1936 On the Continent

Astoria till the early morning. In Pörtschach, the second largest bathing place, the Astoria Bar opens its friendly doors to you. There is no difficulty about staying here, as there are well managed hotels and pensions of all kinds and all prices. The Kärntner dialect will seem a little strange to you at first, also the loud calls when a boat appears: “Look out, there comes a steamer!” But once you are used to it you will hear in these sounds the music of the country. The principal town of the Kärntner country is Klagenfurt. Stay at the Hotel Moser if you want up-to-date apartments, but at the Hotel Sandwirth (where of course you will find running water in all bedrooms) if you want comfort and like a lovely old garden and solid country food. The foodat the Goldenen Brünnen in the Lidmannskygasse is recommended by the natives, it has a Kärntnerish character, but nevertheless will adapt itself to your taste. If you go to the Landhauskeller or the Kaffee Moser, do not forget to order a “Reindling.” I will only tell you that it is something to eat.
Steiermark
    Steiermark has gained a certain international reputation through the “Steirer dress,” grey jacket with green facings, which has become the favourite costume of the hunter all over the world. From Vienna you get to Steiermark via the thousand feet high Semmering which divides Lower Austria and Steiermark. Steiermark is called “green,” and in truth it lies in the arms of deep green woods. The Steirer is very fond of singing—he has given life to the Austrian folk-song. He indulges in singing and dancing and drinking, and when he is a bit merry he likes fighting. But such things he only does on Sunday—during the week he is industrious and hard-working. The capital, Graz, is one of the most beautiful towns in Austria. A quiet town, a town of civil servants and pensioners, a town in which poets and dreamy women feel at home. It has a mild climate; Gerhardt Hauptmann has sung of it; the Austrian poet Rudolf Hans Bartsch called it the town of lovers. It is like a great garden spread round the old fortress of the Schlossberg. The eight-hundred-year-old Old Town, the new town and the suburbs, are still to-day thickly wooded and intersected by quiet paths, where though you no longer meet stags or deer, there are few humans, as in Graz even in the middle of the town you can be alone. Alone but never lonely. If you climb the Schlossberg you will see a wonderful panorama of the Steiermark country, the wine country in the south with its creaking windmills, lean and crooked, overtopping the trees and copses and, not so much by their romantic aspect as by their noise, keeping the greedy birds from the vine trellises. Graz is a true country town, a town without much activity, a town for quiet people, a town for the meditative and the country lover, and
the
town for honeymooners. Perhaps nowhere in the world is the air and the atmosphere so appropriate to young love as here. Andthe South Steirer wine raises the spirits not only of old wine connoisseurs, but also of young people. The best-known hotel in the town is the Elefant. There you will find every comfort, without confusion, haste or bustle. But if you want to live just “right” in Graz, try one of those small nameless pensions in which you will be looked after like a son of the house and in which you live a timeless sort of life: a boat gliding quietly over the quiet water. Ladies who are interested in the national costume of the Steiermark should visit Kastner and Köhler’s establishment at Sackstrasse 7-13.
    On the way to Graz from Vienna, you will see on the other side of the Semmering, Roseggers Waldheimat, most typical of Steiermark life. If you have a few hours to spare, you will find a fairy-tale here: a few houses in wood and stone, a few people, happy, fresh and unspoiled, home industries, green ways and the fathomless woods of the Steiermark. It is an enchanted land where you should wear mountain shoes and no silk dresses, and where there is not only the smell of the woods in the stimulating air, but also that of the dung heaps.
Upper Austria
    Formerly this was called “the country of the Ems.” It is a rich land with many yeomen, a corn and fruit land, the home of the so-called “Mostschädel.” Its capital, Linz on the Danube, is somewhat badly treated in Austria. It is really a charming Baroque town with delightful nooks and corners, with very good inns and a particularly cheerful