The drive from Eisenstadt to the Alps was beautiful. When we reached the area where we would take the gondola up to our lodge, I was already in awe of the scenery, and it just got more beautiful from there.
Kathy was right when she said the Alps would be a lot cooler, but it was a welcome break from the considerable heat in Vienna. The lodge prepared a hearty buffet dinner for us to enjoy that night. Afterwards, we got ready for our hikes in the morning.
I got up early the next morning and I was excited about the planned hike we would embark on with Kathy’s friend Hans-Jörg. It was cold, foggy, and windy in the morning, but it soon cleared up for incredible views. Me and a few others went to use the bathroom at the first lodge we stopped at and we sadly lost the big hiking group. We decided to chart our own path, which was still beautiful and fun. We had lunch at a lodge and I felt exactly like I do when I go into the lodge for food after a day of skiing; I was ravenous. It might have been the setting and circumstances, but we thought that the sausage and potato salad that we ate at the lodge was the best meal we had had since we got to Vienna. Once we got back to the lodge after about 5.5 miles of hiking, we all took naps and then waited for another lovely buffet dinner.
The next morning after breakfast, we headed back down the mountain in the gondola and purchased a few souvenirs before heading to Laxenburg on the way back to Vienna.
In Laxenburg we got to tour Franzensburg, a castle built by Francis II in the first half of the nineteenth century. He built the castle because of his adoration and fascination with medieval culture and aesthetics amidst the enlightenment, which threatened the power and pomp of the monarchs and ruling classes. The castle kind of felt like one that would be in a carnival or movie because it was essentially a “fake” castle that was not built for functionality, just aesthetics.
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