M's Adventures in Austria: Oct 2: A Beautiful Day in Bad Radkersburg

Last week, I was invited by E and P to see a chamber concert on October 2^nd in Bad Radkersburg, a small town on the border between Austria and Slovenia. So LATE last night, after I came back from my whirlwind museum tour, we drove out to the area around Bad Radkersburg where P’s parents live so that we could stay overnight and see the concert the next day. It was such a wonderful Sunday. P’s parents have a beautiful home, and I got a chance to try more traditional Styrian food. For breakfast/brunch, we had soft boiled eggs, homemade pumpkin seed spread on fresh bread, cheese, cold cuts, homemade jam, crepes with jam, and homemade juice.

Afterwards, I visited the town with P while E was doing some studying for an exam. We stopped by three churches to see inside (I love looking at the different types of stained glass), and had a chance to see the medieval wall that protected the town. Bad Radkersburg was first recorded as a town in the 1100s, but was located in a volatile area – since it is located on the Austrian-Slovenian border and is not far from Hungary, it faced a lot of conflict, especially in Austria’s wars with Turkish armies.

We also walked across the bridge into Slovenia. It’s pretty amazing that you can just cross the border, order a drink, and come back again, all in an afternoon! And no one asked to see our passports. We also walked up to see a castle on the hill above the river (the Mur) that separates Austria from Slovenia, but unfortunately could not go inside. We did, however, have a lovely view of the vineyards sloping down the hill…J

I got to try more Styrian specialities at dinner. It was amazing! As I may have mentioned before, pumpkin seeds are a specialty of the Styrian region, and are widely used in cooking. We started with pumpkin soup – it was a creamy, golden yellow colour, and each individual serving had a garnish of pumpkin seeds, pumpkin seed oil, and whipped cream. I got to help prepare the rest of the meal. There were various types of salad: potato salad (covered in balsamic vinegar, pumpkin seed oil, and lots of salt), lettuce salad (with pumpkin seed oil as a dressing), and sliced tomatoes with onions. And then there was schnitzel served with cooked grains. The schnitzel was pork, which I think is used more often than veal in the Styrian region. It was my job to bread them. First, I salted the pork, and then dusted it with a preliminary coat of white flour. Then I dipped the floured meat in an egg and milk coating, and finally covered it with bread crumbs containing – what else? – ground pumpkin seeds. J I loved all of it, everything tasted wonderful. Alles schmeckt wunderbar!

I also got lots of German practice talking to P’s parents. It was really great, because I hadn’t been speaking quite as much German now that I finished my intensive German course. By the way, the next time you want to use “spoilsport” in your conversation, you might consider “Spaßbremse” (ShbAss-brehm-suh). ;-)

After supper, we went to the concert. It was a piano trio – piano, violin, and cello. They played Ravel (Piano Trio in A major) and Schubert (Piano Trio No. 3 in B major, D 898 op.99). They’re all students at the music university and play extremely well. The Ravel is really magical. I’ve never heard it before, so now I will have to find a recording. And I also really enjoyed the Schubert. The second movement is very emotionally moving. The venue was a smaller concert hall, so it was a more intimate performance than a large-scale orchestral concert. There were only about 160 people in the audience, and the hall reminded me of when I first started going to concerts in the small town I used to live in.

Thanks again to everyone who made today such a lovely day, especially P’s parents for their wonderful hospitality. J