we got to go up three cables cars to a height of 3200m! At the top of the glacier you're meant to be able to see for miles but all we could see was cloud! We could hardly see anything. A shame but on the up side we got to play in snow! Very surreal! The whole thing was weird, getting colder on the way up. We stopped off at a restaurant on the way up and it was huge and empty. The place must get packed in the winter.
In the evening we went on another trip, the 'Hut Evening'. We weren't sure whether to go at first but I'm gald we did. We got taxis up into the mountains with a load of other English tourists to the Tristenbach Alm. It was a quiet alpine hut run by father and son. The father played us accordian music while his son Christian hosted the evening. The whole thing was hilarious, especially the game where he got couples to 'milk' a training' cow in competition while the 'maid' (a crazy 'Welsh' woman) had to slap a wet cow tail in the participants faces if they lost eye contact. Brilliant.
Of course it wasn't all good. At one point we were all outside and on the way back in a woman collored me to tell me I had the most beautiful speaking voice (I could see where this was going of course). She then went to tell me how much I sounded like Will Young. Go away woman, I'm on holiday!
We actually got chatting to the French couple who were there (best exchange ever. Woman to French girl: "So where are you from?" French Girl: "London", Woman: "Oh.") as they were the only other young couple there apart from us and they'd been on all the excursions we'd been on. I'm glad they did because they were lovely and had exactly the same thoughts on the place as we did, totally on our wavelength. They were called Matt and Corinne. Anyway, we were in a taxi with a rowdy lot, which along with being funny, did make me think of how awful the Brits really are when they're abroad. Still, a great night was had by all.
Friday 4th September
Friday was the only duff day weather-wise and we headed off to Innsbruck. It's a nice city but not as nice as Salzberg, especially in the rain. And as James is a kind soul he lent his brolly to Matt leaving us with my dying one, so I got soaked. We saw the Golden Roof and then walked all the way to the Bergisel ski jump which is amazing. We ate in the restaurant there too! Sadly we didn't get to slide down it though. The guy in the ticket booth was lovely too.He let us both in on students rates and told us to watch that our umbrella didn't get caught in the gate, so it didn't get 'more broken'. Cheeky man!
We kept running to Matt and Corinne around the town, it's a small place! We then got on a 'tour' bus which was terrible! There was a lacklustre commentary. The most exciting bit was seeing the results of a car crash on the way to the castle but that wasn't part of the tour of course! We had a little wander around the shops and down the river. The best part of the city is the old town which is lovely. The rain had stopped by then too thankfully.
On the way home we chatted to Matt and Corinne and at their stop they gave us a piece of paper with their names on and told them to look them up on Facebook which was really sweet of them. Who'd have thought we'd have made friends on holiday! We went to La Vita again for tea andthen had a quiet evening in packing. I miss the place a lot right now! Beautiful.
Saturday 5th September
The flight back went without a hitch but getting back to Leeds made me realise what awful places our cities are. So grey, so ugly, so dirty, so packed. Maybe cities really aren't for me. Especially as I've been really miserable since getting back. As I said on Facebook, this month is life laundry month! Oh, and when we got back we found out that our post box had been broken into. Joy. I might run away back to Austria instead.
Oh, nearly forgot to include anything on Food! Well I was determined to try some traditional Austrian food and the gourmet night certainly helped. It's funny that even though food is shipped all around the world dishes are so reliant on what's available locally. Like the trout I had, they eat quite a bit of that (it was perfect too) and although they eat apple in lots of things, apricot features a lot more than in the UK. I overdosed on every kind of strudel going. I had two pieces of apple strudel (much more packed with fruit that the stuff you buy here), and then a cream cheese and apricot strudel in Innsbruck. Although desserts were nice it was all very limited. I had the Kaiserscmarren which is chopped up pancake with a fruit puree (I had plum, another well featured fruit) and Eispalateschinken (panckaes with ice cream in them) but apart from that it was ice cream or nothing! Tasty though.
You'll never go hungry in Austria as the portions are huge. It got to the point where at Hintertux I ordered too child's portions of food and still couldn't finish it! Main courses were varied. They have a strange thing of putting loads of fruit and squirty cream with their meat dishes! James tried boar which was lovely and I had venison one night and both dishes came with half a pair, a blob of cream and some other smaller fruits. Very odd. One of the other things that I really wanted to try was Weiner schnitzel but the proper stuff proved difficult to find. The same place that James had the boar did it though so I got to try veal for the first time. Very tasty. Like a cross between chicken and beef. Yum yum.
