Lothar spent part of his growing up in Austria, and all of his brothers and sisters are there. It was awesome going together and for me to finally meet everyone who I’d seen only on video calls. Oh, and it was us and Zoë too!
The trip there was somewhat eventful. Mask wearing is still a thing for travel. Our BA flight got delayed by 3 hours. When landing in London, we circled around for a while. It’s hilarious to see that on the flight tracker. LOL
The flight from London to Vienna was delayed as well, so we still made the connection and got our bags too! Once there, we had dinner and made it to bed time.
Vienna
We stayed at Lothar’s sister Helen’s apartment since she was staying with a friend for most of the time we were there. They did come back part of the time, and we squeezed everyone in those days.
It was an F1 race weekend, and we managed to stream and watch the race too!
When we weren’t sightseeing, we played lots of VR with the kids, having brought our Quest 2 headsets with us for just that. We showed them Zenith. Clara liked the essence mage (which I play) and Phillip liked the blade master (which Lothar plays), so it worked out perfectly. Phillip even drew a picture of himself, playing the blade master and fighting a large enemy.
During the days when Helen and her partner were available, we all did sightseeing together.
Helen is vegan, so lunch was at a vegan place. There were some nice bowls, but I think we both would have rather had some nice deli meats and cheeses, or local specialities like schnitzel.
In the evening, we went to Prater amusement park. Highlights were the 5 loop roller coaster, dark indoor coaster with mirror maze, and the Sau roller coaster. The wild Mouse was crazy rough though. Roller coasters are always my favourite but that last 5 loop one was the best roller coaster I’ve been on, and that’s saying a lot!
A guy got arrested from the Siamese swings ride while we were standing right there in line. He had a gun on him, which was confiscated!
Had that sausage with the cheese in it and the mustard. Chri got a garlic flat bread that was awesome. Then had the potato bash brown pancake thing with garlic sauce on top. Dragon breath in the morning. LOL
The rest of the time, we went sightseeing on our own. Lots of lovely places and views including a lovely pedestrian-only shopping street. For food, we went to a burrito bowl place and also had some awesome caramel crunch ice cream.
Vienna Aquarium!
The aquarium is where we bought these little eggs that “hatch” as gifts for Phillip and Clara. Phillip did his on his own. We put Clara’s in water at the family reunion since she wanted to do it together, and watched it grow into a little frog and sent her pictures (it took a few days)!
At an outdoor food court, I had pork belly with crackling and mushroom salad with a mix of small local mushrooms. Yess!
This is the castle gardens. You start in front of the castle, then the gardens, walking paths, ponds and the restaurant are all behind.
Lots of walking on the paths around the gardens.
At the end of the gardens, we had some dessert and drinks at the little cafe there. I got the big ice cream. LOL Kidding of course, I had mango cake and lemon raspberry juice. There were wasps everywhere we ate outdoors! But we got used to it after a while.
Later in the evening, we walked through Vienna, and ended in the Bermuda Triangle (!!) district at “Krah, Krah” restaurant, where we enjoyed a lovely street atmosphere and amazing Schnitzel! Finally!! Oh and of course Austrian potato salad. Yummm!
Train to Countryside
Next we headed to the countryside to Helen’s partner Chri’s parents’ farm, where we stayed and had a little electric Mini to drive around even! We had a lovely train ride there.
Chri’s Mom picked us up at the station, and hosted us at their place for dinner that first day. What wonderful people, and what wonderful food! It was NOT vegan. 🙂
Ratchendorf and Countryside
There was a girl staying upstairs who was working for the summer at a neighbouring farm. She had a couple of huge pet snails in a terrarium, and let us hold them!
The farm was large, and Zoë drove around on a Tuk Tuk little 3-wheeler electric vehicle. Loads of fun! There were tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, raspberries and blackberries to pick. I really loved the tomatoes with kernol (pumpkin seed oil). Yumm! In the area, there’s a little tourist spot where they actually have Camels!
Slovenia for Dinner
Lothar’s step mom and husband (Anne-Marie and Ian) came over, and we all drove to Slovenia, as the border is really close by. Lothar’s sister Moira and her boys James and William joined us too. I had chevaps (!!) with lots of onions and lepinja bread hot from the oven. It was perfect! The bread was so fresh it was too hot to touch at first!
Bad Radkersburg
After dinner, we went to Bad Radkersburg, where they have their evening festival, much like Harbour Nights here in Bermuda. No, it’s not a Bad town, it just means “bath” – it’s a natural spring spa town. Burg = small town (vs. Berg, which is Castle).
This was when I took a picture of the perfect half-moon, but in the photo it turned out like a perfect full moon! How??? I promise. It was a HALF moon!
Mur Tower
Lothar and I went to the Mur river and tower. The Mur river runs through a lot of places around where we’re staying. The tower has a cool design, and we enjoyed a nice walk, climb, and views!
Gunther’s Cottage at Heimschuh
I finally met Lothar’s brother Gunther, and family! We’ve been on video calls many times, and enjoy Formula 1 banter and predictions. We went to their cute cottage in the country. The brothers tinkered with a record player to try to get it to play a Rodriguez record louder, but it wasn’t cooperating. LOL
We went walking up the hill nearby where there’s a restored Celticwood fort / lookout. And yes, it’s a great lookout!
