“Wenn
der Altenberg nicht im Kaffeehaus ist, ist er am Weg dorthin.
(When I’m not at the coffee house, I’m on the way to the coffee house.)” Peter Altenberg
Alex went back home for Christmas and during the winter vacation, I went to visit her for around 10 days. We spent 3 days in Vienna, 1 day in Bratislava and five days in her hometown, Graz. Visiting local friends is one of my favorite types of traveling because it’s people who make this foreign land special and let me have deeper understanding of how local people lead a life. I’ve traveled in many countries in Europe, but for most of the time I feel that I am only a passenger. What I’ve seen mainly lies in the guidebook instead of in locals’ real life, which is good enough for the purpose of traveling but less valuable when I recollect this memory in the future. In the long run, I might forget the name of that huge palace in Vienna, but I would never forget how much fun I had while traveling with Alex and how warmly and hospitably her family entertained me.
Because of my special affection towards Austria, I couldn’t elaborate all my experience in one blog post, so I decided to present first one of my favorite Austrian culture: Viennese Coffee House and some food.
During the first semester in Lyon, Alex and I both participated in the zumba class every Friday afternoon. Before the class, we were used to having some drinks at “Le BISTROT de la Manu”. She usually had a cappuccino, while I ordered a hot chocolate and we would chat about everything until the time for the zumba. In Lyon, I haven’t got much pressure in studies and the rhythm of France was much slower than in Taiwan, so I started to slow down my life and try to enjoy every moment. Chatting with Alex with a cup of drink and a pastry was undoubtedly one of the great time that I appreciated the most. I was quite upset that Alex wouldn’t be there during the second semester cuz there’d be nobody to spend the bistro moment together. Fortunately, in Austria, we almost went to a cafe everyday, which kind of compensated the loss and actually now becomes the first thing I thought of when it comes to Austria.
I’ve read an article which ranked the world’s 10 most beautiful cafes and Cafe Central in Vienna was one of them, but I didn’t know that in Vienna and actually in Graz as well, coffee house (Wiener Kaffeehaus) plays an important role in Austrian culture. According to Wikipedia, “since October 2011 the ‘Viennese Coffee House Culture’ is listed as “Intangible Cultural Heritage” in the Austrian inventory of the “National Agency for the Intangible Cultural Heritage”, a part of UNESCO.” As a result, there was no reason not to visit the Coffee Houses and try the drinks and pastries, especially I have a sweet tooth. Although I did care about the calories back in Taiwan, I freed myself from this restriction by following the maxim “Carpe Diem” in Europe and enjoyed as much as I can. (Though the consequences of this liberation on the diet have gone a bit far, I didn’t regret!)
CAFE GRIENSTEIDL
This was the first café I’ve been to in Vienna. It was one of the most famous and traditional cafés, but compared with Café Central, it was less touristic because we could hear most people speaking German. The layout and decoration were simple but to a nicety, making the cafe a cozy place for gathering with friends or simply indulging oneself in a cup of Viennese coffee and a piece of Sachertorte. Right, I ordered a piece of Sachertorte which Alex said was one of the classic cakes in Austria. From the photo, I can infer that it’s full of chocolate, but I can’t tell exactly what its ingredients are… I found a useful article entitling “The Top Must-Try Cakes And Pastries From Vienna” which will help me recollect my memory on these pastries. (https://theculturetrip.com/europe/austria/articles/these-are-the-must-try-cakes-and-pastries-from-vienna/)
According to the article, the Sachertorte “consists of two layers of dense chocolate sponge with a thin layer of apricot jam between them, all covered in a thick layer of shiny chocolate ganache, traditionally served alongside a dollop of whipped cream.” All I remember is that it tasted too sweet to give me a desire to order it again afterwards.
CAFÉ CENTRAL
 |
| A life-size statue of Peter Alterberg right at the entrance. |
So Cafe Central is the coffee house that Peter Altenberg mentioned in his renown phrase “When I’m not at the coffee house, I’m on the way to the coffee house.” It’s popular among the foreign tourists, with always a crowd waiting in line at the entrance. I’ve been longing to visit this cafe since I read it’s one of the beautiful cafe in the world. It was no doubt splendid and even deluxe. There were portraits of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sisi) and Franz Joseph I of Austria on the wall.
For the drinks, I ordered “wiener eiskaffee” which is in the middle of the picture above, meaning Iced Coffee in Viennese style. I saw other clients having this on the table, making me want to try this special drink accompanied with some cereal straws. Actually, they also serve “wiener eisschokolade (iced chocolate)” that I should have ordered because I couldn’t drink coffee. However, I still wanted to taste Austrian coffee, so I asked the waiter to make it decaffeinated. But it turned out that the waiter made a mistake because mine was caffeinated whereas Alex’s cappuccino was decaffeinated, so that I felt very excited afterwards and didn’t fall asleep until very late. As for the dessert, we both had the mille-feuille and I liked it very much. It was common and traditional in the pastry shop, so I guess it’s hard to bump into a terrible mille-feuille?! All in all, I realized my dream of visiting this gorgeous cafe!
