I kind of picked up where I left off on yesterday’s adventure this morning. I drove back to Spitz on the northern side of the Danube, took a ferry across the river, visited Aggstein Castle, and then drove back along the south side of the river, stopping along the way to visit a few of the small villages dotted along the river.
My first adventure was to take the ferry across the Danube from Spitz to Arnsdorf. The ferry runs on a cable system and kind of moves sideways across the strong currents of the river. The ramp to drive the car onto the ferry is wooden and didn’t look sturdy enough to walk on, never mind drive a car on! The crossing only took about 10 minutes and then I was off to Aggstein Castle.
Aggstein Castle is more preserved than Hinterhaus (the one I visited yesterday). There is an entrance fee to get in, and stairways and railings have been built into the walls and stairways to help with navigation. Aggstein was built in the 1100s and is perched high above the Danube. I typically feel like I’m supposed to stop and read all of the signs when I visit historical sights, even if I don’t really care much about the history of a place. Lucky for me, all of the signs at Aggstein Castle were in German, so I could bypass them all without guilt. Instead, I was able to focus on enjoying the views and taking pictures of the castle.
After having my fill of the castle, I climbed to the top of a rocky overlook, giving a birds-eye view of the castle and surrounding landscape. A slight wrong turn on the trail meant I got a few more steps in than I was planning, but I also got another great view from further away.
I stopped a few times on the way back from the castle and eventually found myself in Rossatz, a little town just across the river from Dürnstein. There is a little cafe (Tinis Kaffee Eckerl) that had tables set up on the Kirchenplatz (church square). It was there that I indulged in my first Topfenstrudel, or cheese curd strudel. Cheese curds here are not like the “squeaky cheese” we have in the US (though I do love those!). Here it seems to be more like a ricotta or cream cheese, called a “farmer’s cheese” in recipes. If possible, I think I like Topfenstrudel even more than apple strudel!
Since I’m not a wine lover, and this is wine territory, my drink of choice has become kaiserspritzer, which is half white wine, half soda water, and elderflower syrup. It is good, fizzy, sweet, and also cheap, as most wine is here. It is carefully measured and a glass seems to usually be less than €3. Eating my Topfenstrudel, drinking my wine, listening to German conversations all around me, all in the middle of a tiny square in the Wachau Valley in Austria… what could be better?
I spent the rest of the afternoon back at my hotel, going for a swim and doing some reading. I had dinner at Lieb Stöck’l, a place I had driven by but couldn’t find much info about online. The waiter nicely offered to translate the menu for me. I decided on käsekrainer (the same cheese-stuffed sausage I had in Vienna), which may seem boring, but was actually delicious. It had just a little bit of spice and the sauce on the side (kind of a tangy, thousand island style) was the perfect complement. I finished it off with a scoop of stracciatella ice cream/gelato, which the waiter decided to make into a sundae for me.
Traveling with Laura 