Other things of note include different varieties of Kinder chocolate, the fact that you can't get sandwiches anywhere! Their tasty Almdudlar drink and the fact that they serve whole aspargus. I'd never had the white buit before! Yum!
Saturday 29th August
Our flight was in the afternoon which is a nice time to go I think. I'm still in a position where flying is still a novelty for me, especially being fed on the flight. It just seems so swish to me, even when it's a toasted sandwich! However, we really did feel like we'd gatecrashed a Saga holiday. There were no young couples on our flight, at all. Not one. No kids either so we were the youngest there. I'll speak about more later though. Anyway, touching down in Innsbruck may have been a rainy experience (and taking off was full of turbulance. I've never had it before and it was scary!), but you'd fogive it all as you're confronted with proper massive mountains. A theme of the holiday. Honestly, we don't know what a mountain is in this country. We were picked up by Ingams who we booked the holday with. We didn't really know what to expect of the whole thing but we needn't have worried. There are four reps in Ingams and you can make as much use of them or as little as you want and they were very helpful. They took us by coach to Mayrhofen and were allocated a B+B on our arrival. Ours was called 'Vogelsang' which means 'Birdsong' and we were greeted by Margaret who was our landlady who looked after us very well while we were there. We had a lovely balcony in our room and after unpacking we had a wander round and went to get something to eat.
It's a great place to explore on arrival because the whole town is amazingly beautiful that you're just in awe of the whole thing. All the house have that wonderful large alpine look and I have never seen as many flowers in my whole life. Every house is covered in them. I've also never seen so many trees either. They are everywhere! Apparently Austria has a rule where for every tree cut down two have to planted in it's place. Having been there it doesn't surprise me.
I have this fear of speaking other languages. It's exactly the forum where I'd make a tit of myself so I get quite shy when I have to do it. Stupid really as I know enough German to be fine in restaurants at least. Mind you, everyone spoke such good English that we were ok. On the first night we went to La Vita. It's interesting to see how other countries do Italian food. Although the Tirol shares its boundries with Italy so it has a presence in Mayrhofen (a little anyway). I'll write a seperate entry about food at the end of here as it was damn good.
Sunday 30th August
In the morning we woke to wonderful weather (ok, so we woke up to a mountain as that was our view from our balcony but you get the point). I appreciated the warmth as it's how summer should be, I'm not used to it! Anyway, we headed off to a welcome meeting which told us everything we could do. Ingams ran many tours throughout the week and as we didn't know the area we signed up to nearly every one going. The first of which a visit to Krimml waterfalls with Kev the rep, which we did that afternoon.
It was a good first trip to go and we got to see the Ziller valley for the first time properly, and not in the rain. They have a lot of Spar shops in Austria which always seemed weird to me although lots seemed weird to me I suppose. Cows with cows bells being another example! Anyway, we stopped twice on the way for photo opportunities of which there were loads obviously. The waterfalls themselves are amazing. They're very, very tall, although they cascade down a lot of rock, it's not just one fall. There are three tiers and a path right up to the top. However, it's so far up we only managed to get up to stage two. A beautiful place though. There were rainbows all the way up in the spray of the falls!
Even with eating beforehand we were still knackered. Our excuse was that we were rushed for time though, obviously. A nice day and a good opportunity to revel in the beauty of the Alps.
Monday 31st August
Monday turned out to be a long day. We went on a trip to Salzburg and it was a long coach ride there and back. It was worth it though as it's a beautiful city. Beautiful weather again as well. It's funny, we went through the very south eastern tip of Germany and you'd never know. There was no passport check and the scenery was the same. There really are no borders in Europe anymore, except cultural ones. Thankfully the commentary (given by Ruth) was good though, it passed the time.
Austria has a theme of churches and Salzberg has a tonne of the things. Beautiful architecture too, and colourful buildings, with the Salzack river running through it. The water in Austria is this lovely cloudy blue colour, very pretty and there are some great markets and little shops. I ate a massive pretzel and the highlight was going up to the big castle they have there. Although there isn't loads to do up there, the view you get is totally worth it, plus you get to take a little train up to the castle itself.
