Hiking is easily one of my favorite activities. A few weeks ago I FINALLY got the much anticipated chance to go for a weekend of hiking in the Alps. Austria is great.
These pictures were taken in Styria, Austria near the town of Schladming. (The lighting, etc. is really strange in some of them because both my camera and my boyfriend’s camera died so I was forced to use my phone.)
We found horses!
Oh hey cow.
When hiking in Austria it’s apparently a requirement to stop at an Alm/Hütte and grab a drink and a bite to eat. Traditionally, an Alm is a pasture used during the warmer months to raise cattle, as well as goats and sheep, and produce dairy products (CHEESE…yum). These are found all over the Alps and although they still raise animals, today they are also popular among hikers. The Hütten (literally “huts”) provide thirsty and hungry hikers with ample amounts of alcohol and tasty food like “Schmalzbrot” (um…lard bread? Kidding about the tasty…)
I suppose this would be my vegetarian version of Schmalzbrot. It’s bread (with about an inch of butter) and Styrian cheese. I didn’t really catch exactly how it’s made, just that the tradition of eating it is really old and is just recently coming back into style. The cheese itself is also really old. Kind of like waxy blue cheese. Intense, but interesting. That’s a cider behind my bread. Don’t worry, I also drank water!!
The Foreign Traveler 