Sunday In Caranthia

A sunny day. At first.

Had a leisurely morning, part of it spent communing with one of the coolest cats in the world.

Herr Spring, whose purr if left unattended could trigger earthquakes

Early in the afternoon we headed out for Hochosterwitz Castle, about 30 minutes away by car.

Castles? You want castles? You can't swing a dead Austrian cat without hitting a castle, but this one is pretty impressive.

 Your goal: with no air power or modern weapons, get through the 14 (!) gates

on the very steep road leading up to this castle. Good fucking luck.

This castle evidently still belongs to descendants of whoever eventually connived to get it, way back when (behind every great fortune, there's an enormous crime of some kind or another) but part of it is open to the tourists and it's worth taking the walk (for the lazy or infirm, there's a mechanized thing that'll get you up there.)

There's a tremendous view of the surrounding Carinthian countryside from up there, but it's also noteworthy to consider how well defended the castle is. As you walk along through the (now open) gates, you get an idea of the problem: invaders would have to get through all the gates, each of which was well defended in and of itself---sometimes with a drawbridge, always walled with places for archers and/or guys who could throw stuff off, like big rocks or boiling liquids.

Imagine being the first group of guys at the first gate, down on the bottom. No way you'd survive long enough to get through the final gate to enjoy whatever raping and pillaging might be in store for you. In fact, no one ever took this castle or even really tried too hard. Evidently the expression "Fuck this shit!" was as common in Ye Olden Times as it is today.

If the defenders withdraw the bridge, then what?
While you're figuring that out, think about the next 13 gates.

This view from near the top doesn't even move the needle on the Suck Meter.

Up at the top, there's the obiligatory souviner shop, a restaurant, a museum, and an art gallery.

The art gallery is in a kind of dungeon-like setting. You walk down a flight of stairs. It's quiet and cool in there. The paintings hang on the rock walls with a bit of light to illuminate them. Dirt floors. Some of the paintings, by artist Rafael Ramirez Maro, were pretty good but I can't imagine the dude allowing his work to be shown in this setting. The lighting sucked.

The museum was interesting---lots of weapons and armor, including a suit of armor for some giant of a guy 7' 4" tall. They had the armor on a mannequin and you could see how huge the guy was even by today's standards, but especially when compared to the runts they had back then, when most of these guys were no taller than Moe Howard of the Three Stooges. Still, big or not, an arrow in the head would ruin your day.

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We drove back to town. B wanted to take a swim in the lake, now that the sun had finally come out. At the lake, B started talking to a woman who was coming out of the water (in German of course) and I just assumed she was asking about the water. I went about my business, taking pictures. Then I sat down to watch the sailboats. The woman came up to me and said hello and only then did I realize it was Margot, who had been out for a swim herself. It was kind of embarrassing not to recognize her, but if you've only known someone for a day, they look different in a swim suit and wet hair.

It started getting really cloudy so B only swam for fifteen minutes or so then we went back to the house. Shortly after this, the sky opened up---it was a real thunderstorm, sudden and violent. We shut all the windows and watched it rain like hell. 

And a few minutes after that, the sun came out---while it was still raining. Franz said: "They say that's a sign the devil is beating his wife."

Or maybe it's vice versa.

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After the rain stopped Franz, Margot, B, and I drove about a mile up a winding road to a hilltop restaurant, where we met Monika and Wolfgang for dinner. I got this shot from the parking lot, looking down on Reifnitz.

Though it doesn't show, this was actually a double rainbow.

Click to enlarge and you can see a bit of the lake at the extreme left over the tree tops.

There was a wedding reception going on in the other side of the restaurant. Some of the music was kind of traditional, and some of it was EuroPop from...whenever. Stuff I never heard before, because there seemed to be an unwritten rule in American radio since it began: If a song ain't in English, don't play it! I guess they were afraid no one would like the song if they couldn't understand the words, which seems kind of odd when you consider the fact that the lyrics to most pop songs are so insipid and banal that you kind of wish you couldn't understand them.

But it sounded like they were having a good time in there, after the wedding.

I snuck this photo of some of the wedding celebrants

A good dinner together, and then down the hill to home and a good night's sleep.

Saturday In Carinthia

Franz, our buddy, moved to Carinthia early this year to be with his girlfriend Margot. One of the reasons we were visiting was to meet Margot and enjoy spending time with her and Franz.

Franz and Margot are getting married in October. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend---I'll be back in the States. But it's interesting watching these two plan for their life together. Franz tells me this life in a small town is what he's wanted for a long time. A lifelong Vienna native, he's ready to shift gears and move into a quieter and more rewarding life.

