We spent a total of 2 weeks it Austria, and I feel like I had enough encounters with Austrians to say, they really don’t make the best first impression. I’m sorry if you are Austrian and you are offended by this, I’m just reporting my personal experience! Consider these observations: they will not spontaneously smile at you if you meet their eye, nor will they smile back if you smile at them. Also, staring is apparently socially acceptable in Austria because we were stared at A LOT, sometimes by entire families (and I swear we were not doing the “wake up” thing either). As German as we look, sometimes I forgot to scowl a little as I approached ticket counters, immediatley giving myself away as American, thereby warranting an eye roll or two by the Austrian in question. Here is an encounter we had in Salzburg that illustrates this point:
After checking out of the Von Trapp Villa, we made a quick stop in downtown at the Salzburg Museum Panorama exhibit on, what else……The Von Trapp Family! As the kids and I stepped into the shiny, orderly and completely vacant lobby, the stern looking fellow behind the desk gave me the now familiar, “Bitte?”. Translated, this means “Please?”. But they tend to say it very curtly and with a frown on their face, which only sounds like they are impatiently awaiting our “demands” on them and dreading all the ways we are about to inconvenience them. Of course I know that isn’t true, but it feels that way sometimes, and it did that day. I smiled (oops) and asked if he spoke English. “A little” he said, emphasizing his unhappiness with a sigh and pursed lips. I said “We would like a family pass, please.” He immediately told me to slow down, and that he doesn’t expect me to understand if he speaks German quickly to me! So, I complied and slowly repeated my desire for a family pass. He frowned, and rapid-fire said something in German to the guy behind him, and then turned back and said “Okay, 5 tickets”. I said that my husband would also be coming, that he was looking for a place to park our car (with a little pantomiming thrown in). He rolled his eyes and said “no, this is not possible”. I said, “but my husband is part of our family”. He said, “yes, but I don’t see him HERE, and I don’t know what he looks like and and we have many people coming through!” At this point (with an idea for an SNL skit forming in the recesses of my mind), the kids and I could not help ourselves and pointedly looked about the still empty lobby. I turned back to him and said, “He is about ‘this’ tall”, and showed him with my hand, “and has brown hair and bushy grey beard.” Then I pointed to the guy behind him and said “Like him!”. To which they both started laughing, and the first guy said, “Oh, too bad”! Without a moment’s hesitation, he said okay and printed a sixth ticket. This has been my experience time and again with the Austrians we have met – their cold-as-ice exterior will melt away with a little persistence, allowing you to catch a glimpse of their kind and warm interiors.
That’s the Zugspitze in the background, but who cares? We were too busy competing to see whose “boat” could travel the furthest and fastest down the canals.
The other obvious evidence for this lies in the most innocuous of places…the playgrounds. Let me explain…..Austria is not only a playground for outdoor enthusiasts, it is also home to some of the most amazing playgrounds we have ever seen. Ever. Plentiful, with no two alike, they are creative in both their use of their surroundings and also the types of structures they contain. Zip line? Check. Four-way teeter totters? You bet. Tetherball-like spinning swings? Oh yes. After we came down from the Zugspitze cable car, we spied a trampoline enclosure containing 6 trampolines laid out in a grid (drop some Euros in and bounce for 10 minutes – UNSUPERVISED!!), and also a car track with several little bikes you can ride around (free). We played there for a couple of hours, getting caught up in competition involving floating objects down a serious of aqueducts to see which item makes it to the end.
Here are our various “boats” that we raced down the canals.
This playground was perched next to an Alpine lake in Garmisch. The kids were like human tetherballs.
But it didn’t end in Ehrwald (Tirol), as we soon found out. Even Vienna, a big city, had its fair share of amazing playgrounds full of kids on giant sand diggers, quadruple tire swings, and creative water features.
The giant bird like structure at the Labyrinthikon on the Schonbrunn Palace grounds, designed by playground design expert Günter Beltzig
Awesome ‘playing in the dirt” contraption at Labyrinthikon
One of my favorite playgrounds was on the grounds of the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna and it contained a hall of fun mirrors, a complex pulley, scoop and conveyor belt section for playing in the dirt, and even a great big metal bird (which evoked Leonardo Da Vinci-esque drawings) that you could crawl inside and make its giant wings flap up and down! And this is a playground that we happened to stumble upon after an hour or so of playing around in the garden labyrinths!
Part of the maze at the Schonbrunn Palace – you can view (frown at) confused participants from a viewing platform in the center
Vienna is also home to a great city-based permanent amusement park, the Prater, where we spent one fun-filled day of seeking thrills! Who would have known that the seemingly “stiff” Austrians have such a penchant for playfulness? The secret must lie in their abundant and lifelong access to all sorts of playgrounds in their beautiful homeland.
Single? This Austrian was not happy to be paired with me on the Prater Turm
My new Austrian friend, post-ride!
