We were on our way to Germany but, during our time in Enzesfeld, Gerhard suggested we visit Scha:rdling in Upper Austria before crossing the border. Schardling is a small town close to the German border. We stopped there for supplies (Gru:ner Veltliner) and saw enough to warrant a return visit but it had been a long day driving almost the length of Austria and we still had to get to our campsite across the border in Kirchham bei Bad Fu:ssing.
We elected to leave Scharding for another day and crossed the border into Germany using the new(er) bridge to the north of the town. As we crossed the border we were astonished to see police checking vehicles for illegal immigrants. It seems illegal immigrants are as much an issue in Germany as in Britain. There was little delay and we reached our campsite within 25 minutes or so of leaving Scharding.
Scharding on the River Inn……St George’s Church from the new bridge
Camping Hotel Preishof in Kirchham bei Bad Fussing is a family owned concern focused more towards it’s hotel and spa facilities than anything but the owners were super friendly and the site itself has all the facilities you would expect of a good campsite; including a large, popular restaurant and live music to boot. We enjoyed some fine food on the terrace outside the restaurant and the easy listening German folk music was great. I have no hesitation in adding Camping Hotel Preishof to our list of recommended campsites and we’ll certainly use the site when returning to this area.
The restaurant-bar……and inside.The wellness suite…… and entrance.It’s bigger than you think…… and impressive.
Apologies. I said that I would be keeping these entries short until they are brought up to date. There was nothing short about that last blog but, to be fair, Sopron does have a lot about it. If anything, I’ve slipped further behind with this blog. Sorry. There are many reasons for this slip and they will become apparent as time goes on.
So, what’s to say? We’re on our way back home through Germany and the Netherlands but, on the way, decided to stop off and see our longstanding and dear friend, Gerhard, in Enzesfeld. Enzesfeld and the surrounding area have featured many times in this blog and, should you be interested, you need only enter Enzesfeld or Lower Austria into the website search engine for more information about the place.
We had a great time with Gerhard although most of our short stay was spent in his rear garden catching up: that is chatting and drinking a fair amount of the local Gruner Veltliner over an excellent BBQ. Having said that, I started to worry after learning how long the grass in his garden had grown during the few weeks he was away in Dubai on business. By the time Vanya and I get back to the UK, our gardens (mine in North Wales and hers in Sussex) will have been untended for the best part of 12 weeks. Now that is worrying.
This will be a short post because, after Loretto, we made our way to Rust am Neusiedlsee; a place we visited not so long ago. You need only refer to the Tour 6 blog on Rust to find out about Rust’s two most interesting buildings, the Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity and the Fischerkirche. I think I previously mentioned that, if you get your timings right, it is possible to climb up into the belfry of the Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity for some quite exceptional views over the city and across the lake. Well, once again our timings were out, as the church was closed. On this occasion I wasn’t too disappointed because the weather was awful and I doubt we’d have been able to see very much but; more to the point, we had returned to Rust to see some of the hundreds of Greylag Geese which wander the city at this time of the year and the 24 breeding pairs of white storks which nest above the city roofs at this time of the year.
What I perhaps didn’t mention previously is that, with a little over 1,900 inhabitants, Rust am Neusiedlsee is Austria’s smallest city (having been endowed with the rights of a Royal Free City by the Hungarian Crown in 1681) and that Rust is known as the City of Storks; on account of the many storks which breed on the city’s chimneys. The stork is close to the hearts of the people of Rust and are viewed as the city’s heraldic bird. They have nested in the city since the early 20th century but numbers dwindled until in 1965 there were only 3 nesting pairs. A stork club, dedicated to the conservation of the resident storks, was formed (the Ruster Storchenverein) and, good news, last year saw a record 86 young storks hatch in the city’s nests.
While the bad weather didn’t stop us in our pursuit of the storks and the geese, it did impinge on the city’s annual musical festival which was underway as we arrived. A grand tent sheltered us and the performing artists from the worst of the falling rain but the tent had been pitched on a slight slope and rainwater was streaming around our feet and on through the tent towards the lake.
We stopped and listened to a couple of bands complete their repertoire but, despite their best efforts, it was not a fun experience. It was simply too wet underfoot.
Eventually it stopped raining and began to brighten up but by then we had had enough…
…and we set off for dinner at the Oleander Heurige in Trausdorf an der Wulke, just outside Eisenstadt. The welcome was warm and the food was pretty good at the Oleander but it is more of a restaurant than a heurige.