Cafes in Graz:
Kafe Konditorei
Later, we headed to Graz, the second biggest city in Austria and the capital of Styria where Alex and her sister go to university. Graz is a small city but like Lyon, I found it very comfortable and suitable for leading a life of quality. There we still went on with our journey in cafes. Alex brought me to a cafe called Kafe Konditorei which is small but warm. The croissant-like pastry in the middle of the picture is called Nusskipferl, meaning nut crescents, and the one on the right is Kaffee-Souflée. The latter’s appearance gave me an impression that it would be as soft as the creme, but I ended up being wrong. The white part was actually meringue (made from whipped egg whites and sugar – wikipedia) which was not soft and quite sweet. I’ve got wrong between meringue and creme for several times, and I always regretted when that happened…
Cafe am Platz Viertler
This is the cafe owned by Alex Viertler?!!!
Haha actually this cafe is located in the village where Alex live, in the suburb of Graz city. Her father was from this village and some of her relatives work and live here as well, so we could see many panels with their family name, like the photo below, even the train station beside her house was named after their family name, Prenning Vietler.
This cafe was run by one relative of Alex who sold not only drinks and cakes but also many types of bread which is indispensable in Austrians’ daily life. Before coming here, I got myself into trouble. We were strolling around and I always had my camera in my hand to take pictures. Suddenly, I found that my lens cap was gone. I had a bad habit of putting things at will, so I thought it must have been somewhere in my bag or on my jacket, but after searching everywhere on me, I still got no result. Then, I guessed maybe I dropped it on the way, so we needed to reverse our direction and look at the ground carefully. In the end, we found it on the ground of the walking track in the midway. Thankfully, we found it in time before the sunset; otherwise, it would be more difficult to look for my lens cap when it got dark.
Reassured, we came to this local cafe to enjoy a strawberry cake (for me), a cinnamon roll (for Alex) and of course some drinks. It was late in the afternoon, and there were still many people here. Some of them gathered together chatting, some read newspaper attentively, and others just took their time drinking. The importance of cafe house in Austrian social life could be perceived in such a small village; that’s why I thought it was not sufficient to list only Viennese Coffee House Culture as Intangible Cultural Heritage. The convention of going to cafes by all the Austrians should be included, though.
In the town of Frohnleiten:
Frohnleiten is a small town with a 20-minute ride on the train from Alex’s village. It was the CUTEST Austrian town that I’ve ever seen! The weather was changeable during my stay, but fortunately when we got to this town, there was still some sunlight and blue sky, reflecting the colorful houses on the river and creating a magnificent natural painting. I gasped in admiration for quite a while and I felt that being surrounded by these scenery was like being in the fairy tales. Unluckily my camera couldn’t capture its beauty completely, you have to imagine by yourselves!
Café Konditorei Flössl
The town was also small with less than 7 thousand residents. We went to Café Konditorei Flössl where the souvenirs, the decoration, and some snack can be purchased as well. There were all varieties of pastries in the cafe and I had no idea what I chose. Anyway I remembered they were both excellent ;). You can see me below with both hands on my face; I tried to hide my big face which has floated after indulging in desserts almost every day.
In Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia:
Since Bratislava was not far away from Vienna, we took a one-day trip there hoping to discover something special. However, it was on Monday, so most tourist spots were closed and it even rained later. Therefore, we didn’t really see much, but we did taste some typical Slovak cuisine.
