Pöchlarn, Austria

Oh boy I had a good time this last week. I drove about 90 km to a town called Pöchlarn (still in Austria). The city is right along the Danube River. The river always has passenger boats traveling on. The town has approximately 4000 people.  

I stayed at a hotel-Restaurant Moser for $107.An interesting thing about this hotel is that when you buy a room it includes everything like bicycles to ride around town, Wi-Fi, and parking. That’s becoming a rare tradition in states.

 The restaurant Moser serves tradition cuisine from the lower Austria’s. I tried the Tafelspitz it is supposed to be one of the tastiest types of Austrian food it was only €8. A picture is shown below. The meat comes from the cow's back, just where the tail starts. The meat itself is lean, and has just a thin layer of fat on the upper part of the cut.

http://www.vienna-unwrapped.com/austrian-food.html#.Uxzcu_ldV8E

It was a really good timing to be in Pöchlarn, since it was the fasching week. They had a lot going on for the festivities. I guess it's the Mardi-gras equivalent in Germany, Bavaria and Austria. This pre-Lenten celebration seems to have a weeklong celebration the week before Ash Wednesday. The festivals are very important to adults in the town. On Friday a parade was held to celebrate fasching. Before the parade I went for lunch at “Waldi’s Bierstadl.” This locally owned restaurant was packed full of people. In Austria it is not uncommon for people to just join a table. I decided to join a table with five 20-24 year old Austrians. I found out they were have a pre-celebration before they walked in the parade. We spent about 3 hours in the bar drinking telling stories. Lunch was about only €6 and beer was on special for fasching. They were really interested in Boise. When we left one of the guys had too much to drink and could barely walk out of the bar. They were unsure what they were going to do about it they needed him for the parade. So I piped up that I would do and you can see in the postcard that I walked behind a man riding a flamingo. Everyone dresses up for fasching including babies. I snapped this picture while in the parade.

The weather here has been great. Very little wind, sunny and no clouds. The temperature is just at freezing during the night and ranged from 12-17^o C during the week highs. All in all I was very pleased with my visit in Pöchlarn. I hope to visit a castle soon since I hear Austria has many spectacular medieval castles still standing.

http://www.adeenidesigngroup.com/blog/fasching-is-starting-today-at-1111am/

http://german.about.com/od/culture/tp/Fasching-In-Germany.htm

http://www.bierstadl.at/