We arrived in Loretto to meet with friends, Claire and Thomas, and would stay three or four days; visiting Loretto, the nearby city of Rust (we were there a couple of years ago) and Trausdorf an der Walke during that time.
The first day, however, was simply about chilling with our friends in the garden over one of the best barbecues ever – Dorade (Sea Bream), Sardines & Prawns were on the menu. And the drinks? We went through a bottle of Deveaux Champagne we’d bought in France, numerous glasses of the local (Burgenland) Chardonnay, a couple of really great Margaritas made by our host and half a bottle of a Single Malt Laphraoig.
The setting is perfect…… and the food is good.
Loretto is a tiny market town with fewer than 500 residents. It was elevated to town status in 1991 which, surely makes it the smallest market town in Austria and yet; it’s Basilica, the Basilika Maria Loretto, attracts 100,000 pilgrims every year and at least 20,000 on one day in August (Assumption Day). Imagine trying to park your car in the town on that day. The Basilica grew from a simple chapel in 1659 to become a Servite Monastery and thereafter a Papal Basilica. The monks departed years ago but they left their cherry orchard intact and we spent much of our second day in Loretto first wandering the Basilica and then collecting cherries from the large orchard.
Basilika Maria LorettoLooking towards the altar…… and looking back.The back of the BasilicaPart of the orchard.And they tasted good.
Just a little history about the church – The 1659 chapel was built soon after a miracle was recorded in Loretto. It seems the house of Mary (mother of Jesus) suddenly appeared in Loretto. I’m not convinced as to the veracity of that particular tale but the then Pope thought it true and; in 1997 Pope John Paul II awarded the church (the Church of the Immaculate Conception of Loretto to give it it’s full name) the title of ‘Papal Basilica Minor’. Whether you believe the supposed miracle or not, the interior of the Basilica is truly stunning and in the original church (around which the monastery was built) is a Black Madonna. I’ve only ever seen one of those before during our travels and I cannot recall precisely where (but I think it was somewhere in Spain).
The Black MadonnaOn the Common in front of the Basilica
Except for the Basilica, there’s little else to Loretto. It has a Heurige (a wine tavern), the Gasthof Graf (a local pub) and a bakery but that’s pretty much it exceptthat it sits at the heart of the beautiful Austrian Province of Burgenland.
In case you are unaware, Burgenland is the smallest and most easterly of Austria’s twelve Provinces. It is a narrow strip of land which extends along the entire border between Austria and Hungary. At it’s northern end, it borders Slovakia for a few kilometres and at it’s southern end it borders Slovenia. To it’s west are the two Austrian Provinces of Styria and Lower Austria. Austria’s capital city of Vienna, in Lower Austria, is only 30 miles from Loretto. Burgenland’s quite remarkable capital, Eisenstadt, is just 8 miles from Loretto and Rust am Neusiedlersee is just 16 miles away. Those three cities, Vienna, Eisenstadt and Rust figure among the most beautiful in Austria. And, before I forget, Burgenland is home to some of the finest wines in the country.
In the morning, weather permitting, we’ll visit Rust.
On our way to Italy after a great but all too short weekend in Enzesfeld, we paused for the night at the small town of Feistritz im Rosental in the Carinthian Region of Austria. Immediately upon arrival however I spent the afternoon walking the even smaller town (read ‘hamlet’ given it’s size) of Suetschach.
Surrounded by some beautiful hills Suetschach is a pretty little place (full of unusual metal art works and an amazing church). I have since read that Feistritz used to be part of Suetschach but it merged in 1973 with neighbouring Weizelsdorf and as a consequence later received market town status in it’s own right (1996). Suetschach is now considered a remote suburb of Feistritz.
Suetschach…… and neighbouring hillsCatholic Parish Church of St Lambert……and the view inside from the porch
The Parish Church in Suetschach was locked and I was unable to get beyond the front porch but what I could see from there was enough for me to want to go back for a proper look. There’s also an interesting chapel in the church grounds commemorating the area’s fallen in the two World Wars. What sets this particular chapel apart from others I have seen in Germany and Austria is that alongside the name of each person who fell is a photograph of the individual. I’ve never seen that before. It brings it all home.
Then, with the evening coming on and the hamlet’s sole pub closed for a late summer break, it was back to the campsite at Feistritz (Naturcamping Juritz) which even by Austrian / German standards proved to be first class. The facilities are all 5 star but it is the excellent restaurant which sets this campsite apart. Vanya wasn’t eating but I enjoyed a really good scampi dish and a fine Chardonnay. It was a shame we couldn’t stay longer but we’d arranged to meet some other friends in Italy and had to leave early the next morning.
