The Hills Are Alive…with the sounds of Austria! Salzburg, Attersee, Linz, Melk, Vienna, Graz and St Andräersee.

29th Aug – 14th Sept 2024

The transition from Southern Germany into Austria is a subtle one. That statement would probably horrify both Bavarians and Austrians, but to the untrained eye and ear there are far more similarities than differences. The terrain was the same, the homes looked the same, the language on the signposts was the same. It was only really the greater proportion of Austrian licence plates on the vehicles that gave it away. Our next stop was Salzburg and our travel distance across the border between camps was about 25km which took only about 25 minutes. A brief moment in time. We arrived fairly early in our campsite, which was essentially a glorified field with an exceptional view of some hills, and a restaurant, about 5km outside the city centre. The recent rains had bogged down several areas of the site, which the owner had cordoned off, but due to our early arrival, and a bit of luck we managed to land a pitch on the edge of the cordon thereby giving us a ton of space. It was still busy on the days that we were here and everyone else was crammed into the central area. We felt like Lord and Lady Muck. Again.

Salzburg is a very impressive little city. It is dominated by its castle which stands high upon a rocky bluff casting shade on the cluster of impressive slabs of architecture nestled at its base, sandwiched between it and the river Salzach. It is a very small, dense offering of Old Sh*t. With its wealth built on the back of its salt mines, it is still a very rich place, reflected in the calibre of its resident’s cars and the shops on the main retail street. One thing that Bavaria and Austria share is their non-ironic love of their traditional dress. Lederhosen for the men and an outfit of a full skirt with apron worn with a décolletage-honouring blouse and bodice combo. There are multiple outfitters selling the garb, which is locally handmade and priced accordingly. A pair of lederhosen, the decorated leather knee-length shorts, will set you back €1500-2000. The outfits are often worn ‘for best’ at formal events like weddings and funerals and are seen as a completely normal part of one’s wardrobe.

Aside from our usual sightseeing routine of ‘walking around’ we did actually pay to go into the castle. The views from it over the city were just too good to forgoe. That and the climb up to it was too steep to squander. Salzburg is a city of cyclists and there was an amazing bike path along the river to deliver us into the heart of the city from our campsite.

The other thing that we did here was to catch up with a person that I have known since 1991, when she was the 12 year old little sister of my best friend in Uni. 33 years later Izzy is an Austrian resident of ten years having married local boy, Patrick, and moved to Salzburg for love. The past decade and some has made her fluent in Austrian German and a mum of two. She has never looked back. Our paths have crossed very infrequently since Katie and I graduated, but we did reconnect two and a half years ago at Katie’s wedding. We met at the local brewery, Steigl, for lunch, which also has a great view over the city by virtue of its location at the base of the castle. A very enjoyable three hours was spent chatting over our meal, getting to know Patrick and their kids better and filling in the yawning chasms in our knowledge of each others lives that the intervening 30 years had created. The kids were delightful and very well behaved. A credit to them both. They shared a particularly exciting event of the previous 24 hours…securing tickets to the reunion tour of Oasis next year. Patrick, a forever fan, was pleased as punch!

The other things that Salzburg is known for: it was the birthplace of Mozart in 1756. There are numerous places of Mozart interest throughout the city. We limited our visitations to a statue. Also it was the setting, and filming location of the 1965 movie, The Sound Of Music, which in its day became the highest grossing movie of all time. If you adjust for inflation, it still holds the number 6 spot today. Interestingly, if using the inflation adjusted metric, Gone with the Wind still reigns supreme, with Avatar in second. Also of interest is that neither Nick or I have ever watched The Sound of Music and saw no need to visit any set locations or museums relating to it. I think we cycled past the villa used as the set location for the Von Trapp family home by accident as it was near our camp site, but that was only on the far more interesting mission to find the vending machine that sold cheese and wine. It is a civilised country that dispenses these items in such a fashion. Forgot to take a photo.

During our stay here I managed to do another Parkrun. The Hellbrun event was in a beautiful park an easy 4km cycle from camp. It was another hot morning and I clocked another snail’s pace time, although the slightly bigger field meant that I wasn’t tail-end-charlie again. My ‘photo with the sign’ was taken at the finish, hence the sweaty strawberry vibe.