The day was really hot so after we came back down we went and had a look around the shops, sat in the Mozartplatz and then had an ice cream by the river. That was it really. Oh, and then we went in and sat in some lovely gardens. The great thing about the large number of of flowers in Austria is that there are loads of butterflies too. During my time there I saw Cabbage Whites, Red Admirals, Painted Ladies, and other ones I can't remember the name of. Tiny pale blue ones and orange tipped ones. I think we have all them in the UK but you rarely see them, especially not in Leeds.
Once we were home we had tea at Cafe Tirol. Things went a bit pear shaped as I ordered apricot dumplings, only to turn out that they were a dessert! In my defense the menu wasn't clear! They were very tatsy though.
Tuesday 1st September
Our 5 year anniversary! The tour we were booked on was cancelled due to lack of interest! So instead we had a little shop in town and then went on a walk from our free walking guide book. The whole thing took us over four hours with stops and it was a great way to see all of the surrounding villages in the Zillertal valley though. We went through Burgstall, Schwendau, Hippach, Ramsau, Eckartau and Hollenzen. The day was hot and the last part was especially bad as there was less tree cover. Quite surprised I didn't get burnt actually. I did but sun cream on though and my neck was the only place to catch it. Got a nice tan otherwise :D
In the evening we were booked on the 'Gourmet Zillertal' trip which was a three course meal at a restaurant in Mayrhofen. We expected loads of people to go but we realised that a lot of people would be staying in hotels and so wouldn't need to go. As it happened, there was only another couple who went! So the four of us sat together. It could have been really awkward but it turned out to be a fun evening. The other couple were called Fiona and Gerald and were from Lytham St Annes in Lancashire. The conversation was great. We talked aboiut all kinds of things, politics, history, Austria, all sorts. They'd been to Mayrhofen before and it seems like a lot of people come back time and time again, it's one of those places.
The food I had was a spinach filled ravioli thing to start followed by the most gorgeous trout ever. And then we all had this amazing meringue souffle thing with fruit at the bottom. It came out and it was like a balloon! Amazing. Very sweet but tasty.
Wednesday 2nd September 2009
The morning was gentle. A good thing as we were still full from the night before! We had a little walk around the woods and came out near the restaurant from the previous night! Although the weather was a bit cooler in the morning it ended up being hot again. The excursion we went on was with Carole this time and it began with a steam trian ride to Ramsau. The most disappointing bit of the holiday I think! Our carriage was packed and we couldn't get any good pictures.
Thankfully it got better. Once at Ramsau three Haflinger pony drawn trailers shouwed up and took us up to the farm in Hippach. A lovely way to travel! The farm was ace as well. We we given Kaffee and Kuch and told about cow bells :D We even sampled some cherry Schapps which was damn strong! The farm was great. There were rabbits, goats, geese and, of course, horses. I was stroking one of the ponies which was just gorgeous. So soft and a funny feeling nose which he kept poking through the bars at me! The horses then took us all the wayback to Mayrhofen and we learnt some interesting things from Carole on the way back about remote huts and the valley.
In the evening we had a wnader around the graveyard which was very pretty (more flowers obviously) and then on to a restaurant. We times it just right as we returned the heavens opened and the most amazing thunderstorm occurred. I sat out on the balcony and watched it.
Thursday 3rd Septmeber 2009
Thankfully the rain had gone by the morning and it was hot again. We had a short walk up the valley to a little 165 year old chapel. Austria's very catholic which means great churches. However, it also means that they have awful crucified Jesus' everywhere. Awful. A small price to pay I guess.
Later on we headed off to the Hintertux glacier with Chrissie. This was one of my favourite trips as we got to go up three cables cars to a height of 3200m! At the top of the glacier you're meant to be able to see for miles but all we could see was cloud! We could hardly see anything. A shame but on the up side we got to play in snow! Very surreal! The whole thing was weird, getting colder on the way up. We stopped off at a restaurant on the way up and it was huge and empty. The place must get packed in the winter.
