In case you are wondering, the cure for all that ails you is a weekend in the Alps.
This past weekend Margaret and I spent a magical weekend in the rural alps along the Steiermark/Oberösterreich border.
The House:
As you can see, we arrived in Bad Aussee to the most picturesque house you can imagine. It was so warm and homey--just exactly what two girls tired of the city needed. Monika came to pick us up from the train station and we immediately went home to make delicious curry for dinner. The house smelled exactly like Grandma Wallig's house with that warm wood scent. We loved the ceramic stove keeping the whole place warm and everything was just the perfect size of not too big but not too cramped.
Our Hosts:
Monika taught Margaret and I our first words of German during our three week intensive German course. Michael is a retired Vicar in the Evangelisch (Lutheran) church. He is originally from Northern Germany. He and Monika met after she had left her first husband and was raising four kids all on her own! They fell in love and made quite a stir! Of course, Monika takes this in stride now--she's such a mischief maker she probably took it in stride then too!
Me outside in the backyard on Saturday morning:
On Saturday us girls drove around the mountains into Upper Austria to where the Hapsburg emperors used to vacation. Our first stop was Hallstatt the site of many artifacts from an acient civilization made rich on salt. The whole area is called the Salzkammergut and everywhere are markers of the old salt trade. Now the town is small and meant as a quiet vacation spot complete with newly renovated hotel. The churches were the most fascinating part of the trip. We climbed up a number of steps to the Catholic church and looked around.
The beginning of the long ascent:
Graves at the top of the climb:
As you can see, ground these days is fairly scarce. The town is squeezed between a fairly sheer mountain and a lake so the graves are very small. Monika hauled us all the way up here to show us the one thing we will never see anywhere else: a skull crypt. Since there is so little room, many people opt to be placed in a small crypt. The bodies are buried for ten years and then exhumed. The skulls are then blessed and painted intricately with symbols from the person's life and their name. I have a hard time taking pictures of burial places (as you can see by the poor nature of this photo, I could only bring myself to take one) so I don't have a photo of my own. However there is a website with some photos and more information
here.
A mountain stream rerouted throughout the whole little town:
The nice thing about being so high up is we had a beautiful view of the rest of the city, lake, and protestant church:
We spent the rest of the day exploring the area and enjoying the scenery. We even had time to run back home and walk Kyara, the dog around the Toplitzsee. The Toplitzsee is famous for being a very deep lake where the first 60 m is sweet water and the last 125 m is salt! The Nazi's supposedly buried treasure here and sure enough, in the 80's they found gold and false English bank notes! In '87 they also dug up a whole box of bottle caps a men's club had buried as a prank! The authorities weren't too happy but they apparently thought it was funny enough to hang the box in the restaurant by the lake.
Margart by the Toplitzsee:
Also around this lake is where the Archduke Johann met and fell in love with the Postmaster's daughter Anna Polchl whom he was unable to marry until his Hapsburg brother finally conceded 15 years later.
After a quiet evening making Potato Goulash and watching
Keeping Up Appearances we woke up the next morning for Sunday Mass. It was so much fun to see Monika interact with all her local friends. She's so funny and obviously the life of any conversation. I want to be her when I grow up! We had a weekend full of her stories. She lived in England for a couple years, has traveled all over the world, and now spends part of her time giving Cambridge Exams and travelling with her church ladies. I hope I have half of her energy when I'm that age and just as many stories to tell!
After a lovely morning at the coffee shop with Michael we headed to grab lunch. On our way home, we had a surprise. Michael is the Chancellor for his chapter of a men's club started in Prague a couple hundred years ago. Everything is discussed with whit and humor except Politics, Family, and Religion. As Monika put it, it's a place for older men to go play like boys. It sounded like a great time to me! After hearing about this club all weekend, Michael took us in and showed us around! It was so funny and wonderful! It really felt like being part of the family being able to experience something so few people from the rest of the world have seen!
Michael in his official hat and Monika being goofy in a borrow apprentice cap:
Unfortunately, after our adventures into the club it was time to head back to Vienna. We said farewell to Monika and Michael, petted the cats and dog, and headed off on the train. Our perfect weekend in the countryside was over.
However, before all seems lost, Monika will be coming over for dinner tonight since she had errands in town to run! Margaret is cooking up delicious food and I'm bring dessert so we can have another lovely evening of talk, food, and fun! I am really looking forward to a chance to hear even more funny stories.
Happy Alps-ing!
Yea, I might have skied down that. :D
And I might have been a little happy about it.
Look how pretty it is!!! I am not even lying, it was glittering. We got up top and we thought we had walked into a craft store.
Ready to take our last run down the slopes. But what a fabulous weekend it was!