There was also this tractor and trailer transporting a brass band around the neighbourhood. They were busking for charity. They got €5 from me, although I have no idea what the charity was!

Our onward trip through Austria took us east to the the utterly delightful Salzkammergut region and Attersee, one of the region’s lakes. The combination of a new paddle board to play with (and to justify the purchase of), a good weather forecast and a sneaking suspicion that this might be a lovely place to spend some time prompted us to head here. Again, we just pitched up without booking anything, beacause nowhere would take reservations for less than a four night stay. The campsite that we chose was right on the lake and, it transpired, very popular. Most of the non-permanent sites were quite small and crammed together, leaving more than half of the camp assigned to permanent pitches. We were lucky in several regards: 1) they had ‘one last space’ for our requested 3 night stay and 2) it was located in a funny triangular ‘overflow’ area that was wedged between three permanent caravans. It would have been very close quarters with no privacy, except that it was mid-week and they were all empty, so we were again, like Lord and Lady Muck, with tons of space, whilst our fellow campers were wedged in like sardines. Also 3) The lake was stunningly beautiful and warm and 4) the weather was magnificent. Somehow this didn’t feel like being in Austria. The water was warm, a stunning turquoise colour and apparently so clean that you drink it directly.

The lake was ringed by hills and mountains covered with forests, dotted with farms and villages and and with suprisingly little development. Attersee is one of Austria’s biggest lakes, and the largest to be contained entirely within its borders, rather than shared with other countries.

The Austrian composer, Gustav Mahler loved it here and spent many a summer on Attersee. It was such an inspiration for his work that he even had a small ‘composing hut’ constructed on the lake shore. Here he would spend the mornings locked away with his piano and he wrote his second symphony here. The hut is still standing and where as it was originally in a random field, it is now a micro museum contained in this campsite.

Our stay here was all about being on the lake. We are conscious as August gives way to September that the ‘bikini days’of summer are coming to an end. All opportunities to labour over a paddle board pump and inflate the boards, slap on some factor 30 and set off onto the blue yonder should be taken where offered. My nice new board has been a great purchase, Nick’s board continues to slowly disintergrate and bulge in odd places but is still hanging in there. His paddle handle broke though, thus rendering it useless. Luckily we had a spare. It was a wrench to drag ourselves away from the lake, but the show must roll on.

We continued north-east, to the northern city of Linz, and found ourselves back on the mighty Danube River. Now we were only 72km from the Czech town of Ceske Krumlov, where we had been 6 weeks ago. Linz is Austria’s third largest city and a centre for the arts and for conferences and congresses and such. It may not suprise you to hear that it is old, having originated as a Roman fort in the first century, been first documented as a place called ‘Linz’ in 799, and granted city rights in 1324. And bla, bla, blah. Now we are here. Why? Because it was on the way to where we were going. Where’s that? Never really sure….

So we arrived and due to the derth of near-city campsites (which normally means that not many campers stop in a place, which usually means that there isn’t a major ‘tourist attraction’) we camped about 12km out of the city in a small neighbouring town called Ottensheim. This was also on the Danube, or Donau as it is known here, and linked to the city by bus/train/river and cycle path. The cyle path is part of the epic Danube Cycle Trail, a cycle route that follows 1200km of the Danube from Donaueschingen in Germany to the Hungarian capital of Budapest.

We had a day in Linz having cycled along the river path to get there, a very leisurely 50 minute journey. The city was in the middle of a week’s long arts festival with the main exhibitions in the modern art museum, but with other pop up installations in squares and churches. We happened upon a few of these, including the one in the main square. This consisted of a tall, free-standing scaffolding tower up which one climbed to find a mirror lined box at the top into which one stepped to be confronted with multiple images of oneself, rather than the quite impressive elevated view. Deep. The nonsensical, self indulgent blatherings that accompany artworks could be scrapped. I’ll do it.

Due to his feeling ‘a bit iffy’ about heights, Nick opted not to make the climb, thus missing out on how the artist created a thunderclap of commentary on modern existance in aluminium and mirrors: We are all very self absorbed. See, I am good at this.

