a (not so) typical work day...

Hey guys!

I'm back!

The Vienna Book fair is over which means that I have my life back. In the past few weeks I stayed late at work, came home, ate, took a shower, went to bed, got back up, went to work, stayed late, came home, ate, took a shower, went to bed and so on. So there was no time for blogging.

On Friday, I had to walk around in Vienna to visit different venues and prepare them for readings, that took always place in the evenings. It was a beautiful and sunny day, quite warm for November and it was really nice to escape the office and have a stroll through beautiful Vienna. I want to take you with me on that walk. So let's go, through the inner district of this wonderful city!

I started with walking down the "Herrengasse", a shopping street where I never shop, as it's the home of all the luxury brands. Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton and similar. As I never spend much money on clothes (rather use the amount on books and yarn - you get much more for the same price!) this aren't shops where I will ever set foot in. But it's nice to look at the windows and ask myself who in the world would spend hundreds of Euros on clothes that look like they are second hand. And in very bad condition!

I walked past the Michaelerkirche. It's one of many beautiful churches in Vienna. The Vienna National Library has an Archive inside this building and I remember having a Seminar right under this dome when I was still studying German Literature.

Just right around the corner, you get the beautiful view of the Hofburg, where the National Library is situated and which is the former imperial palace of Vienna. Those two buildings in the background are the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Art History. The two buildings stand opposite each other and are identically built. Right in the middle is now one of the most beautiful christmas markets in Vienna. Though there are dozens of them taking place all over town right now.

I then had a stroll through the Volksgarten, a small park. During the warmer seasons, it smells really intense of roses. That is because there are hundred of different roses planted all over this park. I used to spend my breaks here when I was back at university, as it is just right around the corner of the campus.

And then I arrived at the Rathaus, the town hall of Vienna. I was there to watch over an award ceremony which I organized the last couple of weeks. Did you know that I used to work in a library in that building right before I stepped on a plane to Bangkok and travelled the world for the next four month? I have beautiful memories of those five working months there. Such a historical and wonderful building.

This is the room where the award ceremony took place. The town hall has hidden rooms like this all through the building. Beautiful, isn't it?

I wandered back to the office after that, spend the day on the telephone and then walked back to the town hall. The same route, but now in the evening, when it was already dark and the town as already lit up.

I was at a reading that evening which I had to supervise. Very interesting, it was bilingual, the author was from Romania and read in her mother tongue and of course we had a translator. It was really funny, though the book isn't about a funny topic of all. Those are the moments where I really love my job. Unfortunately, things like that mostly happen during the week of the Vienna book fair, when everyone is exhausted and worked out already. 

There is another christmas market right in front of the town house. I had some time before my train went back home, so I strolled through the stalls, breathed in the wonderful christmassy smell of baked goods, sweets, chocolate, sausages, glühwein (mulled wine) and everything else that belongs to a market like this. And I really looked forward to a calm and nice and relaxing christmas time.

If you've read until the end: Thank you for your patience.
Have a happy weekend.

Travelling Austria - Wellnesshotel Pierer (mountain pasture wellness)

oh my, seems that I'm writing nothing else but Travelling posts these days. But two weeks after our wonderful tour through the west, we had another little time out. Our families know, that we love to travel. Travelling through Austria, through Europe our through the whole world is our shared hobby. My man and I have little in common (surprisingly - the relationship works perfectly fine. Opposites do attract, apparently!) but we really share our love for adventures and our need to see as much of this beautiful world as possible!
When we got married in April, our parents and my man's sister gifted us with three vouchers - each for a weekend away in a beautiful hotel in Austria. And so we decided to use one of those vouchers to have a little spa treatment in a wonderful resort in Styria, about a two hour drive from our home.

The hotel was wonderful! It's called Almwellness Hotel Pierer. It's located at 1.200 metres obove sea level on a little mountain. Styria is called the green heart of Austria because of its forests and vegetation. Unfortunately, it rained during our whole stay so we didn't get the chance to wander around the mountain a little bit.

