The Hearty Cuisine (and Beer!) of Austria

Following my fun and memorable weekend in Alicante, I had to make a quick turnaround and head back south. However, this time I wasn't headed for a sunny escape from the Norwegian winter, but a winter wonderland of it's own in the Alps of Switzerland and western Austria.

It may have been a work-related trip, and I may have learned some new work-related things, but the two things that stick out in my mind about this trip are the beautiful scenery and the food, good gravy the food!

First stop was Zurich, where I was to catch a train to the Austrian border and get picked up. This being a work trip and all, I figured I should use the tiem wisely. I can't say I minded the scenery of my mobile office though.

Technically, I wasn't in Switzerland that long, but I did buy some food and a pair of sunglasses there, so I'm qualifying it just barely as a visit. A hop over the Austrian border, and the stats were picking up:

Day 22

Country count: 4

Emergency sunglass purchases: 1

One of the first nights in Austria, we were treated to an early evening trip up into the heights for a snack and a sunset. I set up a camera and made a time lapse of the sunset. It was cool looking down into the valley below through a layer of low-lying clouds that were filling in the valley. I think the town may have even been in Switzerland. If not, we were at least looking at Switzerland over the mountains here:

We traveled onward to the dinner, which was located inside a castle overlooking another small town.

This is what the entrance to the restaurant looked like. Only in Europe.

Despite the torture device-looking thing at the right, we entered. What does such a place serve, I wondered.

Schnitzel! Fantastic! One of my favorites! Only I never saw a schnitzel like this before, taking up the whole plate and all:

Two nights later, a more modest portion at another location:

Well, modest relatively speaking, but not when you add in a side of kaesespaetzle with fried topping:

Shall we have another variant of this for lunch the following day? Sure, why not!

And why not another schnitzel, just for good measure?

Maybe we drop the beer with the extremely antiquated name and logo next time though. I didn't know it when we ordered, but here they serve the flagship of the nearby Mohrenbrauerei Vertriebs KG, who apparently argue that they have been using this logo and name for 200 years, so therefore it shouldn't be changed. I'm not so sure about that. On the one hand, I think people are sometimes too easily offended, but this one seemed a bit much to me. What do you think?

Well, that seems like enough food for the month. I better get out of here, while I can still move. Time to say goodbye to these mountains, get wheelbarrowed back to Zurich and head on to the next destination: Budapest!

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