Margot is a very nice lady. She has her own massage therapy practice, and also helps her patients with nutritional suggestions, etc. She's a great cook (more on that later) who likes to use fresh, organic ingredients.

 Margot's kitchen

Margot is great---easygoing, intelligent, pleasant, and she has a great sense of humor. Several times I told Franz, referring to his relationship with Margot: "You did good, my Austrian brother from another mother!"

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B's family visited Carinthia several times during her childhood. They used to stay on the Keutschacher See, a small lake in this region of nice lakes.

Saturday morning, B wanted to see if she could find the place where they used to stay, and the beach where she swam. The problem is, it's been decades and the place has really changed in the meantime.

We walked along the path that parallels the lake. The weather was better than Friday but still cloudy. We searched and searched but B found no reliable landmarks. "Maybe if we go on the other side and you look back to this shore," I told her.

"We never went over there; that was the nude beach."

But finally she thought she found the place. She took pictures, hoping to compare them with whatever old vacation pics her father may have at home.

We had lunch at a lakeside place. Pretty empty...the weather wasn't threatening but it wasn't optimal, either. I watched the ducks swimming. Those bastards have it made, I thought. Swimming around all day and quacking.

On the other hand, my situation wasn't sucking either.

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We took a drive to Maria Wörth. It's a little town on the famous / touristy Wörthersee, one of Austria's premier lake destinations. It being Saturday, with only a chance of rain, the place was kind of crowded with people looking to see the church there. And you could see the exterior no problem but there was a wedding going on inside, so we stayed out. Just as well. I haven't seen 1/10 of 1% of the churches in Austria, but that's probably more than enough for me. Especially the interiors, which are often so elaborate with decorations, statues, gold, etc. that it looks like an army of pimps exploded in there and got stuck to the walls.

The lake is beautiful, which provides the usual blessing / curse dichotomy: it's a great place to be, but everyone else thinks so, too, so they descend. Fortunately (maybe) the weather forecast kept some of the people at bay, but there were still a few too many of the thronging masses, huddled around the souvenir stands, for my taste. We drove back to the house.

 On a sunny day, it's really beautiful

Franz's sister and her boyfriend happened to be in town on vacation. They were there when we got back. Monika and Wolfgang are Viennese but like a lot of Austrians they enjoy outdoor activities----B and W later spent some time in conversation, comparing stories of skiing and ski destinations.

Wolfgang told me one of his friends is a Civil War Re-enactor.

"Ah, he's American?"

"No, he's Austrian---they do the re-enactments here."

WTF?! As if it's not weird enough that Americans like to dress up and pretend to fight the Civil War again, now the Austrians are getting in on it, too? Uh, yes. Yes they are. Photos from their website here.

While we jabbered, Margot was preparing dinner. I went into the kitchen to check things out and ended up slicing some onions for her. What she was making looked really good---put some olive oil in the bottom of a baking dish, put in a cut-up chicken, lay a couple of sliced onions on top, then add some rosemary sprigs. The last ingredient I didn't know, but it looked like diced tomatoes. Bake it until the chicken is done.

She served this with salad, rice, and an avocado soup. The soup was really good---I think just a clear broth with some avocado slices and maybe a bit of onion or garlic in it.

Wonderful dinner with Franz, Margot, Wolfgang, and Monika

 

After dinner we just sat at the table drinking wine, and eventually schnapps, and conversing. We must have sat there three or four hours, including dinner. How often does anyone do this anymore? And even though I can't understand 90% of the German I hear, I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Me being the amateur sociologist, and sitting at a table with four native Viennese (Margot is a native Carinthian) I asked: "What's better now about Vienna, and what's worse?"

Everyone agreed the public transportation is a lot better than it was back in the day. As for what's worse, it's all the extra traffic now, compared to 30 or 40 years ago.

Also mentioned, though not necessarily "good" or "bad," was: 1) The sheer number of foreigners living in Vienna now---Wolfgang said in his district, the 10th, there were no foreign-born students in his classes when he was growing up. Now, he said, if you visit his old school, there might be one or two native-born Austrians in each class. 2) Kids used to play in the street. This is a two-edged sword---it's more dangerous, especially now with all the traffic, but kids were outside playing. Now they're inside playing video games or sitting on their asses, or in some insane "organized activity."

For hundreds of thousands of years of human development, kids just played outside. Now they have to go through some kind of fucking program in order to "grow" and "learn."

I think the party broke up about 12:30 or so. We slept well.