Instead we spend the time between eating, reading and sweating in the Sauna. The hotel hat 6 different saunas. We got a massage and I got the chance to try out my first yoga lesson. I LOVED it and it won't be the last time, that I'm doing some yoga. I already looked up a yoga course near my home and I can't wait to give it a try!
The breakfast buffet was amazing - the hotel treated us with homemade and local products, in the morning as well as for the 6-course-dinner in the evenings. Let me tell you that we had a very, very nice stay there.

Enough with the words - here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

our wonderful room

the view from our balcony

another picture of our room. that cow greeted us every morning!

the view we had from the rest area

they had this beautiful natural pond, unfortunately it was a little too cold to use it...

the 90 degrees hot sauna. It originally was a hut on the top of a mountain. I loved the smell of wood inside.

a shower inside a hollow old tree.

no words needed. amazing view.

Travelling Austria - a tour through the west

Hello lovely people, long time, no blog.

Austria had to suffer from an immense heat wave these last few weeks. During the day the temperatures rose to 39 degrees and it didn't really cool down in the night. We don't have air conditioning in our office, so I sweated day and night and wasn't really able to sit in front of my laptop and type up a post. 

But now it finally cooled down and I am able to take you to our trip through the western part of Austria, that my man and I took last week - prepare for a photo-heavy post!

When I was little, my parents always travelled to Tyrolia with my brother and me and I loved our week long holidays. My man and I decided to spend our  summer holiday in our own country this year and it was an amazing trip. 

We started by travelling by train (with our borrowed motorcycle on the back of the train - his Harley had to be repared so we had to borrow another motorcycle for this holiday) from the very east of Austria - where we live and where everything is flat as a pancake - to the most western city in this country. It took us all night to get there. It was the first time that I spend a night on the train and I loved it. I commute by train to work everyday, so I'm used to the motion and the sounds. Slept like a baby. 

the borrowed motorcycle. Not very cool or fast - but really comfortable!

On Monday we arrived in Feldkirch at 8 a.m. We took the motorcycle from the train an started to drive to the next big city, Bregenz. Bregenz is located at the Bodensee and shares a border with Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It's famous for it's annual opera performance where the stage is built into the lake. This is what it looks like this year: 

the beautiful stage

lots and lots of terracotta warriors

After a nice cup of coffee we decided to drive a little more this day. We stopped when we felt like it, for example at this refreshing river. It felt amazing to just sit there and tip your toes into the icy water, breathe in the air and look at the cows on the mountains. Being in the nature always calms me down and because the West looks so different to my home it's easy for me to stop thinking about work or other problems at home. So I really was able to get in the holiday mood. It was extremely relaxing!

isn't this beautiful?

We took a little detour through the North of Italy, to have our lunch. The North of Italy is called "Southern Tyrolia" as it belonged to Austria before WW1. The people there see themselves still as Austrian citizens and they all speak German there. It's a beautiful landscape. Just across the border we came across the Reschensee. It's an artifical lake - with a church tower in the middle of it! You can read a little about it here.

the church tower in the middle of the Reschensee

It was really important for me to visit the Krimml Waterfalls. These are the highest waterfalls in Europe. I've visited them with my parents two times before (though that was a long time ago) and remember that I was really impressed. We hiked 400 metres uphill - and hiked them down again. That may not seem much but we're really not used to it! It was really amazing and even my man, who didn't want to go hiking was impressed and talked about future hiking trips on various Austrian mountains!

part of the waterfall

a rare picture of me! ;-)

the proof that we hiked up to 1.400 metres!

tested the black and white option at our camera. I should use it more often!

the sun looked so beautiful!

constant rainbow, caused by the fine droplets of water that splash from the waterfall.

Speaking of Austrian mountains: Here's a picture of Austrian's highes mountain: The Großglockner. It's a glacier and it's 3.798 meters high. There is a street called "Großglockner Hochalpenstraße" which leads 48 kilometres around the mountain. A MUST for every motorcycle rider! But it was really great and you had such a nice view! Again - extremely impressive!

driving up...

that peak in the middle is the Großglockner.

We spend the weekend at my sister in law. Her little lady, now two months old, got baptised on Sunday and we were invited. We had three really nice days with them and all their kids (she has two boys, now aged 7 and 8!) and it was a nice round-up to a nearly perfect holiday. Though I'm back at work I still feel relaxed and calm and happy.

happy nephew!

But as we always suffer from wanderlust we're already planning our next trip. We're thinking about visiting Thailand in February. But that's for another story.