The food in the Restaurant Juritz was seriously tasty; the wines were good and; the service was most attentive. There was a beautiful sunset which could have made for some great photo opportunities at the nearby lake lake but I wasn’t about to let such a good repast go to waste.
There also looked to be a wide range of hill walking opportunities in the area. Now that too is worth revisiting this campsite for but next stop Asolo in Italy.
It is always a pleasure returning to Enzesfeld to see longstanding friends the Familie Gedik. It is enough to enjoy the company of such friends but an added bonus to any visit is that we are invariably introduced by them to new and fascinating parts of Austria.
During this all too brief stay in Enzesfeld we revisited Baden bei Wien (and experienced for a second time in two years the annual international photography event, the Festival la Gacilly – Baden) and visited, for the first time, a heurige renowned as much for food as wine in the small town of Lichtenworth.
Die Dreifaltigkeitssaule (Baden)Street scene (Baden)
Baden bei Wien has featured in a number of my earlier blogs under the heading of Baden or Enzesfeld. Vanya and I visited the town last year, Tour 6, and enjoyed part of the 2022 Festival La Gacilly-Baden (the largest open air photo exhibition in Europe) and Gerhard and I were keen to see the 2023 Festival.
La Gacilly, a small town in Bretagne France (which incidentally is home to the large cosmetic firm Yves Rocher) has held an annual photography festival since 2004 but a few years ago the town agreed to change it’s format and collaborate with Baden to produce the ‘Festival La Gacilly-Baden’. The revised Festival, now in it’s 6th year, serves to showcase through contemporary photography, the beauty of nature and the need for it’s protection from deliberate or negligent human actions. Each exhibition is shown one year in La Gacilly and the next in Baden (with a little regional variation thrown in). This year’s festival in Baden amounted to a 7km long gallery around the town of 1,500+ large format photographs with a double focus (forgive the pun) towards the “Orient” and “Ecocide”. In truth it would have been more apt to use “Persia” as opposed to “Orient”since most of the artwork on display was submitted by photographers from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan (although there was some really thought provoking work created by a Kinshasa art collective).
Posters advertising this year’s Festivals in Austria (Orient) and France (Nature as Heritage). The French exhibition, featuring work by photographer’s from Brazil, Ivory Coast, Italy and the USA, will move to Austria next year and who knows what the theme for 2024 will be in La Gacilly.
Much of this year’s festival in Baden was displayed in the town’s Doblehoff Park and the adjoining Rosarium and that’s where Gerhard and I spent most of our time. The Park and Rosarium with it’s 900 different varieties of roses are worth a visit in their own right on a warm summer’s day but with the added incentive of photos by some of the world’s best photographers… the event was almost surreal.
Doblhoffpark CafeDoblhoffpark Orangerie
And the photographs… inspiring or what? I was particularly impressed by some of the art coming out of Kinshasa. I know Sarah Ndele created ‘Plastic Suit’ and it may well be that she did ‘Cigarette Butt’. Unfortunately, I misplaced what few notes I thought to make at the time and I’m writing this blog over a month after leaving Austria. I recall there were a series of photos by an artists collective in Kinshas which makes costumes from the city’s waste so as to draw attention to environmental pollution. They were striking.
Sarah Ndele’s ‘Plastic Suit’ (Kinshasa)‘Cigarette Butt Suit’ (Kinshasa)Shah Marai photo
Loved this photo by Shah Marai (Afghanistan)…
… and this by Ebrahim Noro. There were so many amazing photos.
And so to Lichtenworth, a small rather unexceptional town down near Wiener Neustadt, but it has a fine heurige serving good food (albeit very slowly) and even better wine although I was driving and had to limit myself to half a small mug of young wine – and we were there for almost 3 hours!
It’s Italy next but we’ll stop off in Carinthia on the way.
The next day we crossed the border into Austria. We purchased a Vignette* online to travel the motorways and drove directly to Melk. We’d visited Melk in 2018, a stop on a river cruise from Budapest to Passau, but we had only a few hours there. This time we parked up for the night at Emmersdorf on the left bank of the River Donau (the Danube) with a view to my walking over the nearby bridge to Melk for a better look at both the town and Melk Abbey.
