There is not much to write about after all the other years I’ve written about traveling to Styria. It’s been 16 years now that I and my family have been attending a family gathering of my Austrian family in Styria.
Usually this is a 5-day stay in southern Austria. We drink lots of wine, eat very well, spend time catching up and doing fun activities together.
This year, I’m not writing about every day but rather about some of the highlights – coupled with some photos that will give some context.
If you want to know more about what you can do in Styria or about the many earlier TWIKE Adventures in Styria, visit the TWIKE Adventures page and choose any of the TDST* entries.
A very important part of any activity during any day is to get some Sturm – a clouded, partly fermented young wine. Super drinkable. To this end, there are tons and tons of places called ‘Buschenschank’ that serve the wine and products of the winery or farm they are part of. As southern Styria is mountainous, these places usually come with a view like the one below.
The restaurants we would go to are like the one below – rustic and authentic.
Plus, with some time, evidence of having a good time:
Inside, we get treated to local cuisine and true Austrian ‘Gastfreundschaft’.
We visit the same wineries we have been visiting for 15+ years and see if there is some drinkable wine they came up with since the last time we visited (spoiler alert: yes)
We really like this part of Austria – it’s authentic, rural, slow, wholesome, real and just makes you – for once – be more mindful of the small beautiful things nature here offers effortlessly. (obviously much easier when holding a glass of chilled Styrian white wine and musing about your next Backhendl 🙂 )
Depending on the year, the activities are for all … or just the young at heart. This year we went carting with our young adults.
TWIKE-wise, the front brake suddenly faded and I suspected it had taken on some air. My manual attempts to fix the situation didn’t work so I went to a local motorbike shop to surprise them with something completely different to what they are used to.
Since the braking system technology used for TWIKEs is made up of 100% standard components that can be found on motorbikes, they were able to bleed the brakes very quickly. TW560 was back on the road with perfect brakes within 30 mins!
With this we were ready for more food…
…and more local shopping of ‘Kernöl‘ and other delicacies.
And as every year, there are pleasant surprises! Such as one of my favourite wineries suddenly deciding to create their own gin! Styria FTW!!!
Ah. It’s difficult to describe how much we all love this special place.
As always, time goes by much too quickly. Sunday is our last day – a brunch and last lunch together and it’s time for me to take TW560 to Graz’ main station for our trip back to Switzerland aboard one of the last year-round regular car train links in Europe.