Linz felt like a pretty normal place. There was a handsome old town, but it was functional and not a pastiche. There were trams and bicycles, a boring castle, back streets, shops, a university and freed from the perils of mass tourism, the happy locals seemed to be just getting on with life. Yes, there were some cycle tourers, and yes, the odd river cruise boat stopped here but mostly it felt calm and serene and rather nice.

For lunch we succumbed to another meatloaf sandwich in an eaterie called Leberkas-Pepi that sold little else but meatloaf sandwiches, served simply as a slab of meatloaf in a bun and no condiments. It was doing brisk business with a queue snaking out of the door. Always a good sign. We were not disappointed.

We also purchased a small Linzer torte on our wanderings. This traditional pastry, a form of shortbread topped with fruit preserves and sliced nuts with a lattice design on top, is apparently the oldest cake named after a place, the oldest receipe having been dated back as far as 1653. We were good and took it home to have after dinner, rather than just chowing it down on a street corner. It was a little disappointing. A bit dry.

Our journey home was one of the highlights of our trip so far. Rather than cycle back we booked ourselves onto the small excursion boat that does the 30 minute trip up and down the river between Linz and Ottensheim. This was the closest we were going to get to a Danube cruise for the foreseable future. It transpired that we were only the passengers on our trip, so having lashed the bikes to the railing we settled in to enjoy our journey. The sun was shining, the river was majestic and we had a private cruise. It couldn’t get any better….but wait….it DID get better, because there was a self-service mini bar on board and we could enjoy our voyage with a cold beer in hand. Now that’s a civilised way to get home!

Our camp in Ottensheim was slightly unusual, being in the grounds of restaurant that was co-located with a small tennis club. We sacrificed a scenic outlook for the sake of some shade and parked up close to the outdoor courts in the shadow of the large building housing the indoor court. This meant that we were essentially courtside and our late afternoon entertainment involved sitting on our camp chairs outside Davide watching players of all levels of talent and expertise playing their games. There were some shots that deserved a round of applause, and that’s exactly what they got from us. Not sure how much they appretiated the unexpected ‘crowd’!

Our exit from Linz involved an early start as I managed to sneak in another Parkrun on the way out. This was a very laid back affair with the small field and two officials only really assembling at about 5 minutes before the start. I was pretty sure was in the right place, but it was a bit disconcerting. This event is called Donauradweg – Danube Cycle Path – and that exactly describes the course: Starting under a large bridge it went 2.5km down the riverside bike path, turned around and come back again. It was straight, fully tarmac and very flat. A perfect place to get a PB if one is in that game. The small field seemed to be comprised mainly of lean, lanky, fast looking chaps, so I was entirely expecting to be last again. Which, apart from the lone walker, I was. I am a happy plodder, and that is the beauty of Parkrun, it doesn’t matter.

Further east along the Danube, and convienently along the A1 motorway, was our next stop, the tiny city of Melk. Its population of only a little over five and a half thousand people is small, but its Benedictine monastery is enormous. It was originally founded in 1089 and built high up on a rocky outcrop above the Danube. A small service settlement, now with city status, grew up outside its walls and is a now cute and well preserved old town that services the needs of visitors to the Abbey and the passing cycle tourers.

The monastery was extended over the centuries, acquiring a monastic school in the 12th century and an abbey church in the 1700s. It still hosts the monastery and the school is still a private catholic school of 900 pupils to this day. Its library is world renowned as is its scientifially significant collection of minerals. There is a segment of the magnificent building open to the public and we did actually pay to go in. The library was amazing, but unfortunately photos were not permitted. The tour ended with a walk through the back of the rather magnificent church, which we reached just as a brass band struck up playing, the music being the walk-out accompaniment for a bride and groom who had just got married in this amazing space. We sat quietly at the back, well out of the way, to enjoy the music and the spectacle of the very attractive and well-dressed wedding party leaving the church. Despite the public areas of the building being quite busy and there being a large tour coming along just behind us, we were the only ‘spectators’ for this short moment and it was quite magical. One wonders who one has to know, or whose palm one has to grease, to get married here. We had just one night here, staying in a riverside car park almost directly below the Abbey. This gave us quite the view from our roof window.