Emmersdorf Pier and Melk Abbey A photo I took of Melk Abbey in 2018. The Abbey dominates the whole town.
There’s been a Benedictine Abbey at Melk since 1089 but the existing yellow coloured Baroque structure was constructed between 1702 and 1736. It was designed and built by the Austrian architect Jakob Prandtauer (who trained initially as a stonemason) but he never saw the finished article. He died in 1726. It’s a stunning building which appears more of a palace than an abbey but it is the oldest monastic school in Austria and is still home to 23 monks.
Melk Abbey – The Prelate’s Courtyard.
The abbey has two centrepieces; the church (with it’s many stone and wooden carvings and a breathtakingly beautiful ceiling) and the library complex (which with it’s 100,000+ books provided inspiration for Umberto Eco’s historical novel ‘The Name of the Rose’) but; the admission ticket also permits entrance into the former Imperial guest rooms (which house the Abbey Museum) and the large terrace & gardens and all are worth seeing. The pretty Garden Pavillion was being used as a small cafe – tearoom when we first visited the abbey. It may still be a cafe-tearoom but I didn’t visit it on this occasion. I fancied a pint down in the town.
The abbey as seen from the herb garden
Having explored the abbey and it’s gardens for an hour or so, I descended into the old town for a beer or two before commencing the 45 minute walk back across the river to Emmersdorf and the Van. Melk old town isn’t that large but it is worth a couple of hours of anybody’s time; with the elegant Pfarrkirche Maria Himmelfahrt, proving particulary captivating.
Street scene in old town MelkPfarrkirche Maria HimmelfahrtInside the Maria HimmelfahrtA total contrast to the Abbey Church but so elegant
A couple of other historical landmarks to be seen in Melk old town are the town square fountain (the Kolomanbrunnen with it’s statue of Saint Koloman) and the Old Post Office (built in 1792 with a series of medallions on it’s facade which are said to be representations of old postmasters).
There are a number of saints named Koloman or Colman and at least three of them came from Ireland. The Saint Koloman featured on the well in the main square of Melk is generally known as Saint Koloman of Stockerau. He was of Irish origin. He was a pilgrim and on his way to the Holy Land when in 1012 he was arrested, tortured and hanged in the town of Stockerau as a foreign spy. It seems he couldn’t speak German and was unable to explain himself. Two years after his death the authorities in Stockerau, possibly out of remorse, moved his relics to Melk Abbey where they remain to this day. The moral of this particular story is that it is perhaps helpful if you can speak a little German in this part of the world.
The Kolomanbrunnen FountainThe Old Post Office
Before I forget, let me write about “Kasekrainer”. Later that day, while Vanya and I were enjoying a few glasses of Gruner Veltliner at a small kiosk style fast food bar near our campsite in Emmersdorf, I got to talking with a chap who suggested I try the local sausage known as “Kasekrainer”. He told me that these thick, slightly smoked pork sausages, which contain between 10% and 20% Emmental cheese, are served with bread and either a sweet or a spicy mustard AND that the ones sold by the kiosk bar are the best in the area. It seems the sausages were created by a couple of Austrians in the 1960’s and are now Austria’s favourite fast food. I ordered two (one with the sweet sauce and one with the spicy sauce) and, yes, they are delicious. Never again will I pass through Austria without eating Kasekrainer.
As I wrote a few moments ago, “It is helpful if you can speak a little German in this part of the world”.
Kasekrainer – Ausgezeichnet!
* By the way, don’t buy Austrian Vignettes on line. They can be purchased at any garage at a considerably lower cost. The one we bought online was for 10 days and would cost about 9 Euros at a garage. Online, the price was literally doubled.
We were late getting away from Enzesfeld (we had to tear ourselves away) and we hadn’t really settled on our next destination. Zadar in Croatia appealed but at this time of the year (July and August), prices in Croatia are trebled and that kind of extortion never appeals.
We headed south and made it as far as Oberaich in Styria. We had found a small campsite in the back garden of a Gasthof – Gasthof Pickler – and decided to stay the one night. They were charging a reasonable price for the local beer and a very good Gruner Veltliner and the menu looked good.
It was late afternoon. That gave me time for a brief walk and a couple of beers before dinner. There is very little to Oberaich (other than a furniture store and a rather dilapidated Roman bridge) but, further along the road, up in the hills is another slightly larger hamlet known as Utschtal which provided nice views into the valley and, better still, has to be a serious contender for the village with the best kept gardens in Austria. Some of the gardens are stunning.
