(The Almeidas on a bridge across the Salzach River with the spires and domes of Salzburg and the ramparts of the Hohensalzburg Fortress rising up behind us)

 There is nothing I dislike about Austria. From the moment I first set eyes on the coutnry, more than twenty years ago, it has occupied a special place in my heart. Just about any corner of Austria could become the subject of a picture postcard or a landscape painting. Almost afraid, it seems ,of asserting its identity in the presence of dominant Germany, its next door neighbor, Austria has been content to take the back seat.

Yet, droves of visitors leave bewitched by its combination of natural beauty and unique contributions to civilization. I mean what’s not to love about Mozart’s “Eine Klein Natchmusik” or a slice of cripsy apfel streudel? And then there’s that legendary Viennese Roast Coffee…and the schnitzel. And the romanticism of the Von Trapp Family Singers and ….there’s so much more to Austria.

I wanted to share it all with Llew and Chriselle. It has helped that  Llew’s own career in Banking long  associated him with the country through his job with Creditanstalt which later became Bank Austria. It made us friends who live in  Vienna and frequently invited us to visit the country in their company. My former neighbor from Bombay, Dinesh Marar, had married an Austrian and had made the country his home. Through Sabine Maringer Poelz and my old friends of over twenty years, Ronald Sturm, his wife Karin and his brother Deiter, we saw Austria through familiar eyes when we visited the country in the summer of 2005 on a tour of Eastern Europe.

Follow us now on our travels around Austria. Let us take you to Salzburg, a city in which my maternal grandmother Valerie Marcks had lived in the years between the two World Wars. She often told me of the beauty of Salzburg when I was a little girl. I felt as if I was walking in her footsteps when I arrived in the city as a backpacker in 1987. Almost twenty years later, I thought of her again when I walked the same streets, this time in the company of Llew and Chriselle who also fell in love with the city.

Then stay close behind  us in Vienna, magnificent capital city of the Hapsburgs, as we see some of the world’s greatest art treasures.

In the gracious spa town of Baden, we shall tread upon cobbled streets that carry strong sulphur scents.

We returned home with a ton of evocative photographs, a special wooden box containing the famous Sachertorte and memories of a warm and friendly people who generously shared the bounty of their land with us.

We’re sure you will love Austria too.

Bon Voyage!