I was going to end this post here, and split our Austrian travels into two offerings, but owing to the ever present and ever increasing backlog of my writing, I’m going to push on! So you may take a quick break to to go make a cup of tea/ visit the loo/ walk the dog/ see a patient/ unload the dishwasher, and I’ll see you back soon….

Our next destination was another biggie, the city of Vienna, or Wien to give it its Austrian name. We opted to stay about 10km out of the city in a northern suburb called Klosteneuburg. Here we had found one of those perfectly situated campsites that was both on the riverside cycle route into the centre and right next to a station giving direct train links too. This gave us a couple of good options for getting into the city, whilst being a safe and comfortable place to stay. We arrived in the middle of another hot day and although we hadn’t planned to head into Vienna that day, the forecast for the next day involved an awful lot of rain so we had a quick bite to eat and jumped on to the train into the city centre.

Vienna is another grand dame of a city with handsome imposing mansion blocks lining the streets and countless magnificent buildings from throughout its ages from its Imperial era, through its Art Nouveau years, and into the modern architecture of this milleneum.

We cruised the central old town area, slowly as it was very hot and muggy. We admired the cathedral from the outside, and then followed signposts to The Spanish Riding School. As a horse-mad girl I knew all about this place. One of the world’s four great riding acadamies, dedicated to the art of classical dressage and the breeding and training of the famous Lipizzaner horses. I didn’t need to go in or to watch a performance, we have done one of the other three recently in Jerez (actually in Spain) last year. It was just enough to see the building in the flesh and get a whiff of horse manure. That was all my memory banks needed. What this did do was lead us to a big square called Heldenplatz, home to a range of impressive buildings such as the Hofburg Imperial Palace. Here we were met with an unexpected sight, a row of large John Deere tractors. On venturing further into the space it was obvious from the large array of tents and stalls, the music stage, the hay bales, the autumnal garlands and the large number of folk in traditional outfits, that we had stumbled upon a harvest festival type event. It was the equivalent of a county fair in Trafalgar Square. Surreal. We found the beer tent and watched the world whilst rehydrating. After this we were ready for home and so slowly retraced our steps and public transport route back to the station.

Our back street meanders brought the sound of choral music to our ears and further investigation brought us to a nondescript square where we discovered a small, free open air recital in progress. The acoustics were amazing. It was a reminder of Vienna’s ongoing love affair with classical music following its establishment as a cultural capital of arts and music during the heyday of the Austrian Empire. Hayden, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, the Stauss family and Mahler were all either from Vienna, or chose to live here for a significant portion of their lives. The legacy of this era lives on in the blood of the city with numerous and frequent performances of classical music throughout the city, both formal and informal. The buskers here are of very high quality.

That night was hot and sticky and in retrospect, the last uncomfortable heat of the summer. We have had an epic run of amazing weather since we started this trip back at the beginning of May with even the north of Poland delivering lovely sunny days in those first few weeks. In the height of summer there were several weeks of almost unbearable heat making it difficult to do anything but immerse onself in water during the day, and wish Davide was fitted with aircon at night. On these days, and nights we were kept sane by our two 12v mini fans. They create just enough breeze to stave of hyperthermia and we have one each to stop arguments. This night was their last night of deployment. The weather forecast was entirely correct and the next day the building heat and humidity gave way to thunder storms and torrential rain. Definitely a day to sit in, not to tourist. It always amazes me, having had the extended luxury of having all the time in the world, how we have got very good at spending hours and hours of it in a contented, companionable, low energy state, with me trying to write/do some duolingo lessons whilst Nick whitters on at me. Given that the campsite had a laundry room that included a tumble dryer, it was also a day to get some laundry done. Our inital plan had been to perhaps head back into Vienna in the evening for a meal once the rain had cleared, which it did. I had thought that cabin fever and the lure of seeing the bright lights of a big city at night might overcome the apathy of a rain day, but I was wrong. We dined chez Davide and hit Netflix instead.

The next day delivered significant improvement in the weather with all of the sunshine and none of the heat. It was a day to break out the bikes and head back to the city via the Danube cycle trail. The city itself has a fantastic network of cycle lanes with junctions and crossings having dedicated cyclist traffic lights, with just enough trams and tram tracks to add some exciting jeopardy.

