a winter wunderland

the day after christmas, i (and much of central europe) woke up to a magical blanket of snow.  i hadn’t at all expected that it would snow during christmas… last year it was around 10c! this here was the stuff of miracles.

after breakfast, we took a snowy winter walk around the lake and some residential areas before hopping on a boat for a lake cruise to st. wolfgang– the biggest village on wolfgangsee (which still isn’t really that big at all). it is also the most heavily toured spot on the lake. all the other merry tourists seemed to have the same idea as it was the first day the boats were running again after the holidays.

at st. wolfgang (the second stop after st. gilgen), we hopped off the boat into the snowy wonderland immediately in search of the silvester markt (new year’s eve market). what we found was a glühwein stand serving all kinds of things that are heiss und gut: alex got an amaretto-kirsch punsch and i got some kind of glühwein that admittedly could not beat amaretto-kirsch punsch. so we took a winey-walking cruise with our new mugs and a bunch of goofy photos of us around various spots in town.

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so to recap: it was christmas, snowing furiously, i was in the cutest austrian village with alex, and holding a mug of glühwein. basically, this was one of the happiest days of my life.

we wandered, we shopped (marillen-schnapps– local specialty!), we took a cafe stop (topfenstrudel!), i practiced my german in an area where i can actually understand the accent. eventually we found the tiny little silvester markt: alex got a cheesy bretzl, i bought blumenkäse. seriously, check this cheese out: it’s got dried flowers all over it.

it great to visit st. wolfgang and see another quaint village on lake wolfgang, but i really loved getting back to good ol’ st. gilgen to take advantage of their silvester markt– one of the most memorable christmas markets i’ve ever been to if i could rate it on “cozyness”.

that’s all i’ve got for you of snowy austria christmas time, which is good because that’s probably all you can handle. just in case i’m wrong, there’s always christmas in st. gilgen, atop the zwölferhorn, or last year during the holidays in salzburg.

happy travel tuesday! last week there were so many amazing entries but if i had to pick a favorite, it would be phoebe’s snapshots of strasbourg post where she highlights the best of this lovely french city during the holidays. i thought austria was great, but it looks like a trip into the alsace might be in order for a future holiday season– they don’t call it the christmas capital for nothing!

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