Preparing for Austria (Graz / Styria)

So, barely 4 weeks after getting back from Barcelona and Ibiza I am getting ready for another trip, this time back to my home country of Austria. I have to take care of some business issues in Austria, and in addition to that, I am heading over for my 20th high school graduation reunion! Scary stuff, I must say. I left Austria 18 years ago, and with the exception of 1 or 2 people, I haven't seen anybody I went to school with for almost 2 decades....

It's going to be interesting to see my former schoolmates after such a long time. Seeing the changes in hair colour, physical shape, muscle tone, attitudes etc. 2 decades is a long time, you go through life feeling pretty good, feeling young and energetic, and then you realize that you are heading straight into middle age. I often wander what sort of reflections my school mates have been going through, how their outlook might be different from mine, since the majority of them chose to stay close to home. From what I could tell I am apparently the only person that left the country/continent to start a new life in a totally different place. So this reunion will be interesting indeed.

Austria is a beautiful country and although I am only going over there for a short period of time, I am hoping to have a little bit of time to do some exploring. I may do a little side trip to the north part of Italy or to the coast of Slovenia or Croatia.


Lovely architecture in Ljubljana 

The beauty of Europe is that everything is so immensely close. Although the end of October/beginning of November is not the best time to travel weather-wise, I am looking forward to going back home after almost 8 years. It's certainly a good time to realize some travel savings since it's off-season.




This will be a real budget trip too since I get to stay with my brother and sister-in-law. I did some searches on the Internet to look for the best flight connection and almost booked with http://www.flyzoom.ca/ which offers tremendously inexpensive charter flights to London Gatwick. Their return flights to London start at about Can$199, which is an unbelievable price for a transatlantic flight.

Then I looked into Ryanair, http://www.ryanair.com/, which is one of the well-known low-price charter airlines in Europe that fly to Graz from London Stanstead. Ryanair would charge about GBP 80 + GBP 40 for a return flight to Graz, 120 Pounds in total (about Can$270) which would be an extremely good price for a flight from Toronto to Graz.

However, I could not find a good connection between the two flights and would have had to stay over one night in London, which would have negated all the savings from the flights. So I ended up booking with http://www.destina.ca/, and getting a convenient direct flight with Lufthansa from Toronto to Graz for about Can$850, taxes included.



I will certainly try to do a little tour of Graz, http://www.graztourism.at/, the city where I attended university. Graz is the second largest city in Austria (larger than Salzburg or Innsbruck) with a population of about 250,000. It has a beautifully preserved medieval core and was recently awarded the designation of "World Heritage Site" by UNESCO. In 2003, Graz celebrated many festivals as "Europe's City of Culture 2003.


The "Rathaus" (City Hall) of Graz 
Graz has a hill in the middle of town, the so-called "Schlossberg", that can be ascended by funicular. On top is the "Uhrturm" or clock tower, built in 1712 and the symbol of Graz. The "Hauptplatz" or main square is a beautiful large square and harbours City Hall and many upscale retailers and a local market. Other main sights include the Chateau of Eggenberg, the Cathedral and Mausoleum and the Armory.

Graz is also the capital of "Steiermark", which is the Austrian province of "Styria", http://www.steiermark.com/en/. Styria is a beautiful province with diverse landscapes, including glaciers, high mountain ranges, rolling hills and even vineyards. Styria is one of the little-known secrets of tourism in Austria and it holds tremendous scenic beauty while at the same time offering great travel deals.

Styria has beautiful regions, including the Styrian "Salzkammergut", a region with high mountains and alpine lakes, very close to the area where "Sound of Music" was filmed. Other regions of interest include the "Dachstein-Tauern" region with towering high mountains, Upper Styria with forested mountains of medium altitude. The Western and Southern part of Styria have gently rolling hills, many of them with vineyards and orchards. This is often referred to as "Styrian Tuscany". In the south east is the area called "Thermenland", a relatively flat area with low-rising hills that has vestiges of former volcanic activity and many thermal springs and spas. Just the perfect place to get pampered.




The area that I am headed to is called "Oststeiermark" or Eastern Styria, with medium-high mountain ranges and rolling hills that peter out towards the Great Hungarian Plain, with many castles, ruins and churches of interest. The regions of Styria make up one of the most reasonably priced areas of Austria and they offer great recreational and cultural opportunities.

As always, in the little bit of spare time that I will have on this trip I will take pictures and create blogs whenever the time allows. It's going to be interesting to head back to my home country, my home town after almost 8 years.

SQ.

www.youtravelcheap.com
http://www.textronics.com/

Camino de Santiago

Toronto, October 16, 2004, 8:57 am

Yesterday I went to a special presentation at the Spanish Centre, www.spanishcentre.com, in Toronto. The "Centro de Habla Hispana" is a combination of a language school, dance school and cultural centre right in the heart of Toronto and I have taken some Spanish lessons there recently to rekindle my love of the Spanish language.

The presentation yesterday was by Sue Kenney, www.suekenney.ca , a former sales professional in the telecommunications industry, who completed the Camino de Santiago, a 780 km pilgrimage on foot, from east of the Pyrenees in France to the town of Santiago de Compostela in the northwestern part of Spain. You can check out her experiences first-hand in her new book My Camino.


Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

Sue is a very interesting and dynamic individual. She told our group about several of her defining life experiences, her sister's death due to cancer, her youngest of 3 daughters moving in with her former husband, her experience of being made "redundant" in her early 40s at a major telecommunications company in Toronto, after 25 years in the industry. She also touched on her experiences as a championship rower who won a gold medal in the FISA World Masters Rowing Championships with a group of women whose average age was 42, an accomplishment that must have required tremendous efforts, determination and discipline. All around a very unusual, impressive personality.

Her layoff from her telecommunications job was a pivotal point in her life, when she looked around and took inventory of all her physical surroundings and material belongings and realized that this wasn't everything for her. There was something more to life and she decided to tackle the Camino de Santiago barely a month after her layoff and began her journey in November of 2001.

Sue hiked the Camino by herself, although occasionally accompanied by other pilgrims, during the winter when very few individuals even attempt this journey. She hiked between 25 and 40 km a day, and stayed in the "refugios" (pilgrim's hostels that are open to registered pilgrims for a suggested donation of about 4 Euros a night). She also mentioned stories of incredible generosity of the locals, who cooked meals for the pilgrims and gave them an honourable welcome along the way. Sue also told a story that was shared with her by another German pilgrim, who said that the stone figures along the way were a collection of stones left behind by other pilgrims, and each stone represented the sorrows of the pilgrim that deposited it.

Sue started to pick up stones, symbolically put her sorrow in it and put it down, and later decided that she would do this for other people, putting down a stone for them every time she tought of them and any sorrows that they might have. Sue's journey along the Camino become a journey of self-love and of love for other people. And it changed her life. Today Sue is no longer a telecommunications consultant, today she is a motivational speaker, writer and coach and she tries to live the principles that she discovered on the Camino in her day to day life back in Canada.

I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation. The Camino de Santiago is many things to many people, a religious pilgrimage, a spiritual journey, a process of self-discovery and meditation, an extreme physical challenge, and an opportunity to face and confront one's deepest fears. Many people who complete it come out changed human beings. Sue Kenney was certainly one of them and I think she inspired many of the people in the room to think about their own path, their own journey from here on in.

For me last night was an insight that you don't always need to travel thousands of kilometers to learn things about other cultures, about other people or yourself to gain valuable insights. Sometimes your own city has so many things to offer, events that expand our horizons and stretch the envelope. Thanks to Sue Kenney and Javier from the Spanish Centre who made this experience possible.

SQ
www.youtravelcheap.com
www.textronics.com

Hello from Ibiza (4)

October 1, 2004, 9:50 pm

So we spent our last day here today, the last day of this truly amazing 2 week vacation. Yesterday, after our little beach experience at Cala Llonga we went to the town of Sant Miquel where they have a live performance of folkloric dancing every Thursday evening at 6:15 pm.

The performance was inside the white-washed church's inner yard and we sat down with another 40 to 50 tourists to watch a group of about 10 children and teenagers who were all dressed up in traditional Ibizan outfits. The boys wore black or white pants with vests over a shirt and red long hats, almost like nightcaps. The girls all wore headscarves and some of them wore traditional Ibizan wedding dresses with 13 layers of skirts!

They performed a number of dances, with the boys jumping and kicking their legs up high, while the girls mostly walked around them, demurely in tiny little steps. Obviously some courtship and wedding dances, the instruments were mostly a flute, a metal instrument that looked like a sword that was used for percussion, plus a little drum. Some of the flutes played were introduced by dated the Egyptians. The boys also used very large castanets. Definitely a very interesting experience, in terms of dress, music and dance, Ibiza is a very unique culture, extremely different from the typical Spanish or Andalusian stereotype of flamenco dancing.


A wedding dress in Ibiza: 13 layers! 

Today we went into Sant Antoni where I took a 1.5 hour boat ride (8 Euros) on a glass bottom boat. We went around the south part of Sant Antoni bay to Cala Bassa. A diver was also on board and at one part we stopped and she dove in and brought back a few animals, 2 sea worms, a sea star and a very thorny animal who´s name I forget. We went around the islands off the Bay of Sant Antoni, beautiful area. On the way back, the ship´s crew served local champagne in a unique, curved flask that deposited the drink directly on the recipient´s tongue. Some of the boaters quite willingly partook of the ritual.

We then spent the afternoon at Platja des Comptes where we went swimming and watched a beautiful sunset in front of the little islands off the coast. It was crowded at the beginning, but it thinned out nicely around 3, 4 pm or so and we had more space on the beach. One local man came back from diving with a harpoon and he brought in an octopus which immediately drew a crowd of onlookers from the beach. Just before sunset we went to a smaller little cove where we saw a jelly fish just floating around, against a backdrop of golden rocks, which alerted us to the imminent sunset.

Many people congregated and the sun dropped slowly but surely into the water, just to the right of one of the larger islands off the coast. A fitting evening to our last night in Ibiza. All in all, it´s a beautiful place, just large enough for a week of exploration and compact enough so we never had to do much driving, the biggest distance on the island from one point to another I believe is 40 km.


Glorious sunsets on Ibiza. 

A great vacation!!!

SQ.
www.youtravelcheap.com
www.textronics.com