aaah. a day dedicated to relaxation and recreation. after catching-up on family affairs until 2am (and drinking lots of very good austrian wine), i get up about 8.30am and venture outside to take in the landscape. just a mere 2km off the czech border, this place is in midst of a plateau called mühlviertel in austria.
as mentioned in earlier posts, part of my family comes from austria. as a child, i spent many summers in austria – most of which were either in close-by linz or, my favourite, here, in bad leonfelden. i have very fond memories of me and my cousins exploring the near-by village of bad leonfelden or staying at this rather remote 1700’s-farmhouse and making our way to the – in those days – heavily guarded border to czechoslovakia and playing in the seemingly endless forest around the house.
our plans for today are: nothing. eventually go eat something at a rural gasthaus and spend the day chatting and – potentially – having more very good austrian white wine.
TW560 is resting after yesterday’s major stint across the czech republic during our TDB2015 trip and subsequent 2-mile trek down a very bumpy track towards the farmhouse.
one interesting fact about the place is that it is situated mere metres away from the a great european watershed. a few years ago, bad leonfelden decided to honor this by putting up a stone marking the exact place.
we eventually move to a the local gasthaus a few kilometres away. it is one of these places where you greet everybody when you enter and easily strike up a conversation with other guests while having local drinks and wholesome foods made with local ingredients.
and here we go with one of my favorites: knödel (any form, salty or sweet)
my meal today…
after a very satisfying lunch, we head back and i decide to take a nap before my cousin arrives from linz after work. since this is a very old house, the best place to do so is on the bench around the masonry heater which my uncle has been heating with wood since this morning.
after my power nap, i move back outside to find jc and the rest of my family in a lively conversation, sipping on some very tasty and rare white wine.
with the sun setting, we return inside to have some food and continue chatting.
my family either buys things from the farmers in the immediate vicinity or gets organic products. i’m a sucker for product declarations and am also very critical of many claims made by brands… see for yourself.
does feel good to know it’s not 10% but 10.1%, right? (but why isn’t it 20% or what happens if we have 5 years of 10.1%? can we have too much bio-diversity? … interesting thought, but not something we’ll be looking into right now 🙂 )
tomorrow, we’ll be leaving early again – TW560 and TDB2015 is waiting as are many, many small villages and places we’re going to be seeing and visiting.