A Wonderful Time . . .

Greetings Everyone!

We arrived home, safe and sound, from our Austrian Holiday last evening, after almost 24 hour trip! Boy are we zonked! We had a truly wonderful time in this stunningly beautiful country. Clean, gorgeous and very friendly. I took some 300 + pictures, that I still have to vet and categorize, and the holiday is not over yet, as we are off to Broadstairs tomorrow to visit some friends for a few days! But fear not, I will have a complete travelogue for you at the end of it all.

In the meantime, here is a little teaser of some of what we experienced!




A really COMFY hotel room, which became our home away from home for the week that we were there. Lovely shower, much better than the one we have at home and beautiful views from the window of the gorgeous Austrian countryside!




A wonderful coach crew, that were helpful, very informative and wonderfully entertaining. This was Steve. (Note the cheeky grin! This fella was a real character!)




Gorgeous mountains and flowers . . . everywhere we looked!




Beautiful Baroque churches, filled with stained glass, gold, stunning statuary, gilt and gorgeous painted murals.




Gorgeous wooden chalet type houses, draped with stunning window boxes, just filled to the brim with beautifully coloured flowers.




Ardent admirers that dogged my every step . . . (It wouldn't have been so bad if I had the type of allure that attracted Bad Pitt look alikes, but . . . as you can clearly see . . . I'm not quite that alluring . . . )




Life sized Pinocchio's . . . . wait . . . . I think that's Todd getting all Austrian on me. (Note the hat!) Apparently the size of the feather on the hat has something to do with a Male's prowess with the females. Todd removed his before he was told that little bit of information and then promptly had to go out and buy another one to replace it, lest he be found as lacking in that department!



Wonderful new friends made on the coach. This lovely couple, (the two Phil's, Philomena and Philip) are Irish and hail from Blackpool. We really enjoyed their company and will be popping up to visit them and see the Blackpool Illuminations later this year!




Fantastic food . . . Bratwurst, Schnitzel . . .

And these totally delicious fruit dumplings, which I was fortunate enough to get the recipe for!




*Germknodel/Yeast Dumplings*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe

Todd had this one day for his lunch. It is a typical Austrian fruit filled dumpling, which they served nestled in a delicious pool of vanilla custard.

9 oz ( 1 cup and 1 TBS) flour
1/4 cup (2 oz) milk
1 oz fresh years or 1 TBS dried yeast, plus 1 tsp sugar
pinch salt
1 egg yolk
1 oz butter, softened
4 oz plum jam, 1 tsp rum
pinch cinnamon
2 oz ground poppy seeds
2 1/2 oz icing sugar, sifted
2 1/2 oz browned butter

Sift the flour into a large bowl. In separate bowl, blend lukewarm milk, yeast and sugar; add to flour. Add salt, egg yolk and soft butter. Beat with dough hooks until smooth. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

Mix plum jam with rum and cinnamon. Divide dough into 4 to 6 equal pieces. Put one teaspoon of prune filling in the middle of each piece, fold dough over filling and roll in floured hands to form dumplings. Let rise for 20 minutes. Simmer dumplings in salted water over low heat, turning after about 6 to 8 minutes. (total time 12 - 16 minutes) Drain gently, serve and place in bowls. Sprinkle with ground poppy seeds, and powdered sugar. Drizzle with browned butter.



Now, that, folks . . . is a really happy face!
(I'll be re-posting some of my inspirational thoughts from my old blog to fill in the time whilst we are away.)

Psst . . . and I did it all without gaining an ounce!!