In 1850 Emperor Franz Joseph hatched a plan to unite the city and the suburbs and ordered the demolition of the medieval city walls. This set in motion one of the radical urban design projects of its time which involved the building of a great ring road, the ‘Ringstaße’. Nobles and rich citizens hurried to build pompous palaces along this magnificent 5.3 km long boulevard and this created a distinct ‘Ringstrasse’ architectural style (a type of Historicism) in which numerous architectural forms of previous epochs were imitated. (Basically, a lot of money was spent building huge ego-fanning, copycat edifices in order to impress each other. Some aspects of human behaviour are reassuringly consistent.) The Ringsraße is still an important route through the city and this was our first ‘cyclo-touristic’ destination. Being on two wheels is a great way to cover a lot of ground when sight seeing. We whizzed past many impressive piles on our way along the boulevard including the impressive city hall, or Rathaus, the ground in front of which was partly inaccessible due to the travelling circus that was being set up. Can’t imagine the same happening in London somehow. The Ringstraße is also home to the Austrian Parliament Building, complete with armed police, as expected and several museums and the National Opera House. All marvellous and magnificent.

Next stop was the over-sold Naschmarkt, a 120-stall food market which seemed to have been flooded with identical stalls selling obviously commercially prepared turkish pastries or industrial quantities of spices. The fresh and local produce was seriously lacking and the tat shops were creeping in. It had no local flavour at all. We were glad to have had the bikes so that our journey out to it hadn’t wasted too much shoe leather or precious touristing energy. By now it was lunch time and our thoughts were turning to food. Not that they much turn very far away at all, ever. Our quest is always to find a small, authentic, off the beaten track, not too fancy place that locals might frequent. Sometimes we have pre-selected a spot and head right there, sometimes we wait until we are good and hungry and have the fighting fever that only famishment can trigger, bitching and squabbling with each other as we try and select ‘the perfect place’ through a haze of hypoglyacaemia. Luckily today Nick had an idea where we were going and I was happy to follow. Apple maps were deployed and we had a seat-of-the-pants journey across the heart of this major capital city, arriving in our requisite two whole pieces at a little place called Gasthaus Pöschel. It was tiny and quite busy but our arrival coincided with a table coming free and we were in! Our lunch consisted of two local delicacies: Weiner Schnitazel, which needs no real explanation, and Tafelspitz, thick slices of tender slow-poached beef served in a broth with potato rosti on the side. Both delicious.

Our route home took us back through the old town, through more old streets lined with lovely buildings and churches and soon we were back on the path home. On the way back we took a short detour off the cycle path and up a hill in one of the urban villages to find a heurige, Meyer am Pfarrplatz,est 1683. Vienna is the only metropolis that grows enough wine within its city limits to make it worth mentioning. Heurige is the Viennese for ‘wine tavern’ and there are about 100 of them throughout the city, in various shapes and sizes, mostly quite rustic in nature. This one is intimately associated with Beethoven, who spent time living here in his summers, probably due to the neighbouring sanitorium offering him therapy for his hearing loss. His 9th symphony was composed here. Whether his creativity was enhanced by the sanitorium treatments, or by the wine, we may never know. (We do know, it was the wine.) Anyway, in homage to our great hero, LVB, and to our well known and well documented love of classical music, we stopped in here to have a glass of wine in the sunny courtyard. It was only fitting. Then we went home.

From Vienna we began our southward trajectory and headed to Austria’s second largest city, Graz. This university town with a population of about 300,000 (60,000 of which are students) has one of the best preserved old towns in Central Europe, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was the European City of Culture in 2004, the European City of Culinary Delights in 2008 and boasts the world’s longest underground slide. (Yes, of course we did…more on that in a bit). We had decided to only stay one night here, so after arriving at our Stellplatz on the edge of town we quickly hopped on the bus into the centre for an afternoon of exploring.

Well, it was delightful. Even taking into account all the previous places of note and significance that we have visited on this, and our last trip around Spain and Portugal, it was one of the loveliest places we have been. The city centre was totally pedestrianised with no vehicles except the trams. It had impressive, wide boulevards and narrow, pretty backstreets, all paved with polished marble slabs, and an interesting selection of shops and eateries. There were some tourists like us, but not an exhausting mob to do battle with. It felt very civilised.

