luxemblog: Austrian Lakes Region

Summer in Luxembourg is beautiful but it's sorely lacking in places to swim. Having grown up near a lake and then living near the ocean I really miss having swimming options. We stayed in Europe most of the summer and by the time late August came around my body was feeling parched. So, after talking to my friend Mary, and seeing a really nice National Geographic article, we decided to visit the Austrian Lakes Region.

This region has gorgeous, crystal-clear waters surrounded by intensely-green hills, quaint villages, and of course dramatic mountains. While we were there it was a little bit cloudy so the mountains were not as visible, but the views were still pretty glorious.

We chose St Wofgansee (see = lake), seen below.

St Wolfgansee is "famous" for a love story which inspired an opera called "the White Horse Inn". It's about a wealthy woman who visits this inn every year and the innkeeper falls in love with her. She initially chooses the wrong man who betrays her but in the end she "sees" who is her true love and chooses the owner of the inn. They play the movie (black and white, from the 30's) on TV's 24 hrs a day in most of the hotels (including ours). It was camp at it's finest.

Some white horse knick-knacks which were popular in the town. I chose a small snow globe but now regret not getting a white horse.

Lebkuchen is the spice-gingerbread cookies which are popular in this area.

See that green? Isn't it lovely?

And the water looks like the Carribean! The only other lake which looks like this is Skaneateles Lake. Ok, I'm biased, but Skaneateles Lake DOES look like this, even though I'm sure there are many others that do as well.

We decided to take a boat tour. They serve really big beers on this tour, and the specialty is a weiss beer (which I love).

Can you see the fish?

A few of the hotels had diving boards off their backyards into the lake.

There was a wedding party on this boat.

A lakeside fish fry.

This is what you might find on the menu here. SUPER fresh fish fried up with some boiled potatoes and a light cream sauce. YUM.

You might also find some portraits of Austrian royalty of days past on the walls. Forgot who these two are.

Bright flower plantings and robust and charming architecture were everywhere.

My first real, alive edelweiss.

Lots of cuckoo clocks of course

and a gorgeous and moody church

And those felt hats with the brush thing on them were everywhere too.

You could buy one to take home too! Doesn't Dave look dapper?

So, let's talk about the dirndl. This is a traditional dress of Bavaria and Austria. All of the waitresses wore them and at first i thought "oh, they are really playing up to the tourists". But then I noticed many women wore them, as they walked around the streets, shopping, going to church, hanging with their families. And the men wore lederhosen. YES, it's normal for them to wear lederhosen, at least for special occasions. I found myself looking at dirndls and wondering which color i would get, which neckline and sleeve length would be most flattering. Then I realized that I was losing perspective and that wearing a dirndl anywhere else but this region might look kind of strange, at least on me.

Which color dirndl would you buy for yourself? Maybe there is a personality test based on color choice of dirndls. Red dirndl means you are passionate, blue means you are spiritual, green means you are easy going, etc. ha ha ha...

Some examples of everyday wearing of traditional Austrian clothing:

One day we took a hike into the hills behind our hotel. Immediately we had spectacular views of the lake and mountains and close proximity to charming houses and farms.

The same boat we took, as seen from our hike.

This looked like a wild cyclamen. I have only seen cyclamen indoors, or in plantings in office parks in San Francisco. It was fascinating to see something resembling a cyclamen growing in the forest in Austria.