Going off with a bang

Dynamiting the rock face which threatened traffic onthe road below

It seems as if everyone is holding their breath. We’ve enjoyed three months of cloudless skies broken only by two short bursts of snow. Now on the north-facing slopes where the sun no longer reaches, there is deep frost, the rime crunching underfoot, the crystals standing tall and packed together like a micro-Manhattan.

Now, though we are ready for the snow, there is no sign of its arrival: creeping up in the night, laying a sound-deadening blanket over the land or blasting down from the mountain and whipping with the wind into corners and crevices. The first Advent Sunday is just about here – the atmosphere is not the same without the snow when we hunker down cosily with candles and glühwein, coffee and biscuits.

One event went off with a bang this week. The Bogensperger Palfen, a rock face which showered tons of rock across the road between Lend and Embach in August and had not been fully cleared, was dynamited to send a further 1000m³ of shale down into the valley. Care had to be taken not to blast it on to the railway or into the river. Now this has to be cleared before we can drive directly to our sister village down below. The event was seen on TV and watched by many residents.

(For why this is called the Bogensperger Palfen - see Bogenspergers in the News - this blog and for what happens to the spoil, see Moving Mountains)

Meanwhile, the only other road out of Embach has suffered a rock slide which also means a long diversion. It is the same whichever direction we take from here at the moment.

Something else went off with a bang: Sunday was the annual Advent Market organised by the Katolische Frauenschaft (something like the Women’s Institute) with hand-made Christmas decorations, seasonal foods and an amazing number of huge creamy cakes for immediate consumption. A great deal of time, effort and creativity go into putting on such a display and it is enjoyed by whole families who crowd into the Gasthof where it is held .  To mark the 20^th of these markets, there was a free mug of glühwein for all visitors.



TV news reported on the dynamiting of the rock hanging over the road between Embach and Lend



Bean missin' you

Austria has a great tradition of coffee houses. Here among the clatter of china, the chatter of coffee lovers, Verlängertern, Großen Braunen, Espressos, Melange and more are served. Each cup and saucer placed on a small oval tray with a paper doily, sugar, cream, a glass of water and usually a small chocolate or a biscuit.

Then there are the cakes: big, sweet, creamy, gaudy, myocardially infarctful. Walk up to the glass counter and make your choice – it will be brought to the table with your coffee.

There is no rush. Newspapers are provided so that you can linger and browse, gather and gossip. A coffee can last an hour if you wish.

Each coffee house has its own style and many are steeped in tradition with panelled walls, tiny tables and waiting staff with huge wallets containing the takings in their trouser back pockets. Some coffee houses are listed monuments.

However, a coffee house needs more than this. It needs good coffee. There’s no beating the deep, ingrained, sensual aroma of well-ground, properly-brewed coffee, served, sipped and relished over many years.

Sadly, more and more coffee houses are serving half-a-cup of warm brown liquid that drips from an electronic machine at the press of a button – and charging far too much for it. At a time when so many varieties of beans are available from exotic corners of the world, why is there never a choice of coffee bean?

The days of skilled baristas grinding good quality beans, measuring the coffee into the basket, tamping with just right pressure and working the taps and knobs of a steamer machine as big as a church organ are fading fast. In Salzburg they are few and far between.

The coffee house is under threat – for how long will people pay over the odds for something which no longer lives up to the tradition to which it gave birth? Classy presentation without outstanding content is a hollow offering. Indulging in the atmosphere without the sustaining aromas and taste sensations of excellent coffees is an experience no more fulfilling a beautiful picture frame without the masterpiece it is intended to display.

Some Salzburg coffee houses where real coffee is made:

Primadonna – Platzl

220 Grad - Chiemseegasse

Laughs in translation

„Radio Salzburg wünscht Gute Fahrt“.You can hear it day in day out on the radio and see it at petrol stations…and for many an English-speaking visitor it produces a chuckle. But although this little language joke soon wears thin, there are plenty of others to raise a smile.

Gráinne, visiting from Ireland loved this shop name which is so nearly descriptive of the quality of clothing to be found inside.



No flash in the pan!



Sophie, An Australian visitor roared: “Spark Arse” when she saw our bank, the Sparkasse (Spar = save and Kasse = bank and together pronounced Spar-kasser). We’d never thought of that one and can’t take this sober institution quite so seriously any more.

Some place names attract visitors like the ones on this map. The places are disappointing – no t-shirts or postcards, it seems all the excitement takes place behind closed doors.

Then there is Schitter the nearby butcher and Dick the local electrician whose van has DICK in huge letters on the back. I don’t think his name is Richard.

