Meeting relatives in Altheim, and then heading to Schaerding

We had the breakfast buffet this morning, which is standard at hotels in Austria. But I think there was just one other guest in the whole hotel - it was a big spread for so few people, a lot of work for the owner.

After breakfast Peter and I visited Claudia, my cousin. She's sold the Drogerie (drugstore) that she's had for decades, and moved back into the original Drogerie, that her mother ran before her. They still have a small refrigerator where the keep some food items - milk, butter, eggs - because apparently there's no other stores in the actual Marktplatz that carry food - aside from the bakeries. I wonder if there's still a butcher on the main street. Austria has moved firmly towards regular supermarkets, just like the US, but many, many decades later than the US.

Peter and Claudia

Anyway, I chatted with Claudia a bit, and visited my aunt - Tante Lisl. She is 91 and has macular degeneration, but is still able to have a good conversation. My German is still very rusty, but if I spent more time there, I'm sure it would come back.

Then we went and visited Onkel Karli - my father's cousin. He's 84, and still does some work in the cafe/bakery that he's been working at all his life. The bakery now belongs to his son Markus, who is very friendly and has kids Peter's age, but unfortunately he's gone on vacation . Onkel Karli is very sociable, and greeted pretty much everyone that came into the cafe by name. Peter had a huge fruit ice cream, and I had a cup of coffee.

The Weinhaupl bakery

Peter with his fruit ice cream

Onkel Karli

Then we went back to the Zillner hotel, and moved on out of Altheim, biking on the Ache river, the same as we came in. I had originally considered going on the Roemerradweg, which is another bike path that would do a loop in the area, but now I think that would be too much biking, so we'll just head to Passau, and do the Donauradweg - the bike path that leads along the Danube river.

The house where my father was born

At the playground

We saw lots of these robot lawn mowers

Lots of stone work has been done on the Ache - for fish?

We stayed at this overlook just a minute or so - the mosquitos were too bad

It's far cooler now than it was a week ago, so biking is much less exhausting. We went through the town of Obernerg, a charming but very quiet little town. There was a grocery store there, but it was so small that I couldn't buy anything for lunch. I asked there if there was a bakery, then followed their directions to get there. Meanwhile, Peter was reading Percy Jackson books on his Kindle. I bought us some rolls and cheese spread, and we had that for lunch at the Burg Obernberg (Obernburg Castle - more like a very large stone house).

Here's a few pictures from the Obernberg town and castle area.

Then we followed the bike path to nearby Reichersberg, which is a monastery, and apparently still has about 15 monks in it. It's a beautiful old place, and I remember distinctly going there with my aunt and uncle when I was a kid. At the cafe there, they had Marrilenknoedel on the menu (apricot dumplings). That was one of the things I really wanted to have again, so we sat and ordered that. It was decent, but didn't taste as good as I remember my aunt making.

I didn't remember to take a picture of the apricot dumplings till they were gone!

A few more picture from Reichersberg

We got to our hotel at around 3 in the afternoon. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a hotel right in Schaerding, so we're in a little town just outside of it - St. Florian. It's a reasonable place, huge room, BUT the internet is completely non-functional.

My cousin Gerhard came to meet us after he got off work in Schaerding - he's a bank director at the Volksbank. Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of him. So I've seen 4 relatives now - I was worried, after not hearing from people or hearing that they're on vacation - that I wouldn't be able to meet up with anyone, but that fear has turned out to be unfounded.

Later on, Peter and I had some dinner at the restaurant here. I ordered Speckknoedel - ham dumplings - and after having them (extremely salty, I just ate about about a quarter of them), I think I'm done trying to find local specialties that I once enjoyed.