Another City to Love

As you know, Salzburg is our favorite city in Austria. But after spending two days in Vienna, we have found a second favorite! On two separate days, we got to see some great areas of Austria's largest city! We arrived to Vienna on a Wednesday morning and headed to Schloss Schönbrunn to see the beautiful former summer home of members of the Habsburg monarchy. The grounds are beautiful and we loved the view of the city from the Gloriette.

We next found ourselves checking out St. Stephan's Cathedral. The building is incredible and we just can't wrap our mind around how it was built almost 1000 years ago! It is so tall and intricate.

Next door is a favorite store of ours - Manner! We enjoyed these famous wafers in their original flavor as well as vanilla and zitrone (lemon). So good!

We wandered the area and then found a restaurant recommended to us by our host - Demel. It is a cute cafe where you can watch the pastry chefs make all the sweet treats. We enjoyed our cakes and coffee! Another favorite way to spend our days!

The highlight of this trip was meeting up with one of the daughters from our first host in Austria and her boyfriend whom we also met during our stay on their farm. It was so nice to catch up with them over dinner and later some more coffee and Sacher Torte! Sacher torte is a Vienna original chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam underneath the layer of chocolate frosting. We walked around the Ringstraße and saw different historical buildings and parks. It was so wonderful to be able to see our friends again and we can't believe the amazing connections we are making during our trip! We were sad to say goodbye but have high hopes of getting to see them again!

To cap off our Viennese experience, we went to William Shakespeare's The Tempest at the Vienna State Opera House or Wiener Staatsoper. We had standing room only tickets and didn't understand everything even though it was in English. However, we both decided that we like operas!

Finally, before heading back to the Mangalitza pigs, we shared a delicious meal of a kebab and pizza! Day one in Vienna was amazing!

After having a host situation that was not ideal, Dana and I did some last minute planning and decision making. We found ourselves back in Vienna for another day and fell even more in love with the city! We found out that the city is full of wonderful parks. After getting bread, meat, and cheese, we claimed a grassy spot near a canal of the Danube. We enjoyed a small snack and took in our surroundings before more exploration. We passed an industrial area of town that included Novartis and Johnson & Johnson.

As it was quite warm, we found shelter in a tree-filled path in a huge park. We found a nice shady grassy spot to do some exercises and rest. We took a nap as it had been an early morning for us. I love napping in the grass on a warm day.

As we love cafés and coffee houses, we decided to frequent one we had thought cute when we were there before. Aida has many cafés throughout the city and reminded us of a Classic American diner. We picked out some eis and an apple torte to share! It was so nice to sit and chat, while also getting to call our Mom. We have decided that subconsciously we were missing home as we chose an American-esqe cafe and enjoyed peanut butter and brownie ice cream!

We were blessed with the opportunity to meet another daughter of our first host in Austria that evening. Her sister arranged for us to stay at her flat and we are so grateful for this wonderful family we have met! It was so great to sit with her and her flat mate and share stories of our adventure. We enjoyed a lovely shower and snuggled into a no-buzzing, bug free bed! We awoke for a nice breakfast and said goodbye to our new friend. Then we were off on our next journey!

We even got to ride the tram as we made our way to the bus station. We found our bus and headed to Prague!

Living among Mangalitza pigs

As the tractor pulled up beside the row of pens with a load of potatoes in the back, we got our first glimpse of the red, white and black pigs covered in full coats of hair. Mangalitza pigs.

Residing north of Vienna, the last family who graciously hosted Julie and I for two weeks raise and slaughter the rare, Hungarian originating breed of Mangalitza pigs. These hogs are either red, blond or sallow-bellied and are distinguished by their thick coat of hair and amazing fat producing capabilities. Lard is what these pigs are known for.

Julie and I spent two busy weeks cooking potatoes to feed to the pigs and tossing buckets or shovel-fulls of the potatoes over fences to be greeted by grunting and happy sows and boars. Because lard and quality fat are such important products of the Mangalitza pig, potatoes are one of the best foods to feed the pigs. They are all starch and help with fat production!

Not only did we cook and feed potatoes, we also spent many hours almost every day doing the 'green stuff' in the garden. When it was time to go weed the large garden and rows of vegetables, we were summoned to do the green stuff! Weeding may never be called weeding again by Julie and I! We weeded rows of salad, zucchini, cabbage, kohlrabi, berries with thorns, tomatoes, and pepper plants. The grass and other green stuff we pulled went to the squealing little pigs to enjoy!

With the garden and over 100 sows, our hosts work to be as sustainable as possible. This includes using all of the hog when they slaughter. Julie and I were able to watch the Dad of the family cut up a sow they'd slaughtered before we arrived. He uses a unique method for cutting up the carcasses he refers to as seam processing. This method allows for better usage of the whole carcass and produces better pieces for the drying and/or curing of speck.

After a sow is slaughtered and processed, the Mom of the family was always busy cooking up broth from bones, blood sausage using parts of the head as well, stew with lung, heart and tongue and grinding up little pieces for other sausages or recipes. One day we got to watch the making of lard. That was so neat!

We enjoyed amazing dishes each meal made from the family's pigs and vegetable garden, however, the sweetest treat we were able to enjoy was fresh from the hive honey! Both Julie and I watched the pulling out of the slats of honeycomb and learned about the male and female eggs growing inside the hives. We then watched the spinning of the honey out of the honey combs and enjoyed some natural 'bubble gum.' The gum was just some of the wax still with honey inside. We chewed the wax bits and enjoyed the sweet honey until all was gone. So super tasty good! We want bees now!!

Julie and I learned so much over the last two weeks and hope to see what we will be able to implement and try at home in just three months! Fat and lard will always be viewed a little differently from now on and I can never say again that I ate blood sausage and didn't like it! It was wild for me, but it really tasted good!

It was a very fun, learning experience! Thank you to the wonderful family that was our host!

Time to cook potatoes!

One of the many pigs

Ready to feed the pigs!

Making a mud bath!

We love "the green stuff!"

Watching seam processing

Blond Mom with her babies

Grinding meat for Leberkäse

Hawaiian roasted pig for the Hoffest: this hog was wrapped in nettles and cooked slowly in the ground for 16 or more hours! So tasty! 

Yummy cherries! 

Making lard! 

Cleaning the horse paddocks! 

We're bee keepers now!! 

Spinning the honey from the slats. 

Natural bubble gum-wax with honey to chew off! Yum! 

Honey! 

What a beautiful place! 

A wonderful time in a super place!