Austrian Fresh Air

On the weekend of October 21-22, we made an overnight trip to Graz, Austria. This trip was arranged by Central College for us students studying here in Vienna, so all we had to do was pack our bags and enjoy the ride! What a way to travel. :-)


Saturday morning we were up bright and early to catch our train. The train ride there was in itself a pleasure. We traveled through the hillsides, in amongst the trees, all of which were changing colors. It was a gorgeous sight. Upon arrival in Graz, we found our hostel and unloaded our bags. After we grabbed some lunch, we made our way to the Tourist Information office, where we met our guide for the day’s tour.


We joined a larger group of people and all hopped onto a bus. The tour was designed to last about 5 hours long, but I think that we might have gone over that even. The bus took us out into the country-side of Graz where the hillsides are covered in vineyards. Again, I must draw your attention to the time of year it was, and say how beautiful the leaves were! We made two stops during this tour. The first was at a castle, which had been renovated, so there was modern architecture mixed with the old. At this castle is still the original wine cellar. Our group was able to participate in a wine-tasting in the cellar where we were explained how to properly taste wine and what to look for in a “good” wine. From the back of the castle, there was a beautiful view of the surrounding landscape, including a lake, which you can see in the photos.


Next stop on the tour was at a Buschenschank, which is where local wine-makers open up their houses or little café that they have and allow visitors in to sample their wine. Our wine-tasting venture included a “snack.” This “snack” consisted of two slices of bread with about 2 inches of various meats and cheeses layered on top, with horse radish shaved to look like shredded cheese topping it off. If you were expecting cheese when you put that in your mouth, you’d be in for a real shock. After the meat and cheese, a basket of bread was brought out with a small bowl of pumpkin seed oil. The region is known for its pumpkin seed oil. In order to make one liter of the oil, a person would need the seeds of 40-50 pumpkins. We went by several pumpkin farms, where you could see the rinds of the pumpkins just lying in the fields. When the pumpkins are ready, the people just harvest the seeds directly from the pumpkins and leave the rinds in the fields, which serves as fertilizer for the next year. The oil itself is deep green in color, and they say that if it gets on your clothing, tablecloth, or anything that you will NOT be able to wash it out. However, if you leave it in sun for an hour or so, the stain should disappear on its own. I haven’t tried it out yet, as I didn’t get any stains, but I’d like to experiment with that one. I purchased a small bottle to share with my family when they get here. The oil doesn’t taste anything like pumpkin seeds, rather a little nutty. The third course of our “snack” was then a Buchteln, which is a sweet roll with apricot filling. Ours were dusted with powdered sugar, but I was told that the traditional ones will be served with a warm, white, sweet sauce. I haven’t found it in Vienna yet, but I’m keeping my eyes open. :-)


The Buschenschank was located at the top of a hill in the middle of the all the vineyards. We had fresh air, wonderful company, great food, fabulous wine, and an animated accordion player serenading us all evening long. It would have been tough to have made the evening much better. :-)


On Sunday we were able to sleep in a bit, as our city tour wasn’t until mid-morning. Our tour guide was delightful and eager to answer all of our questions and make sure that we got our time’s worth out of Graz while we were there. That afternoon we were given free time to explore the city on our own, and so I made my way up to the top of the mountain with a few other students. The weather was perfect and we had a gorgeous view of the city from the top.


So many of the trees were changing colors, it was as though someone had come along and painted them on the landscape. My favorite was a bright orange tree at the top of the mountain. The leaves with the cerulean blue sky backdrop really captured the season for me.


The tour guide took us into a tower which housed a double-spiral staircase. How does that work, you might ask? Well, they spiraled in opposite directions, directly beside each other. They separated as they went to the outer part of the tower, but joined in the middle. We were told that it represented life/marriage, etc. where you go apart, but then come together in a circular fashion. It was a very cool design. And it was also built so that after about two spirals up, no columns were needed for support the rest of the way up. This means that one could take a picture looking up where the column should be and end up with a seashell-looking photo. It was just a little something extra that we wouldn’t have noticed wandering around on our own. The only way we would have found it was if we’d been told about it before-hand.


The weekend was completely stress-free for me, and I came back really refreshed. Being a country girl, I get recharged when I’m able to get some fresh air and step away from the concrete for a while. You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl. :-)

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