Linda and I have been friends for most of our adult lives. Our mutual travel experiences included a long ago Alberta camping weekend with our husbands, a few blissful Kingfisher spa weekend getaways on Vancouver Island and several jaunts to our little bit of heaven in the desert city of La Quinta in the Santa Rosa Mountains of California. Austria is our first venture together to Europe.

Exploring Linda’s birth country of Austria together is new territory for our friendship. Despite having undergone two major surgeries in recent history, Linda is a trooper so onward and upward .. we charged forward, hopping a train to Kapfenberg a few days after our Vienna arrival (ok, a more accurate description might be that we scrambled aboard, hoping we got in before the doors closed behind us 😂😂!!) Linda was born in this charming little town of Kapfenberg. Sharing the experience with her and meeting her extended family has been a delightfully heart warming joy I had not anticipated. What a fun weekend getting to know her first and second cousins and their families … Gerti, Erwin, Olivia, Christian, Felix, Rudolf, Elizabeth, Larissa, Vanessa and of course her Auntie Martha!

Felix shows us an edible seed reminiscent of a sesame seed, inside a local flower.

At Rudolf and Elizabeth’s home we were introduced to some local treats … tasty liver pates and bacon fat spreads on my favourite kinds of breads … wholesome dark, seed heavy Austrian bread, (surprisingly delicious spread, despite my first rather reticent reaction to a spread made with bacon fat!!), roasted chestnuts wrapped in newsprint to keep them warm, making for easier peeling … so delicious, as was sampling the local sturm wine! For a very brief period, from the end of September to mid October it is Sturmzeit in Austria. This is the only time of year the drink called Sturm is consumed throughout the country. Because of rapid fermentation (which could cause the bottle to explode if corked), Sturm cannot be stored and must be consumed within a few days of purchase.

Sturm is a young wine that is basically fermented freshly pressed grape juice. And that’s exactly what it tastes and feels like you are drinking … carbonated grape juice 😊!

After a rather hair pin curvy drive up a narrow mountainside road, we arrived at the Burg Oberkapfenberg (Castle) to enjoy a tasty lunch of the ubiquitous Wiener schnitzel … certainly Linda’s favourite, goulash, tafelspitz, spaetzle, warm potato salads, fresh horseradish salad … it was quite the luncheon the eight of us savoured … all in a cozy castlesque cafe overlooking the town of Kapfenberg below …

A short drive up the same mountain and an even shorter walk later through an idyllic farming landscape, most of us somehow still had tummy room for an assortment of typical Austrian desserts at a nearby historical old house in the hills … apple strudel of course, palatschinke or palacsinta (a thin crêpe-like variety of pancake) a torte or two … while sipping cappuccinos. A bit of a surreal experience was discovering an Elvis impersonator entertaining a private party inside the log house when I stepped inside to use the WC 😊

Altogether too soon, and after exchanging heartfelt hugs at the train station, we were back on the train heading for Vienna … Auf Wiedersehen my new friends ❤️