Slovak Pub
In the picture below, the upper left is fried Bryndzové pirohy (cheese filled dumplings), next to it is the garlic soup in a bowl made of bread, and the lower right picture shows the Bryndzové halušky (potato dumplings with sheep’s-milk cheese). Although the last one is defined as potato dumplings, it tasted actually like pasta with cheese. It was probably my first time trying sheep’s-milk cheese whose flavor was very strong and it became gradually greasy so I couldn’t finish it at last. (I had to buy a bottle of juice to rid of the greasy taste in my mouth afterward.) I didn’t taste Bryndzové pirohy cuz it consisted of beef if I didn’t get it wrong. Overall, I like the normal garlic soup the most. Based on the information on Wiki, the origins of Slovak cuisine date back to the era when most people “lived self-sufficiently in villages, with very limited food imports and exports and with no modern means of food preservation or processing”, so their food needs to be able to endure the summer and winter. Thus, Slovak cuisine is mainly composed of “wheat, potatoes, milk and milk products, pork meat, sauerkraut and onion. To a lesser degree beef, poultry, lamb and goat, eggs, a few other local vegetables, fruit and wild mushrooms were traditionally eaten.” I wasn’t a fan for their food, but it’s good to learn some background knowledge about it. 😉 At last, there was no more to see, so we just went to a cafe to shelter from the rain and waited for the bus to go back to Vienna. The picture of hot chocolate was just what I drank, and I remember it was rich in the flavor of cocoa but I would like to know why they put hot chocolate in such a content instead of in a cup…
Street Food in Graz:
Wiener / Frankfurter Würstel or Würstl
One thing I preferred German, Austria, Greece to France was the sausage stand! In France, there wasn’t many food stands, at most the crepe stand, but my feeling towards crepes was just so-so. Maybe I was spoiled by Taiwanese food stands where there were all variety of snack (mainly salty), so sometimes it was bothersome that I couldn’t find the hot food stands in France. In Austria and Germany, there are many stands selling sausages or other hot food on the street. The name of sausage in German is Würstl and on Wikipedia, they called it “Vienna sausage”, which tastes like hot dogs but is much thinner and longer. The sausage is normally served with Semmel (a bread roll like the photo below) and both the sauces of ketchup and mustard. I came to this stand twice, respectively during the daytime and in the evening, and there were quite a few people enjoying the snack set while standing. I observed that most clients of sausage stand were male; perhaps it’s because women seldom eat snack to keep slim, or because women prefer eating dessert, something sweet or other things to sausages. I was a tourist, seizing time to eat the typical food, so don’t count me in. 😉
All about Homemade ones:
In Graz, Alex’s sister, Caro and her boyfriend Marco accommodated us for one night. The noon when we arrived, Caro prepared the Italian Risotto for lunch. It was very delicious, especially I like rice! Thanks to her, I learned how to cook Risotto which I made afterwards in Lyon for several times! The next evening, Caro and Marco made us Kaiserschmarrn, meaning Emperor’s Mess, which is popular in Austria, South Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, and northern Croatia. According to Wikipedia, it is “a shredded pancake”, and it was named after “the Austrian emperor (Kaiser) Franz Joseph I, who was very fond of this kind of fluffy shredded pancake.” The Kaiserschmarrn is “usually sprinkled with powdered sugar, then served hot with apple or plum sauce or various fruit compotes.” Pancake is always one of my favorite dessert, so after I tasted Kaiserschmarrn, it has been listed as one of my favorite.
I really appreciated Caro and Marco for their hospitality and warmth to me. They were both busy studying and working, but they were willing to spare some time to chat with me and prepare this Austrian dessert for me. We had a good time talking about the education and culture in Austria and in Taiwan, which gave me a chance to speak English after I was immersed in the whole French speaking environment for 5 months. They are a sweet couple, and I’m looking forward to seeing them again in the future!
How lucky I was to witness the production of Apfelstrudel (Apple Strudel) by Alex’s mother! Based on the mentioned article about Top Ten Austrian dessert, the word Strudel “derives from the German word meaning ‘whirlpool’ referring to the super thin layers of flaky pastry which is rolled up encasing the filling.” Apfelstrudel consists of an oblong strudel pastry jacket with an apple filling inside. Alex’s mother made two strudel filled with cooking apples, sugar, cinnamon, and raisins, so that I got to taste both flavors. I fell in love with this strudel immediately. The layers were clear and flexible, and after baked, the apple filling was transformed and becoming the leading character in this pastry. With a cup of chocolate and Apfelstrudel, we had a perfect afternoon tea!
What we were eating in the picture of upper left hand side was Schnitzel, which refers to “meats coated with flour, beaten eggs and bread crumbs, and then fried” according to Wikipedia. It was originated in Austria, and Wiener Schnitzel is now one of the popular dishes on the menu in the Austrian restaurant. Wiener Schnitzel is made of veal, but mine was made of pork for I didn’t eat veal. I took part in making Schnitzel as well which was super fun! Actually, we have Fried chicken cutlet, something similar in Taiwan, but we mostly use chicken as the meat.
Alex’s parents and Alex were super hospitable too! Although her parents spoke little English, we still managed to communicate by the means of simple phrases, body languages and Alex’s interpretation. I felt very comfortable and warm staying with them. Thanks to them, I got a chance to experience how it’s like to live in an Austrian family and taste several typical Austrian cuisine. I was really grateful to them for their kindness, care and help. Next time when I come to Graz, I hope I can treat them a table of Taiwanese dishes (have to start learning now).
The picture was taken in CAFE GRIENSTEIDL and this scene was unforgettable to me. It was just two grannies having a meal together, but somehow I felt very touched by their friendship. They looked 70 or even 80-year-old, but they still dressed up elegantly for a date with a dear old friend in a cafe where maybe they’ve been since their early age. Alex was the dearest friend I’ve made in Lyon. Although we live very far from each other now, we still keep in touch on a regular basis. It’s warm to know there is a friend thinking of me at times. I’m sure that I will come back to Austria to see her and her family in the future for several times and hope we can still visit those cafes together when we are old, chatting away what we’ve been through all these years.