Where did you go for your summer holiday? Do you prefer holidays in your own country or do you love to go abroad and explore new countries and new cultures?

Travelling Austria: Stift Vorau

It was fathers day last Sunday here in Austria. I thought long and hard about which gift I wanted to give my father as he is - as any man in my opinion - complicated when it comes to presents. He has everything he needs and the things he wants are too expensive for me to get him. So I decided to give him something that money can't buy: TIME.

I called him a week earlier and told him, that for fathers day, I wanted to do something with him. What we would be doing would be his choice. We could go to the cinema. We could get dinner. We could go for a walk or a swim or a bike ride. Whatever he wants. 
In the end he decided that he wanted to do a little road trip with me. Getting out of the house for one day, spending time together, just me and him. So we drove two hours to Styria, where we visited the beautiful Stift Vorau. It's an old monastery. My dad visited it about 35 years ago and since then always wanted to see it again. We made a tour around it which ended in one of the most beautiful libraries I've ever seen. If my man and I ever get around to build that house we are talking about all the time - I expect my personal library to look rather similar to this one. I'm already buying tons of books to get it filled. 
Anyway - enough words. Here are some pictures. Enjoy.

Travelling Austria: Green Lake, Tragöß, Styria

Hello lovely readers. How are you? Did you have a nice weekend? I have to tell you, my weekend was absolutely fabolous! But let me tell you everything about it! 

My weekend actually started on Thursday! It was a holiday on Thursday which meant - no work! How nice to have only a three-day-work-week. I could really get used to that!
Anyway, since both my man and I had the day off and since the weather was absolutely amazing, we decided to visit his grandmother. She has an amazing garden - flowers everywhere! We helped her get her pool ready for the summer. Not entirely an unselfish act since we like to come to her to swim in the pool! But it was a nice and fun afternoon! My man's cousin and his girlfriend joined us in helping her. While the men worked in the pool, us girls picked fresh strawberries. Which were devoured right there, without washing them, still warm from the sun. No strawberry from the supermarket can compete with that. 

the pool and HALF (!) of my grandmother-in-laws backyard!

her amazing flowers!

and the best strawberries ever!

I took the day off on Friday because I really needed a long and relaxing weekend. My man had to work, so I had a whole day for myself. I spend the morning finishing the baby blanket for my sister in law (3 more days until she's due, I'm so curious if it's gonna be a boy or a girl!!) and decided to spend the afternoon at the lake. I always dreamed about living near some water (lake, sea, river...whatever!) and now that I do, I hardly ever spend time at the lake. Which is a real shame, since it's just a 10 minute bike ride (with my gorgeous new bike) from my appartment to the lake. So I packed my bags and a really big book and did nothing but bathe in the sun (and the water) and read and eat ice cream all day long. What a beautiful time I had. I should do this more often!

a little duck that waddled around me the whole afternoon!

My man fulfilled his life-long dream and bought himself a Harly Davidson motorcycle two weeks ago. He loves it and as I love riding along with him, we decided to make a quick weekend-trip to Styria. (route here).
So we strapped our tent and our sleeping bags to the Harley and drove off to the Green Lake. As we arrived rather late on Saturday, we decided to spend the night at a camping site and visit the Green Lake first thing in the morning.

"our" Harley. And everything we needed for our trip strapped on the sissy-bar.

The camping site was gorgeous! It was just a small lawn near a small lake. There were cows all around as munching on the green grass. We put up our tent, drank a nice, cold and refreshing beer and settled in early as we were really tired from the day. 

Next thing in the morning we packed everything in and drove 3 km to the Green Lake. The Green Lake is surrounded by the Hochschwab Mountains. The name "Green Lake" originated because of its emerald green water. The clean and clear water comes from the snowmelt. During the winter, the lake is only 1-2 meters deep. During spring, when the temperature rises and the snow melts, the lake reaches a maximum depth of 12 meters!! It is very popular with divers as during its peak seasons, wandering trails, benches and trees can be found under water!

We had a little stroll around the lake before we got back on our Harley and drove back home. I won't write anything further, just let the pictures speak for themselves!

Did you have a nice (maybe long) weekend as well? How did you enjoy this fabulous weather?