10242008 BLOG

October 24, 2008

Vienna was our eastern most reach into Europe. From there we would begin heading southwest with a planned stop in Graz, Austria, cross over into Italy with a stop in Trieste before going on to our scheduled arrival at Villa Selvatico in Padova, Italy just outside of Venice.

Our tour through the wine country south of Vienna put us a little behind schedule and we didn’t quite make it to Graz. The delay resulted in an unplanned surprise side trip because we found a fantastic resort, Schreiners Berghof, just outside of Hartberg at an elevation of 660 meters (almost 2,000 ft.) nestled in a forest with a fantastic view of the valley below. You have to take the time to see the photos we took while we were there, including some of our climb to the St. Anna pilgrimage church at the summit!

After leaving Hartberg, we visited the famous caves in Lugrotte, Austria’s largest caves. The Lurbach River runs through the caves. In 1894 this cave became world famous when 7 cavers were trapped underground for a week by a flash flood. The stalactites and stalagmites were huge in these underground caverns. One of the features of the tour was an entertaining light and music show in one of the larger rooms. We got to see five small bats and an interesting creature in a dark nook! Before visiting the caves, we had lunch at Gasthof Hofler Bauernwirt. Since it was “wild game” season, the restaurant’s menu was almost exclusively game dishes.

After a night’s stay at a hotel in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s home town of Graz, complete with a row boat Arnold used to row Maria around the lake (now memorialized). The next day, a short day trip to the attractive city of Graz provided one of the best lunches we’ve had anywhere. The Coco Café & Creperie. How would one ever expect to find scrumptious and beautifully presented lunch and dessert crepes in Graz?? But alas, our camera batteries were dead and so no pictures. After lunch we headed for the Armory, filled with real battle gear some originating from the 12th century. We learned Graz was a major armory for the Austrian Hapsburgs up until the end of the 1800s.

Leaving Graz for Italy, we found we needed to stop along the way. By chance, we found the delightful Barry Memle Resort outside of Klagenfurt on the shore of Am Worthersee. Mr. Memle personally escorted Dorothea around his new Fitness Area with heated pool, spa, tanning salon, etc. This area is very popular in the summer with many spa resorts. Also, the lake was home to numerous sailing squadrons and marinas.

After crossing into Italy, we drove by the beautiful Fusine Laghi in the Dolomite Mountains area near Travisio with its crystal clear emerald green waters. The lake is at 500 meters and is part of a National Forest.

We had planned to stay in Unide, Italy but found the town to be too uninviting. In driving around on one of the hill tops, we unexpectedly came across Agritourisimo Scaccia Pensieri owned by Marina Danieli in the small town of Buttrio just outside of Unide. The Danieli family apparently has many vineyards in the area, but more significantly the family owns an extremely large steel plant in Buttrio. Danieli is Italy’s biggest maker of equipment for the steel industry. And to think we stayed in “Sister Marina’s Villa”! The food was great!

From there, we headed for Trieste since we had a few days before our scheduled arrival date in Padova. Being concerned about being legal, I wanted to get our passports stamped in Italy to show we were spending time in different countries. Unfortunately, that was a mistake that would alter the rest of our European stay. We stopped at the local Polizia Municipale station in Gorizia, and I should have known there was going to be trouble when the officer asked us to step into his office. After much discussion and many phone calls by the officer and his associates, we were told since we didn’t have a visa we could only spend a total of 3 months in all of the Schwengen Countries. We didn’t have a visa because before we left, the American Consultate’s Office of France, Germany and Italy as well as a Visa expediter said we didn’t need one. Bottom line . . . we would have to leave by De. 9th, which meant we couldn’t spend Christmas in Rome. If we stayed longer, we would be “Clandestine” and risk being evicted if challenged. Talk about frost on the pumpkin, that bit of unwanted news really put a damper on our spirits. This was one time I wished I had not tried to do the right thing.

Our arrival in Trieste was less than exciting. The city is a major port and while it had a bit of history, a big marina and some interesting architecture, it wasn’t California’s “Marina del Ray” as I had expected. Looking for a room for the night we found a hotel high above the Mediterranean with a fantastic view of the Mediterranean and the beach far below. Because the winds were strong and out of the west, the beach was closed. The next day we left the car in the hotel parking lot and took the bus into town to explore “Old Trieste.” We had planned to go to the aquarium but found it was closed and so it offset our disappointment we stopped at one of the many “Gelaterias” (Italian ice cream shop) and had a scoop.

The day we arrived in Trieste, we had a bite to eat at a local “Gelateria” - a Panini (small toasted sandwich) and beer - and found the prices exorbitant. That evening, driving to a marina at the base of our hill, we had a Halloween dinner of a salad and pizza. It was here I began to realize when you go into an Italian restaurant, it doesn’t matter what you wanted when you went in, before you leave you are going to get what they want you to have. Generally, they hard sell you into ordering more to increase the tab’s total. They have: antipasto, primo piatti, secondi piatti with contorno and dolce and caffe, all of which brings the tab to a total equal to a small down payment on the restaurant. The service was excellent but the price for a pizza, salad and caffe here also was exorbitant.

We found this also to be true in Treviso at the Titian Hotel just outside of Padua. It was raining when we arrived, tired and not wanting to go on a search for dinner. Under the circumstances we opted for the hotel restaurant. We ordered one appetizer, 2 entrees of grilled Ahi tuna, medium rare with grilled vegetables and settled back with a delicious white Italian wine aperitif. The first hint of things going awry was the server brought two appetizers. When I told him I only wanted one, he said for two people one was not enough so he brought two. O.k., we’re in Italy, I wouldn’t create a scene. When the entre came, it turned out the tuna was a mackerel (looks like a baby tuna), it was fillet and sautéed with some indescribable tasting things from the garden, all cold. Oh, server, please! This isn’t going to work, we don’t want this! Not the right thing to do. The server really looked put out, stomped to the kitchen and out came the chef and dining room manager wanting to know what was wrong with the food. We tried to explain, they got indignant and we left hoping there would not be a dead horses head in our bed when we got back to the room!

Ed and Dorothea