The Bruner Family Journey: Relaxing With Friends In Austria

Talia and Ipi in Inzersdorf

When we were traveling in Sri Lanka earlier in our yearlong trip in February 2011, we met an adventurous family from Inzersdorf, Austria (Mike and Tanja and their five-year old daughter Ipi). We all bonded fabulously on an epic, all-day whale-watching extravaganza. ("We're gonna see a whale!") I say adventurous because this is the family that drove their hippie bus from Austria to India, through such heavily visited tourist destinations as Albania, Bulgaria, Iran, and Pakistan. Naturally, our European journey just had to include a stop in Inzersdorf (in July 2011) to see our new friends.

The house where we stayed (Jeremy insisted on a bizarre monster pose)

View from the house

Mike and Talia in the kitchen

Inzersdorf is about three hours east of Innsbruck, a pretty city in the mountains that served as a European center of politics and culture under Maximilian I in the late 15th century during the reign of the Holy Roman Empire (which a history professor once told me was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire). Today, it's an internationally renowned winter sports center. Franz Klammer thrilled his Austrian compatriots here by winning the gold medal in downhill skiing in dramatic fashion at the 1976 Winter Olympics. We thrilled our children by giving them large chewy, delicious pretzels for breakfast.

In the recording studio

We arrived in Inzersdorf with no firm plans except to hang out with our friends. It was a really fun and relaxing time. We talked and told stories, and reminisced about our travels in Sri Lanka. We caught fish to eat out of the pond in the backyard, and we ate eggs right from the chickens. Speaking of chickens, we went to a big party to inaugurate a new chicken coop, where we enjoyed some live music in the rain and feasted on rotisserie chicken (logically enough), potato dumplings that looked like giant matzoh balls, and some very nice local wines. We visited the nearby Schlierbach Monastery, with its extremely ornate Baroque chapel - the monastery was founded in 14th century as a convent and then was taken over by priests in 1620. We went bowling at the local pub, and we escaped the rain by lounging at the indoor pool, where Eden and Tanja generously let Mike and me have some quiet time in the sauna away from the screaming, splashing joyous youth. We hiked up to a wooden hut in the hills that Mike and Tanja built with their friends, we barbecued by the campfire, and then the boys (Mike, Marc and Jeremy) slept under the stars. We also visited the local radio station that Mike and Tanja helped to build - again, with their own hands (check it out at www.radio-b138.at) - and we had the privilege of talking about our travels on the Wednesday afternoon radio show. (Fortunately for us, the show was in English.) We got a very nice glimpse into local life.

Going fishing in the backyard!

Hand-built hut in the woods

View from a vantage point not far from the hut

Jeremy collecting wood

Getting ready for some Austrian BBQ

Historic architecture in Wels

We also spent some time being tourists, which is definitely a good thing given the wealth of interesting things to do nearby. One morning, I took a little solo excursion to the historic city of Steyr, which recently celebrated its 1,000th anniversary. The city is picturesquely located at the confluence of two rivers and boasts one of the best preserved old squares in Austria. Wels is another picturesque town with plenty of pretty medieval architecture - although Jeremy's favorite part of the visit was seeing a store that sells "schmucks." Apparently, it means "jewelry" in German - good thing they don't speak Yiddish! But the sightseeing highlight of our stay in Austria was our two-car convoy to the tiny village of Hallstatt through the Austrian lake country. It was an incredibly scenic drive to get there and the town itself is so quaint and photogenic that it doesn't seem real. Please excuse me for using a few photographs from the internet - it was too difficult to take decent photographs out of the quickly moving car, and it was likewise too difficult to stop both cars in our entourage at every ooh and ah. When we got to Hallstatt, we took a cable car up the steep mountainside to the oldest salt mine in the world, which - according to the tourist brochure - has been in operation for 7,000 years.

There is, however, a darker side to the journey to Hallstatt. We drove past Ebensee, the site of a Nazi death camp with a horrifically high death rate - a grim reminder of the ugly things that humans can do to each other even in the most beautiful of places...

Dressed up for the salt mine

Inside the salt mine

View over Hallstatter See

View of Hallstatt (photo taken from the internet)

Old town square in Steyr

It was great to see Mike, Tanja and Ipi and we were blown away by the hospitality with which they welcomed us into their home - they gave up their master bedroom so that we could sleep in maximum comfort, they gave us their maps of Germany (our next destination), Mike gave Jeremy a super-cool pocket knife, Ipi gave Talia several outfits and a large baby doll, and for our departure Mike's mother prepared an enormous feast of lecsó (a delicious Hungarian meat stew with tomatoes, onions and peppers) on the front lawn. We can't wait to return the favor when they visit us in California!