However, in Gasteinertal, the next valley, the local blacksmith and electrician are classics:

What fun it would it be to drive one of these vans around London?

Calendrical life

Austrians are an orderly folk. Many things are done according to the calendar rather than the prevailing weather conditions:

Sunday, a gorgeous, crisp autumn morning, a cloudless blue sky, the sun transforming the larches into tongues of flame amid the darker pines, and backlighting the beeches into hoardes of golden coins.

Where were the cyclists? At home. Bikes go down into the cellar on the last Saturday of October (if not before) regardless of the weather. So the bike trail along the Salzach River and through the dramatic Pass Lueg, a busy two-wheel highway in summer, was mine and mine to enjoy alone. www.tauernradweg.com

At the same time, traffic jams were being reported because of skiers flocking to the glaciers for the first day of the official ski season. Skis come out of the cellars at the end of October even if it is more like bathing weather .

Other things are similarly regulated. Last week the long poles were installed along the steeply winding roadside to this mountain village, to show the snow plough the edge of the road. In gardens, bushes were tied up to save branches breaking under the winter snows. This weekend summer tyres were replaced with the heavy winter treads. Snow shovelling equipment is placed at the ready and water butts are emptied.

There is a good reason for these calendrical activities – but the weather forecasters are predicting temperatures of up to 20°C for the rest of this week, so, because of this orderliness,  it looks as if there will be opportunities for more solitary bike rides in early November.

Cycling culture

Probably the best bike trails in the world – to use an old beer advertising slogan for this little country which not only provides dedicated asphalted trails through spectacular scenery, but adds artworks to entertain you along the way.  

Today I rode through the Salzach valley – the mountain tops dusted with a light sugar coating, the sky a cloudless blue, with the glorious tintinnabulation of cowbells tinkling, clanging and klonking as the curious cattle raised their heads from chomping the remaining grass, to watch me pass.



naked man - but a bit of a cock up?



On a bend where once was a tree, stood a naked man doing a handstand. The wooden figure was hewn from the remaining tree trunk. Further back, where a new bridge had been built three metal relief figures stood in classic dance poses. Along this part of the trail is also a huge wooden hammock slung between trees and a wooden figure suspended on his back by wires – all part of the cultural as well as physical experience.

Elsewhere schools and artists have together created a trail of artworks together with great stories to explain what happened, for example, when the Chugger-Luggers landed their space ship on this bike trail instead of in Africa.

Could there be a link between the quality of these safe and attractive bike routes.the popularity of cycling for everyone from tiny children to people in their eighties, and the high standing of Austria in the Happy Planet Index, and the generally good health of the nation as a whole?   

The Chugga Luggers landed in the wrong place?

Moving Mountains

The rockface crashed across the road

Nowhere else have I seen so many baggers as here in Austria – a bagger is a small, wheeled or tracked excavator with a backhoe or bucket. Embach with about 500 residents produces enough activity to keep its own earthmoving business busy and Ernst Röck and his bagger are always active somewhere around.

It appears that if someone wants the mountains re-arranged, then Ernst and his bagger can do it.

The latest challenge has been the 40m long rock slide that has been blocking the road between Embach and sister village Lend for more than a month. (see September’s Bogensperger blog) It was decided that the job had to be tackled from the top, rather than just shift what has fallen down. Effectively a small mountain has to be shifted…but where?

Lend's Heimo Gruber's bagger removing the rockslide - starting from the top - the rockface fell to the road and railway below

A farmer, further up the hill, with a steeply sloping field seized the opportunity to have the mountain moved to where it will substantially level this part of his plot. So, daily, a convoy of trucks grind their way from the valley to half-way up the road to Embach, dump their loads and trundle down again while the local bagger men push the rubble about and once again re-arrange the landscape.


Rearranging the landscape - the mountain which fell down, is now relocated
300m higher than at its original  site



Blooming overwhelming!

The festoons of plants which hang from balconies and window boxes in so many of the houses in this part of Austria are past their best. During the late summer, opulent waves of gaudy colours pour downward from some homes, while others have lines of flowers in a single colour like a regiment of guards.



 

In the spring the garden centres are busy with shoppers seeking their favoured colours and plants and a sign that the frosty nights are past is the appearance of nascent growth, to be nurtured, tweaked and watered in a regular evening ritual.

Embach's Krämerwirt's display still looks good at the beginning og October

Some houses are so renowned for their overwhelming blooms that they attract coach loads of tourists to come, gasp, photograph and to move on.

Now the season is coming to an end and once again the compost heaps with be awash with the fading colours of summer. Houses will look bare, for just a few months before the ritual begins again and once more, Austria puts on its traditional summer face.