Mystery of the farmer's name

The Mitteregbauernhof amid steeply sloping meadows - the buildings date back to the 16th Century

It’s all very puzzling – particularly to a Londoner, living here in an Austrian village.

Why is Embach branded Das gröste Bauernhofdorf Salzburgs – meaning the biggest farmhouse village in the province of Salzburg? The village isn’t big, the farmhouses aren’t big, nor are the farms themselves.

Even more confusing is that local people know the farmers by names quite different to their own.  The names of the farms can’t be found on any map. And why is it difficult for a local to write these names down?

For example Robert Fletschberger is known as The Soxbauer. Or is it The Sachsbauer or Socksbauer?  Erich Winkler is The Emochbauer or Emachbauer. Martin Scheffauer is The Embachrainbauer, or Embachraenbauer.

Magit Geisler, a woman farmer who wields a mighty fence post mallet with ease, is the Grem, or Kräm, or Krem, or maybe even Chräm. More confusing is Gerhard Weissacher who is The Mittereggbauer but no-one knows him as that. Ask for the Brenner and there is no problem.

 

The Brennerbauer, Gerhard Weissacher and his wife Elizabeth..or is he the Mitteregbauer?

The difficulty with writing these names is that of a dialect which is strong enough to be so far from the regular German language, that Germans have difficulty understanding it. The people who can write best in dialect are children whose SMS messages would defy the Enigma decoding machine.

The farmhouse has arched ceilings in what was the smoking
room - the hook was for hanging meat 

The names go so far back into the past that it is hard to see when they originated. Farms, though handed down through generations, have also been bought and sold over the centuries. The Brenner has records going back to the 1760s but the origins of the name are even older.

Farming in Embach is mainly a suckling cow business, raising calves for sale. A handful of the 47 farms in the village also sell milk. Most of the farms have less than a dozen cows, the biggest has about 70. About 40 are needed to support a family, so most farms have at least one family member going out to work, fitting the farming around the employer’s working hours.

The village sits amid steeply rising meadows, cut for hay to feed the cows in the stalls during the winter. In summer they are high up on the mountains, bells a-ringing enjoying the fresh grass and clambering around in the most unlikely, steep places.

Expensive special equipment and tractors are necessary for the steeply sloping terrain 

Here lies another tale – the “mythical” Sennerin, who minds the alm, makes cheese and butter, plays the accordion and jodels, and possibly has long, blonde, plaited hair. No myth this. This kind of summer farming is still alive and well here.

Our farmers have another important task. They care for the landscape. Without them mowing the meadows, maintaining the forests, hedging, ditching and generally keeping things tidy, Embach and Austria would not be the attraction it undoubtedly is.

On a recent visit to the Provence region in the south of France, the result of farmers leaving the land was, in many places, obvious: neglected fields full of weeds, orchards of dead and dying fruit trees, vines collapsing and a dismal air of decay.

While there are no EU grants specifically for landscape grooming, grants do take account of the steepness of the terrain, the need for special machinery to work the sloping land, and the higher cost of traditional, small-scale, environment-friendly farming, Embach, without the grants, would not be Das gößte Bauernhofdorf Salzburgs.

It is still not quite clear what this means – but, hey! Who cares?

With thanks to The Brenner, the Ortsbauer

The view from Mitteregbauer towards the Berkogel

A bloody finale

Sunsets in Embach at this time of year are bloody affairs. The sky a fiery mess of red and orange, flaring around the edge of the few innocent cloudlets, all sharply outlined by the jagged mountains along the Salzach valley. This drama is often preceded by shafts of light beaming mistily between the peaks like a spots on a dusty stage set.

Autumn is a stunning time of year. The days begin with a cloudless blue sky over Embach from where we can look down on the thick carpet of cloud hiding the valley below. It might be hours before they see the sun.

The air is so clear, the surrounding mountains appear zum greifen nah – close enough to touch. The sun soon chases away the morning chill and pink light descends down into the village as the sun rises.

