Lederhosen - breathable?

And finally, the weekend. Shockingly, white wine made another appearance.


On Sunday, I traveled with some friends to Wachau, a UNESCO world heritage site in the Danube valley about an hour's train ride from Vienna. The area is a beautiful - medieval castles and miles and miles of vineyards. After exploring the town of Melk (Stift Melk, the town's famous monastery, is pictured above), we took a boat cruise down the Danube to tour Wachau's famous sights and get a few glasses of some local wines.

The highlight of the day was hiking up to Durstein, the castle in which Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned during the Crusades.

It was a pretty steep hike and, despite hitting the Boston Sports Club frequently during the spring, I was pretty winded by the time I reached the remains of the castle/prison. And there I was at the top, panting, covered in dirt and sweat, and next to me is this middle-aged Austrian man leisurely smoking a cigarette and wearing lederhosen. Yes, those lederhosen.

"Lederhosen" translates to "leather pants." It was 83 degrees out and the man had just taken a hike with those bad boys on. Bold move, Mr. Austria, bold move.

Meine Fotos

I had planned on traveling to Bratislava this morning to begin my summer of European jet-setting, but I reconsidered leaving Vienna for the following reasons:

1. Heavy consumption of weißer Wein (a.k.a "white wine") is fun at the time, but not so fun the next morning.

2. I checked Gmail as I was getting ready to leave and the first email was from a friend in Greece. He wrote, "Whatever you do, don't go to Bratislava. It sucks."

Thus, I opted not to skip town. Instead, I went to tour around the Hofburg palace, the former home of the Hapsburg empire, in the middle of Vienna. What's most spectacular about Hofburg isn't its physical beauty (which is awe-inspiring) but the fact that the palace has survived two Turkish sieges, a invasion by Napoleon, and two World Wars intact.

Pictured above is a statue of Franz Joseph, which rests in the middle of a courtyard at the Habsburg palace. I don't think the picture really does justice to how majestic the place is, but I thought it was sort of cool that Franz Josef was the last Holy Roman Emperor. A throwback to AP European History, if you will.

The photo to the right is of a building near Museums-Quartier, a district near the Hofburg. I think this is something related to Parliament but again, I don't read German, so who really knows. Whatever it is, it's beautiful.

And finally, I really empathized with the kid in this picture. Do you remember being seven and sitting through family vacations? Torture. I watched this kid up and leave his family to enjoy a little "me time" in the fountain. $20 says we've got a future Philosophy major on our hands.