Austria Sightseeing: Music

Music is the constant heartbeat and throb off all Austrians. Vienna's Summer Festival runs from late June to mid-september; Salzburg's from late July to end of August; Graz's from mid-September through October; Bregenz's from July into August. For specifics, ask the Austrian National Tourist Office or your travel agent. Many smaller and fine festivals exist elsewhere and throughout the seasons.

Car Hire in Austria

In the capital, Avis (Opernring 1; phone: 5873595), Hertz (Karntnering 17; ph: 5128677), and ARAC-Autovermietung (Mollardgasse 15; ph: 59716675) continue to uphold their reputation for integrity and reliability. Hertz is outstanding in Salzburg for VW rentals. Because of high import duties and high taxes, the basic rates start in the stratosphere-and they climb from there. You would be wise to weigh rentals against alternate modes of transport.

Motoring in Austria

The nine-mile Arlberg Tunnel is a time-saver! In summer, when other routes and passes are open, the toll drops considerably. The Salzburg-Vienna autobahn is wonderful. The expressway over the Brenner Pass between Innsbruck and Italy also is tops for convenience and speed. The six-lane highway from Vienna southward reaches Gloggnitz; another span runs between Innsbruck and Kufstein. In high season, where there's no autobahn, you can find yourself frustrated by traffic congestion.

Austria Train

In Austrian Federal Railways, offers an hourly or two-hourly intercity services linking the capital with Salzburg, Graz, Innsbruck and Villach. The Wiener Walzer Express (sleeping cars available) and the Transalpin Express, Romulus Express, Vienna-Ostend Express, Mozart Express, Tirolerland, Erzherzog Johann, Wiener Walzer, Johann Strauss and most of the other orange-colored international stars. The majority offer sleepers (single at luxury prices to six-bed economy couchette cars) and dining facilities; all serve drinks. The modern autorail cars are good, too.

Austria Drinks

Wines are very carefully policed since the revelation of diethyleneglycol found in some pressings. Most bottlers have always maintained ethical standards. Prices average from $9 to $23 per bottle and from $2 to $3.50 for a fourth of a liter.

While Klosterneuburger is perhaps the best white wine, if you stick to Gumpoldskirchner (available in most places), you'll probably be pleased. Other dependable and sound labels are Kremser, Duernsteiner, Hohenwarther, Nussberger and Wachauer (Danube). An excellent red is Voslauer; the red from Baden also most often superb.

Of the beers, Gosser Brau is an rich brew made in Styria. It's full bodied and fine; you will have a choice of light or dark. Schwechater in tops in Vienna. Price: about $2 per glass.

Imported potables are relatively expensive. Strictly for nickel-plated gullets, there's a local rum that puts life in the afternoon tea, a "club whisky" that will lift the hat right off your head and a schnapps that you'll find still delicately flaked with enamel from the bathtub. (In fairness, most of the latter are fine in quality, but pack the wallop of a Titan missile). If you have about $6 to spend and take it like W. C. Fields, there is also the local plum brandy or slivovitz. Enzian is another brandy, distilled from the roots of the tall yellow (not blue) gentian. Bowle is a refreshing summer punch made of white wine, champagne or curacao, and fresh fruits; served from a bowl it costs about $2.50 per glass.

I you order a dry martini, be sure always to specify Beefeater (cheaper) or Gordon's as it's best applied to arrest baldness.

Soft drinks, such as Coca-Cola, at perhaps $1.45 per glass, are expensive. Lemonade and other locally bottle citrus beverages are priced at the same level.

Austria Food

For hungry wanderers who might be unfamiliar with local term for standard dishes, here are translations for some of the linguistic mouthfuls that you may encounter:

Backhendl :

 A very young, milk-fed chicken, breaded and deep-fried.

Bauernschmaus : 

A "farmer's plate" of savory sausage, pork, sauerkraut and dumplings. Beer is its happiest companion.

Griessnockerlsuppe : 

A hard-wheat dumpling beef broth.

Gulyassuppe : 

A long-simmering Hungarian Goulash soup.

Leberknodlsuppe: 

A liver-dumpling brew of just-right potency.

Naturschnitzel : 

An unbreaded veal cutlet.

Nockerln : 

A bite-size dumpling often steeped in Polish sauce.

Palatschinken : 

A thin, unrolled, but sugared flap jack. They also come in other form with 2432 toppings or sauces.

Tafelspitz:

 Boiled beef with chive sauce, potatoes, apples and horseradish.

Wiener Koch: A vanilla souffle.

Wiener Schnitzel: 

A breaded veal cutlet served with sliced lemon on the side. The garnished version adds capers and filets of anchovies on a curled round of lemon. If you order it Schnitzel a la Holstein, you will get Naturschnitzel with a fried egg on top (with the anchovies crisscrossed and the capers sprinkled around the yolk).

Austria

Here, at the geographic epicenter of Europe, is the vital an promising link between East and West. Enterprising traders from the United States, Japan and Germany already are setting up their office branches in Vienna for the anticipated business traffic through this corridor-hoping to be more important than Brussels once the eastern economy gets stoked up. Austria was created only as late as 1918, carved by political whittlers out of the German-speaking provinces of the old Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Two thousand years ago, its eastern Alps were home to celtic tribes. Three centuries later, the romans set their imperialistic sight on the same Alps-and by 14 B.C. had subjugated all the territory south of the Danube. This river of Strauss waltz fame then marked the frontier of the Roman occupation.

Today Austria's invading legions are fun seeker. They come, they ski and they consort. In the capital you will see opportunist jostling for position to greet the surging waves of commerce from the eastern states.

From 1438 to 1804 the title of Holy Roman Emperor was donned, with one exception, by Austrian sovereigns only. Then came the (singular) Austrian and the (tandem) Austro-Hungarian dominance. And from empire to empire, the nation's volatile history continued in a topsy-turvy vein-a tale of royal infighting, shifting alliances and plastic borders.

Wars, rebellions, intrigues and uprisings continually reshaped the national identity until 1945 when the country finally gelled into a confederation of nine Bundeslander (states): Vienna, Lower Austria, Burgenland, Upper Austria, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Tyrol and Vorarlberg.

At the same time its people-a curious but willing assemblage of East, West, North and South Europeans-joined hands across  their provincial borders to become citizens, linked by the German language and Catholic faith.

Climatically, Austria is a middle-of-the-road. There are no great swings of temperature. Much of the country is over 1000 meter high, so up in these climes the thermometer frequently plays tag with Jack Frost-even in spring and autumn. For the rest, Austria keeps its cool, rarely becoming uncomfortable hot.

It's people, too, are of a temperate nature, graceful as their music and prone (perhaps because of their geography and history) to being natural diplomats. They are a hospitable, reserved, yet friendly lot. But find the a bit into their schnaps or gluhwine, and they're likely to be unabashedly jovial. Red-cheeked, rosy and robust, they can't resist tucking into a good time. Beside commanding one of Europe's choicest morsels of scenic and cultural real estate, Austria wisely views itself as the commercial and social bridge between two mighty geopolitical realms, a potentially key figure in Eurasia's complex jigsaw puzzle.