In the last week, I’ve been meeting up with friends across Bavaria and Austria. In the two major cities, Munich and Vienna, I ironically did less than in Bad Aussee and Graz. I’d visited both cities before, so it was more a chance to catch up with Jon and Simone in Munich, then David, Katha and Roland in Vienna. There were lots of stories exchanged over a lot of good food and good beer. I even managed to go climbing in both cities.
Between Munich and Vienna, I went to the small town of Bad Aussee in central Austria to visit Franziska. We filled a couple of days with exploring the beautiful alpine landscape. Boating on the lakes, hiking in the snow amongst fallen trees and scrambling across waterfalls.
We also visited the picture-postcard Hallstatt with its quaint houses, views across yet another alpine lake, and its ancient salt mine. The salt has been mined since neolithic times and, in the 1700's, an ancient body was found by the miners. They didn’t appreciate how old it was, so buried it without any scientific analysis and now no-one knows where it went. It probably ended up in the ossuary, created to house old bones as the town doesn’t have much flat land for burials.
After Vienna, I travelled down to Graz with David — his home town. We also met up with Franziska again there. It’s a great experience meeting friends made in foreign countries in their hometowns. Not only do you get to see a different side of a place, but you get to see a different side of your friends too — the places and culture they grew up in and their pride in them.
We witnessed an epic thunder storm which dumped the whole of a usual April’s rain in 3 hours. Luckily, we managed to get trapped in a bar during the downpour. When it wasn’t raining, I enjoyed visiting the baroque Eggenberg Palace, plus the castle on the hill overlooking the whole city.
Apparently Graz, after centuries of cultural influence, remains important to Slovenia today. It seems to make sense to continue my journey there next.
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