Trip to Nuziders, Austria, Sept. 23 - Oct. 4, 1999

When you click on the small picture, you'll get a larger version. I arrived in Nuziders, Austria on Sept. 23 to visit my good friends, Ulrike and Christoph and to get to know their new daughter, Meret, my godchild. Nuziders is next to Bludenz in the Vorarlberg region of Austria and a short train ride from Munich over Lindau and Bregenz. I regularly took the short walk from the house in Nuziders into Bludenz, an old town which retains part of the old fortifications and an entrance gate. The St. Laurentiuskirche sits above the town from which there are nice views. There's a chocolate factory and the Fohrenburger Brauerei which I toured. What more could you want?

Meret is a beautiful child, born Nov. 6, 1998 so not yet a year old when these pictures were taken. She is not yet very helpful around the house though she would like to use the vacuum cleaner.

These are some views from the room I stayed in at Christoph and Ulrike's house. When you click on the small picture, you'll get a larger version. From my room, looking east, then looking west at the peaks Schwarzkopf, Mondspitze, and Schillerkopf (looks like Schiller's head, doesn't it?

Ulrike, Meret and I went into nearby Dornbirn where we walked around admiring the Marktplatz and the town's attempt to achieve a world record pile of squashes. Dornbirn has some great architecture, old and new. We took the cable car to the top of Karren Peak, in the background, to admire the views - Boden See, the Rhine, and surrounding mountains.

Ulrike, Meret, Christoph and I drove nearby to the area around Tschengla where the road had slid away last winter. The problem was that while they were recently rebuilding, the road slid away again! The poor folks needing to get to Brand have a long detour now. The overcast day meant we were amongst the clouds.

Two days later, the weather was better and Christoph, Meret and I drove to Schruns where we ascended Chapell Peak and viewed the Montafon Tal and surrounding alps. Nice picture of Christoph and Meret with Tante Margaret.

A high point of my visit (pun, heh!) was the day I hiked to the top of Hoher Frassen. I walked from the house, around 10 minutes, to the cable car (why waste time in the woods with no view?) and was deposited near the top of Muttersberg (1325 m). From there I hiked, admiring the views, up to the OEV maintained hut (Frassenhuette 1725 m). It took around 1.25 hours to get to the hut where I stopped for lunch and then another 40 minutes to get to the top of Hoher Frassen (1979 m) where the obligatory cross stood. Unbelievably, it started clouding up and then raining so I had to hurry down and not linger over the views.

js368@umail.umd.edu 

created 11/19/99, last modified 11/19/99