As the day comes to an end, we look west to watch as the mountains and sky paint their final, dramatic scene – a gory, glorious finale…only to repeated again tomorrow.

Flower power on the balcony

After a glorious few weeks of summer, the balcony flowers in Embach are a real picture.

Back in spring, the garden centres were, as always, thronged with buyers sorting through rack after rack of nascent blooms to find just the right colours and varieties. Hours of planting, watering, feeding, dead-heading and nurturing have now paid off as a crescendo of colour cascades from many of the village homes.

Here, you can see a selection. If you are visiting Embach in the next week or two, see if you can spot where each picture was taken.

Unlike some villages, there is no single house in Embach where every visitor must photograph the display and, where every coach pauses to astound the travellers. Here, there is no one extreme example, just a large proportion of the homes blossoming with vivid colour. And there is no competition among residents to have the most exotic balcony.

Back in England, a rural village like Embach might have an annual fête where flowers, jams and cakes are entered in a local competition and judged by the local squire, vicar and bigwig. In Austria, though many have wonderful vegetable gardens, there is no battle to produce the biggest pumpkin, the reddest tomatoes and weirdest carrots. So it is up to you to decide which balcony you like most.

Austrian village festivals follow set traditions that everyone is used to and enjoys. But it would be interesting to see if the idea of a village fête would take off in Embach and what balcony flower display competition might win the prize.

Tauern Radweg 2 – sign of the times

The new sign with Embach

The power of the blog!

Within a week of this blog pointing out that Embach didn’t exist as far as the Tauern Radweg was concerned (see Tauern ), a new sign replaced the old one at the junction where the road to this higher plane begins, and this sign includes Embach in bold letters.

Now, the powers that be need to look at the sign on the opposite of the junction for those perverse people who insist on riding the Tauern Radweg uphill and in the face of dozens of others cruising down.

The old sign didn't mention Embach

From the other direction, Embach isn't mentioned

Tauernradweg: ride up to a new level

The Tauern Radweg, second most-popular long-distance bike route in Austria, passes within a whisker of Embach…but nowhere is there a sign pointing our way.

Every summer, thousands of cyclists, loaded to varying degrees with what they need for a week or so on the road, ride from the Krimml waterfall to Salzburg and beyond, following the course of the Salzach river.

Turn right here for Embach -the old sign

At one point they reach a crossroads. The bike route maps and signs point them straight ahead, though the green cycle route signs also point left to Dienten and right on the Golddiggers’ route towards Rauris.

Within a week of this blog going live, the sign was changed and Embach was put on the Radweg map.

Although the road to Rauris passes through Embach, not many bike tourists make it here. While they are busy riding along, deep in the valley, they miss a whole new level of enjoyment on this sunny plateau. And if they stay the night, they have the most wonderful start to the following day.

What, then, is the problem? Well, the road to Embach from the crossroads, climbs a bit. There are two hairpin bends and three ramps to climb before the road steadies to a gentler ascent into the village. Total climb about 350m over 5km.

The new sign

Cyclists who are up to the challenge, will find a little bit of non-touristy Alpine Austria and get away from the stream of other riders who flock down the river. The climb is reasonable if you aren’t too burdened with luggage – or riding one of the new electro-bikes.

Embach is a down-to-earth, unpretentious farming village with a few small hotels and guest-houses. Freed from the confines of the valley, it lies amid sunny meadows, with wonderful mountain views, where the weary cyclist can bed down to the sleepy clonk of cow bells.

Next morning, just the thrill of swooping back down the hill would make the climb worthwhile, even if the pleasure of having made it to this higher plane wasn’t enough reward.

Riders inspired by the view of the Hochkönig mountain as they descend, should go straight over the bridge at the crossroads, ride up to Dienten and beyond, via the Dientner Sattel before the long, exciting ride down to Bischofshofen where less adventurous riders on the Tauern Radweg are still plodding along the valley bottom.

A bit of non-touristy alpine Austria, Embach is worth the climb, the descent is a bonus

The campsite overlooks the valley