The Austrian Road Trip
The best part of the Budapest to Oktoberfest trip is that you get to spend 8 nights and 9 days seeing the best of central Europe with an incredible group of people. The second best part is that the trip ends in the middle of Munich, which is perfect if you’re thinking of extending your trip! We had some extra time on our hands and sorted through the options -- it was nearly impossible to stay longer in Munich due to the Oktoberfest frenzy and we wanted to maximize our ‘splorin time by staying close by. Thus, the Austrian road trip was born!
Salzburg
Since we would be departing from Vienna, we took the train back to Salzburg to pick up a car and hit our refresh buttons before hitting the countryside. Even though we had already been here with the VoyEdgeRX crew, this is one amazing city that I took no issue with seeing again! We put in another hour at CrossFit Convalis before walking the old, beautiful streets of Salzburg. Don’t skip lunch at La Cantina, a small cafe on the river that operates on a “pay what you can” business model and serves up literally everything I need: good food, coffee, and gelato.
Fulpmes
We drove through a little chunk of Germany and back into Austria to our next location: Fulpmes. Since I did little-to-no research on the western state of Tyrol beforehand and really only planned to see Innsbruck, I was pleasantly surprised to learn how much there is to do in the area! There’s no way we were going to pass on seeing the Stubai Glacier, the largest glacier ski area in Austria. If you pack your hiking boots, you can explore one of the many hiking trails in the area. If not, you can still take the ski lift to the top, make a snow angel during any month of the year and order a mug of gluhwein, the delicious hot spiced wine of Austria. Since we failed to bring hiking gear but seeing people skiing got us in an outdoorsy mood, we decided to explore the trails of the less icy ski area that Fulpmes is the base of, Schlick 2000 (not a men’s razor). We wrapped up that day with dinner at Huisler Stube, which I will certainly be dreaming of for years to come. The next day, we explored the city of Innsbruck. The architecture and surrounding Alps make this mountain town an absolute sight to behold! You could wander the streets of Old Town all day to get your steps in while seeing Austrian postcards in real life, but this is also the area where CrossFit affiliates have congregated if you are itching for a barbell by now.
Graz
Next, we drove from Fulpmes to the southern province of Styria and made a home in Graz for two nights. If you are a wine lover, your bells are probably going off! Although Graz is the second-largest city in Austria, it puts you in close proximity to some of the quietest, idyllic wine country you’ll find. The city itself is beautiful (I swear they must have voted on a set color palette for all the buildings in Graz) and it’s populated enough to ensure that there’s a gym near you wherever you’re staying. We dropped into CrossFit Urkraft, which boasts the friendliest crew in all of Austria according to my husband, before heading for the grape-covered hills south of the city. What we didn’t know is that many of the vineyards in the area are small, family-owned operations and don’t always have a guy waiting in a tasting room ready to serve you. Actually, a chihuahua named Sammy greeted us at Weingut Primus. #kiddingbutnotreally Since there was no actual tasting room here, we shared a bottle outside and enjoyed the incredibly peaceful surroundings before moving to a more formal tasting at Weingut Polz. Our sommelier pointed to the hill where all of the grapes in our chardonnay were harvested -- what could possibly be more amazing than that?
Kirchberg am Wagram
Imagine feeling like you just drove to small-town USA in the midwest, then found out that instead of the abandoned farms and cornfields you expected, your neighborhood was flush with hundreds of winemakers and fancy foods -- that’s the region of Wagram. At the time this was written, there were a total of 311 wineries along this fertile section of the Danube River and who knows how many world-class restaurants. Calling the small town of Kirchberg am Wagram home for the night put us within a 5-minute drive from it all. We found ourselves at Weingut Ecker, where a couple of folks were happily fermenting their wine just like you’d imagine seeing it in your head. The owner of the winery was happy to offer us a one-on-one tasting with his American ex-pat employee, so we spent the next hour picking her brain about life in Austria while sampling wines that we would have never even heard of otherwise. Her fantastic company also came with a dinner recommendation, which happened to be a block away from our Airbnb. We walked over to a glass-walled restaurant overlooking the Austrian countryside called Weritus Wagram and ate ourselves silly from their seriously creative menu.
Vienna
Since we were flying home from Vienna, our road trip ends here. Vienna is best explored with the VoyEdge RX crew, so definitely do that, but we did have enough time to try brunch at Velobis, a bicycle shop and restaurant hybrid that serves up organic dishes with Austrian and West African flair. You could have tricked me into believing I had teleported to Portland, Oregon. If you’re into souvenirs of the permanent variety like I am, make an appointment with Friedrich von Heyden. He creates some seriously drool-worthy tattoos and his private studio is only a 10-minute walk from Schonbrunn Palace! Around the corner, you’ll find the biggest Greek burger you never needed and a glass of sturm at Odysseus Restaurant. Just to give you an idea, the only bad online reviews we found for this place were that the portions were TOO big (but to be clear, we don’t share that sentiment).
In conclusion: Take the trip, come early, stay late, and go to the places you know nothing about.
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