Of course there were the usual cathedral to gawp into, squares and town hall to admire and a fortress on a hill climb up to. There was the Grazer Landhaus, the first and very well preserved, Renaissance building built in Graz, completed in 1557, and the grand mausoleum of Emperor Ferdinand ll. Before we hit the hill we stopped for a drink in Glockenspiel Square and waited to catch the highly anticipated 3pm performance of the very kitch and quite underwhelming dance of the couple of figures who appeared from behind their doors to twirl monotonously to an automated carillion sound track. The crowds gathered to witness the second of its three daily shows. We could see it from our cafe seats. It was, like the market, over-sold. We headed off. It was time to climb the hill.

The guide books say that there are four ways to get up to the fortress, and five ways to get down. We eschewed bus, funnicular railway and lift and schlepped up the switch backs through the park to reach the top of the hill on foot, giving us amazing views of the city. The walk took us past the city’s beloved clock tower. This has been standing since 1300 and something and has three bells. One to strike the hours, one to alert for fire and one that rang to announce executions and the start of curfew. Another curiosity about it is that the clock’s minute hand is shorter than the hour hand. Originally it had only one long hand to indicate the hours and with the later addition of a minute hand it was decided to make this shorter, rather than replace the hour hand too. I know. Fascinating.

Having appretiated the view from all sides of the top of the fortress we began our descent….by the fifth method. Some genius had decided to blast a shaft through the rock hill upon which the fortress perched and now there is a 175m slide that descends 64m with multiple steep corkscrews and a couple of near vertical drops giving a 40 second ride enough to make a middle aged woman scream like a child. What a completely random and brilliant way to extract money from people! Graz also has a funky modern constructions,

like this photogenic footbridge-come-cafe-come-exhibition-come-performance space, and the Kunsthaus, nicknamed ‘The Friendly Alien’, an example of ‘blob architecture’.(No, never heard that term before either, but quite descriptive.) Built for the City of Culture celebrations in 2003, it is an exhibition space and art gallery and difficult to get a good photo of from up close, so I have copied one from the interweb for your perusal.

Our afternoon in Graz was coming to an end, but before we jumped back on the bus we popped into a local produce shop to purchase a bottle of one of the local delicacies, pumpkin seed oil. This is a new product to me but I am a complete convert. It looks brown, but is actually a very intense dark green and it can be drizzled over just about any other savoury food stuff to enhance it. Can recommend.

Overnight the weather turned to Custard. Capital C justified. Storm Boris was coming our way and we had a decision to make – where to sit it out. There was no point paying for a more expensive campsite if we were just holed up inside and we needed to get a bit further south-west along the road towards Italy without getting caught in the mountains. A seemingly suitable spot was picked and we headed to it, through the torrential rain. It was a small leisure lake on the outskirts of a town called Sankt Andrä in Wolfsburg, Carinthia, in the foothills of the Koralpe mountain range. This had a few designated spaces for campers with electric plug ins and hot showers, all for the princely sum of €10 per night. The weather remained awful for 24 hours, with the view out of our window being of the swimming lake complete with slides, floating platforms, sun loungers, grassy beach area and ice cream kiosk, all turned cold, dark and grey under the relentless rain. A cruel taunt. Up until two days ago this place would have been swarming with locals and day trippers, swimming and frolicking in the lake, soaking up the sun on its shores. As it was the temperature had dropped from the mid twenties down to single figures necessitating the deployment of jumpers, jeans and thick socks, putting the camper heating on and having a blanket over the duvet on the bed.

The next day the rain stopped earlier than expected and we emerged from our tiny box of existance, blinking in the sunlight, to engage with the world again. The legs needed a stretch so we walked a loop along the nearby river, which was looking decidedly beefed up by the deluge and the biggest suprise was the sight of more than a dusting of snow on the tops of the nearby hills. I think we can safely say that summer is over. We had another night here, in relative splendid isolation and the next day we continued south-west and to our next country, Italy. Austria had been another unexpected delight. Italy has got some tough acts to follow

(Phew. Now rest!)