Then back down the hill for a lovely dinner all together near the bottom. I had their amazing breaded chicken that lasted me several days as leftovers back at the farm. Yey, protein!
Family Reunion Party
In honour of Lothar visiting, and with Zoë and his new girl, me, the family arranged to all come together at the farm. And everyone came!! All 7 siblings where there together with partners, and kids. It was amazing meeting everyone!
Of course we took a lot of group photos. Just like at weddings where you run through all the different combos of people. I made it into a few of them too!
There was even a bit of VR playing, just between us kids. 🙂 Some playing, some watching.
Ruegursburg Castle
Emil and Elizabeth came with us. We took a sloped elevator up the side of the hill rather than walking all the way up.
We toured the inside of the castle, and saw a very interesting Witch exhibit.
We had fun taking some pictures outside the castle too. I love the dragon one, with Lothar as the fearless knight fighting the dragon, and Emil as the princess in peril!!
They also had a Birds of Prey show, where we saw falcons, hawks, buzzards and owls do impressive fly-bys. One of the handlers got scratched by accident. The birds enjoyed doing low swoops over our heads. It was impressive!
And then finally, back down. Driving around the countryside is just lovely, with so many instances of “little town on a hill”. Just beautiful to see.
Graz
We met Lothar’s friend Igor at a nice restaurant in a big department store. I had a nice big schnitzell.
We walked around the town a lot, and went inside a couple of churches too.
We went up to Graz castle. It’s a nice winding path up to the top with the iconic clock tower. Half way up both of us had to find a toilet quick! LOL Something we ate I guess. At the top, we sat down at the café, and I had a sachretorte – a local must-have.
Lothar did a Zoë pose imitation picture on this metal platform where Zoë stood just like that in a photo from many years before. We made sure we got the same angle, distance, background, foot position, everything. Sweet! There was also a Metal on the Hill concert the same day we were there. What a coincidence! I would have loved it, but we didn’t go because it’s more of an all day thing and I only recognized 2 bands across both days.
Down by the river where there’s a neat ‘island’ cafe right out in the middle of the water.
Someone has a Red Bull racing car hung up on the cliff wall!! Austria is their home race after all.
View from inside the Modern Art gallery, and some more walking around. Hey, Oh my god, it’s the Oh My Dog food truck!! LOL
Visiting some more of Lothar’s old friends in the country.
Wine Country
We drove along the winery street. Literally, all the wineries are along this one road. We found a really nice quaint bouchenshank. Many were very modernized, and all glass and tall metal pillars, but the one we found really had a nice vibe and terriffic view. It was raining but it didn’t matter because we had a table outside under the veranda. I had their Moscato white wine, and bread board with the pork fat spread and delicious dried house sausage. Lothar had a cheese and bread board. It was a real highlight!
New Glasses!
Lothar has an optometrist friend. He’s really thorough, and uses a much more advanced measuring and fitting system. There were at least 2 additional parameters per eye, distinct measured prescriptions for near and far, and diopter precision down to .01 (vs. the nearest .25 that we usually get). He was able to fit me in, and we picked up the new glasses a few days later! We also went for a walk in a nature reserve nearby.
Family Lunch
We were able to get most of the family together again for a lunch at Deli! The food was great.
Family Dinner
This time at Gunther’s home rather than cottage. Had a great dinner with bread, guac, hams, eggs, cheeses and stir fried zucchini. We rewatched a great summary of the final F1 race of 2021 where Verstappen won the world championship from Hamilton. Then we played board games, including the stacking camels game, and some of Gunther’s own games that he designs.
I’ve never seen a family with 3 kids so organized! Everyone has their own mini-closet, storage bins for misc items, and posted schedule. Wow!
Go Kart Racing!
Gunther booked us in for a little race day at the track – just for our group.
We ran a 10 minute qualifying round, then lined up in our grid positions. We raced for 20 minutes. There were several yellow flags. LoL I passed 2 right away, then took several laps to pass Zoë. After that was Chri, and I couldn’t catch him. I finished 7th out of 11, so that’s pretty good, I think!
Gunther, Lothar and Wolfie had the podium, Elizabeth had it but was crushed when she crashed in the very last lap!! Such a great time!
And lunch at the track restaurant afterward. Everyone had such a great time!
Later we went to visit where Gunther goes gliding.
Around the farm
Helen and her friend joined us at the farm. Then the kids joined because their grandma had Covid. We all went to Murek, walked around a park and had lunch at a restaurant right on the river. I had some nice fried fish with potato salad. They we got some ice creams from the Bio food store. Mine was caramel of course.
Train back to Vienna
Well, we’re reaching the end, and catching the train back to Vienna. There, we visit with another friend of Lothar’s.
A bit more last-day sightseeing around Vienna where we walked and shopped in the afternoon, and stayed at the Hilton.
We found a lovely restaurant in the evening with another excellent schnitzel to finish off our trip.
