Marktl blog

This'll be another quick post since it's late and I want to get to bed...of course, I say that but I'll probably spend the next half an hour typing.

Friday morning we left Vienna for Salzburg, with a stopover in Linz to see some cousins. We had a great day with my Ota's cousin Joseph (who I've never met before), Tante Gitti & her husband Helli (I'm not sure if I spelled their names correctly), and Christian & Anita, who were here for Mark & Karen's wedding. Christian & Anita have a little girl, Valentina, who's about 10 months old and a doll.

Anyway, when we arrived Christian took us to Franz Joseph's Turm, a historic tower that gave us a great view of Linz, and told us all about this history of the city. After that we had a wonderful lunch a traditional restaurant for that part of Austria, and tried Most, which is cidar made out of apples & pears, and pretty much what that part of Austria drinks instead of beer or wine. Yum! We spent the rest of the afternoon doing a little more sightseeing and having Kaffee & Kuchen before getting on the train again. It was a lovely afternoon, and I'd post pictures but I don't think I got any with everyone in them.

We had a short trip from there to Salzburg, where we stayed in the Altstadt, the old part of the city. It's absolutely adorable, and sort of built into the side of the mountain. Many of the roads up are very narrow, and as a result, no tour buses are allowed into that part of the city. If groups want to stay in the hotels, they have to park their buses outside and walk in. I was lucky enough to find a good deal on a hotel inside, and much to my surprise, the room was not only cute, it was huge! The picture is below, but you can't see the extra day bed in there, plus there was a fairly large entryway and bathroom. Did I mention it was adorable?

After we checked in we walked around the Altstadt for a long time, looking for a traditional place to eat. I'd wanted to go to the Stiegl Keller, a very famous restaurant operated by the brewery, but we discovered it was only open from May to September. Instead, we found a place with very traditional food that also appeared to be full of locals. Trey had something neither of us had ever heard of - meat filled dumplings that were out of this world - and I had some kassler ham with Semmelknoedl. I love Semmelknoedl!

The next morning we went up to the Festung, the fortress at the very top of the mountain. Instead of taking the Festungs Bahn, the tram that goes up the mountain, we walked all the way up & back down. It was a little steeper than I remembered in parts but was great exercise and totally worth it. We stayed for about an hour to enjoy the view and take a picture of Godi's Brunne (her well), and then came back down. On the way to our next stop we had a great photo op...here's the Festung down below...

From there we had a nice walk over to the Stiegl brewery, something Trey had been looking forward to for a long time. Now, I've done a lot of brewery tours, but this was one of the coolest. As much as you learn on a tour with an actual tour guide, I think I'm enjoying all of the self-guided tours, as this one was, even more. The tour through the Brauwelt was laid out so that the first part took you through the building as if you were the beer being made. That was followed by the beer's recent history, comprised of what were some pretty neat marketing campaigns. The last part was the museum, which contained some beer-making artifacts dating back to the 1600s - Stiegl actually celebrated their 500th anniversary not too long ago.

After that it was on to tasting! Their "tasting room" is actually just their restaurant, which is open to the public and was obviously full of locals. There was a large group (the 3 tables behind me - I think I'm blocking the accordion player) who'd break into song every once in a while. It was too neat.

After our visit there we had a leisurly stroll back to our hotel to pick up the luggage before heading back to the train station & out to Marktl. I was a little worried that my family hadn't gotten my last e-mail that had our arrival time in it, but I knew how to get to their houses from the train station and remembered their being only a few minutes away. Not to worry however, because as the train pulled in we could see Onkel Sepp & Onkel Peter waiting for us. :-)

We had a nice quiet dinner at Onkel Sepp & Tante Susi's and talked the evening away. This afternoon we met the whole family for lunch at the local Gasthaus, followed by Kaffee & Kuchen at Susi's daughter Susi's haus, followed by a light dinner, and then back to Onkel Sepp & Tante Susi's for another long chat. I think Onkel Sepp would talk all night long if they let him, but I think Trey and I both are enjoying it. Last night we heard the story of how he and Tante Susi came to live in the United States, something I'd never heard before - now I have to go ask my Ota more about his own journey and about how he and my Oma met & all that.

My cousin Annemarie asked before we came if we wanted to do anything special while we were here, and I replied that we really just wanted to see everyone. This visit has really been perfect, but I hope no one thinks we're boring because we've mostly been sitting around talking!

Here's a picture of us from this evening...I'm sure we'll take more of them tomorrow but in this one none of us are crying, which I'm sure will happen as we're leaving.