Tour of Salzkammergut Christmas Markets

A very short post for a highly recommended tour through the Salzkammergut: I went to Mondsee, St. Gilgen and St. Wolfgang last Saturday to visit the local Christmas Markets.

The ideal route involves a short cruise on Lake Wolfgangsee and if you are fine with struggling with loads of other tourists, I would urge you to stop by at least one of the markets if you happen to be near the Salzkammergut.

Hurry up, though - this is the last week for Christmas Markets, they will all close on the 24th.

Click here for a picture of winterly St. Wolfgang.

Modern Art in the Albertina, Vienna

Recently, there was a turning point in the history of the Albertina: The traditional museum in Vienna owns the largest collection of graphic art in the World and used to be almost exclusively constrained to graphics. With the donation of the Batliner Collection of modern art, it now owns a red line across paintings from the most important styles and schools of modernism.


Parts of the collection will be on permanent display; however, at the moment the show "Von Monet bis Picasso" includes 250 of the more than 500 donated Batliner-paintings. It is on until the 6th of April, 2008.


Expect a very extensive collection that includes individual works that deserve closer attention. The over-all spirit of the display is a "let's grab a few examples of everything" that smells of new money and little sense for art from the collector's side. Nevertheless, seeing the collection in its current mode of presentation is a rare opportunity that you should not miss if you happen to be in Vienna.

Dec. 5th: Krampus' Day in Western Austria!

It is Krampustag in Austria - a great day to go for a walk in the evening, especially in Western Austria (mostly Tyrol, Salzburg and the other Alpine areas): Young men dress up with devil's masks, furs and horns and chase girls on the streets. Hooray. Customs and traditions at their best.

Anyways, tomorrow is St. Nikolaus Tag ("St. Nicholas' Day"): A men with a - usually fake, but it took me years to find that out - beard and a bishop's costume comes to the houses to bring small gifts like nuts, sweets and little toys. By then, most Krampusse will have disappeard.

By the way, Ischgl (see post below) was a madhouse - next stop is Vienna, where I will go tomorrow for a meeting - which is supposed to involve Sacher Tart, so I am looking forward to it.

More information on TourMyCountry.com: I am currently preparing a re-launch with a slightly refined layout. Should be available by Christmas. Best,

Benedikt

Christmas Markets open! Glühwein 4 ever!

Last Thursday, the Christmas Market in Salzburg opened and I was there the very first night - even before the crowds from Germany arrived.

As a first sign of the approaching Christmas season, my mom started to bake cookies last weekend. And the Christmas Markets of Vienna are about to start, too - the most traditional ones in front of the Rathaus City Hall, in the MuseumsQuartier and the Spittelberg area.

Meanwhile, my new employer has finished the website of the Ischgl Skiing Region, just in time for the beginning of this year's skiing season. I will probably go to Ischgl next week myself and try to post more articles on the region in the next coupld of weeks.

The most recent additions to the website, however, deal mostly with towns in the Salzkammergut - a region still shockingly bad in TourMyCountry-coverage.

The TourMyCountry.com Blog finally goes Online!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I registered this account on blogger.com quite a while ago, but I have been busy working on articles for the main webiste: www.TourMyCountry.com. So, what is this blog about?

Obviously, about my website - but not just about it, the blog should also provide additional or current information about Austria that would not be appropriate for the webiste. One example: There is a breathtaking exhibition in the Galerie Belvedere on Austrian art from around 1880 to 1960 in comparison to styles from that period in Paris: http://www.belvedere.at/jart/prj3/belvedere/main.jart?rel=de&content-id=1173990963421&reserve-mode=active

Otherwise, I will also use the blog to post links to websites I just discovered and that match the field of interest of www.TourMyCountry.com. That is the second reason why I started it. And here is an example of it: http://www.planet-vienna.com/ offers tons of great photographs from the Austrian capital Vienna.

The third reason is for you: I would like to allow interaction with my users. So far, I have received a few very friendly e-mails, but eventually I would like to allow people to get involved with the website beyond that. I am currently thinking about some ways to get there, but so far, posting comments here is probably the easiest way.

Anyways, I hope the blog will be as successful as the main website is starting to become: Yesterday we had more than 200 unique visitors!

Benedikt