In the evening we went on another trip, the 'Hut Evening'. We weren't sure whether to go at first but I'm gald we did. We got taxis up into the mountains with a load of other English tourists to the Tristenbach Alm. It was a quiet alpine hut run by father and son. The father played us accordian music while his son Christian hosted the evening. The whole thing was hilarious, especially the game where he got couples to 'milk' a training' cow in competition while the 'maid' (a crazy 'Welsh' woman) had to slap a wet cow tail in the participants faces if they lost eye contact. Brilliant.
Of course it wasn't all good. At one point we were all outside and on the way back in a woman collored me to tell me I had the most beautiful speaking voice (I could see where this was going of course). She then went to tell me how much I sounded like Will Young. Go away woman, I'm on holiday!
We actually got chatting to the French couple who were there (best exchange ever. Woman to French girl: "So where are you from?" French Girl: "London", Woman: "Oh.") as they were the only other young couple there apart from us and they'd been on all the excursions we'd been on. I'm glad they did because they were lovely and had exactly the same thoughts on the place as we did, totally on our wavelength. They were called Matt and Corinne. Anyway, we were in a taxi with a rowdy lot, which along with being funny, did make me think of how awful the Brits really are when they're abroad. Still, a great night was had by all.
Friday 4th September
Friday was the only duff day weather-wise and we headed off to Innsbruck. It's a nice city but not as nice as Salzberg, especially in the rain. And as James is a kind soul he lent his brolly to Matt leaving us with my dying one, so I got soaked. We saw the Golden Roof and then walked all the way to the Bergisel ski jump which is amazing. We ate in the restaurant there too! Sadly we didn't get to slide down it though. The guy in the ticket booth was lovely too.He let us both in on students rates and told us to watch that our umbrella didn't get caught in the gate, so it didn't get 'more broken'. Cheeky man!
We kept running to Matt and Corinne around the town, it's a small place! We then got on a 'tour' bus which was terrible! There was a lacklustre commentary. The most exciting bit was seeing the results of a car crash on the way to the castle but that wasn't part of the tour of course! We had a little wander around the shops and down the river. The best part of the city is the old town which is lovely. The rain had stopped by then too thankfully.
On the way home we chatted to Matt and Corinne and at their stop they gave us a piece of paper with their names on and told them to look them up on Facebook which was really sweet of them. Who'd have thought we'd have made friends on holiday! We went to La Vita again for tea andthen had a quiet evening in packing. I miss the place a lot right now! Beautiful.
Saturday 5th September
The flight back went without a hitch but getting back to Leeds made me realise what awful places our cities are. So grey, so ugly, so dirty, so packed. Maybe cities really aren't for me. Especially as I've been really miserable since getting back. As I said on Facebook, this month is life laundry month! Oh, and when we got back we found out that our post box had been broken into. Joy. I might run away back to Austria instead.
Oh, nearly forgot to include anything on Food! Well I was determined to try some traditional Austrian food and the gourmet night certainly helped. It's funny that even though food is shipped all around the world dishes are so reliant on what's available locally. Like the trout I had, they eat quite a bit of that (it was perfect too) and although they eat apple in lots of things, apricot features a lot more than in the UK. I overdosed on every kind of strudel going. I had two pieces of apple strudel (much more packed with fruit that the stuff you buy here), and then a cream cheese and apricot strudel in Innsbruck. Although desserts were nice it was all very limited. I had the Kaiserscmarren which is chopped up pancake with a fruit puree (I had plum, another well featured fruit) and Eispalateschinken (panckaes with ice cream in them) but apart from that it was ice cream or nothing! Tasty though.
You'll never go hungry in Austria as the portions are huge. It got to the point where at Hintertux I ordered too child's portions of food and still couldn't finish it! Main courses were varied. They have a strange thing of putting loads of fruit and squirty cream with their meat dishes! James tried boar which was lovely and I had venison one night and both dishes came with half a pair, a blob of cream and some other smaller fruits. Very odd. One of the other things that I really wanted to try was Weiner schnitzel but the proper stuff proved difficult to find. The same place that James had the boar did it though so I got to try veal for the first time. Very tasty. Like a cross between chicken and beef. Yum yum.
Other things of note include different varieties of Kinder chocolate, the fact that you can't get sandwiches anywhere! Their tasty Almdudlar drink and the fact that they serve whole aspargus. I'd never had the white buit before! Yum!