Views from UtschtalSome of the gardens were a riot of colour
And then it was back to Oberaich and the Gasthof Pickler for some beer and food. What a great find the GP was!
Our last visit to Enzesfeld, just a week ago, saw us catch up with our good friends, the Dedics, and take in trips to Eisenstadt, Rust and Baden bei Wien. This next visit was no less interesting with the added attraction that our daughter had arrived from the UK for the weekend.
A number of wine heuriges were now open and we took full advantage of that during this second 3 day visit. We also visited Hinterbruhl and the pretty little town of Gumpoldskirchen and the small village of Holles (all conveniently located in Lower Austria).
Starting with Enzesfeld itself; while Vanya disappeared into Vienna to meet up with Rohan, the rest of us (Clare, Alex and Niki – Gerhard was still in Abu Dhabi on business) took the dogs for a walk and then, joy of joys, we stumbled on a pick-nick (that’s German for a picnic, as if you couldn’t work that out) but this was subtly different. The Weingut Mayer in Enzesfeld had opened for business in their vineyards (as opposed to back in the town heurige) with a wine tasting picnic.
Vanya met Rohan in Vienna while we all enjoyed Meyer’s pick-nick…… but it wasn’t all easy, I had to dog-sit.
Hinterbruhl is a small village 12 miles south west of Vienna. Now, it is almost a part of Vienna. It is said that Franz Schubert wrote Lindenbaum in Hinterbruhl but there is no documentary evidence of that. More certain is that it is home to Europe’s largest known underground lake, the Seegrotte. The lake was formed in 1912 when a huge explosion rocked numerous caves which had been dug under the village in the mining of gypsum. The explosion released millions of gallons of water which flooded the lower caves and formed the lake.
Mining was immediately discontinued following the explosion but some of the upper tunnels and caves were reopened during WWII as a satellite camp for Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Engine parts were produced here for the fledgling lightweight (almost disposable) jet fighter know as the Spatz or, in English, the Sparrow (the Heinkel 162). There’s a memorial above ground for the concentration camp inmates here who were all murdered.
We took an informative guided tour through the cave system during our visit; walking the upper levels and being ferried around on a boat in the lower levels. At 15 euro per person it was quite pricy but I’m pleased we did it. Effective lighting throughout the lower levels of the caves made for some very pretty photos.
That’s Vanya, Rohan and I being ferried around the Seegrotte. We also learned on the guided tour that some scenes from The Three Musketeers were filmed in the Seegrotte
From Hinterbruhl we made the short journey to the delightful village of Gumpoldskirchen. This is for me the prettiest of the villages in the area surrounding Enzesfeld. Of course this view may have been influenced by the excellent wines we enjoyed in a local heurige during our visit but, even so, Gumpoldskirchen is very pretty.
Scenes from GumpoldskirchenThere’s always something special about wine tasting in a vineyard
The last place we visited during this stop in Enzesfeld was Holles. Holles was about the pleasant walk to and from the village from Enzesfeld and our stop in yet another heurige where we sampled Gruner Veltliner, Rivaner (a speciality of this particular heurige) and a Gelber Muskateller and; not forgetting the food, various local cheeses, smoked ham and Salzstangels (salted bread sticks).
And then it was back to Enzesfeld. Thanks so much, Clare; both for introducing us to these wonderful places and for being… Clare. See you soon, we hope!
We used the campsite at Markt St Martin purely as a stop over on our way back to Enzesfeld. The campsite was a total disappointment , especially at 44 Euro per night. Austria at peak season.
The only half decent aspect to the place was the small bar alongside the camp site. It has a swimming pond.
The food in the bar was poor but the setting was fine
An unusual and very clean natural pond converted into a beach and pool
There was little to see in the town (or is it a village) but, it being a Thursday afternoon, everything was closed anyway except for a kartoffeln heurige. Wine heuriges I have heard of; a potato heurige is new to me.
Even the local church was locked up. The only place open was the potato heurige.
On the way in to the village I came across another relatively intriguing feature namely, a fruit (and nut) tree circle. If you’ve lived in Scotland (or any other country where the Celts once settled) you will probably have seen a stone circle or two. Markt St Martin has substituted a stone circle with a much more practical fruit tree circle. Well, I think that is what is was.
Part of the fruit circle. The centre piece and a couple of trees.
You know something? I don’t think I have ever produced such a pointless (and boring) blog before. Back to Enzesfeld.
