Grüner Veltliner
Le Ciel, Berchtesgaden, Germany
A twisty drive on the Alpenstraße brings the visitor to Le Ciel, a 12-table restaurant that offers dining at an altitude of 1000 meters at the InterContinental Resort Berchtesgaden. The hotel itself is set on a small plateau overlooking the Nationalpark Berchtesgaden in Berchtesgadener Land, Bayern (Bavaria) adjacent to Salzburg, Austria.
On Christmas Day it had started to snow in the late afternoon and the restaurant’s softly lighted interior seemed all …
Wining and Dining: Vienna, Austria
Vienna, at the heart of Europe, is a city offering a unique blend of the arts, culture, music, and shopping, where 19th century Imperial traditions coexist alongside the latest trends. One doesn’t have to go far to see a Fiaker (horse-drawn carriage) being passed by a skateboarder.
Tradition is everywhere, from the Kaffeehaus (coffee house) to ubiquitous paintings and photographs of Kaiser Franz Joseph I., the Habsburg emperor who ruled the …
Austrian Wine Country – Driving the BMW Z4 sDrive23i to Vienna
My all-too-brief stay in the Kamptal (Kamp Valley) was over. I reluctantly left the Loisium hotel in Langenlois around 10:15 for Vienna.
First order of business: top down. The top takes only 20 seconds to retract and it appears far more robust than earlier generation retractable hardtops, which seemed a bit fragile in construction. The interior features generous amounts of space; even with the top up, …
Austrian Wine Country – Driving the BMW Z4 sDrive23i
While Austria is synonymous to many for music and culture, its wines don’t have the renown that those of other European countries have. Austria has, however, 51,213 hectares of vineyards, mostly in the eastern part of the country. I’m visiting the province of Niederösterreich (Lower Austria), which has over 31,000 hectares of vineyards, to be followed by a visit to Vienna (over 600 hectares but it’s the only capital city …
Austrian Wine Country – I. Part
Join me as I embark upon a tour to the three main wine-growing regions of Austria.
I departed New York on 4 September via Austrian Airlines, coincidentally on the first day of ownership of the airline by Lufthansa. Fortunately, not much has changed and hopefully, as the Austrian newspapers have written, it will simply be “red uniforms without red ink.”
The first order of business was to pick up a …
Austrian Airlines Flights 87 and 88, New York-JFK Vienna and Return
A coffeehouse at 35,000 feet
Terminal 1 is the busy home to 16 airlines. I found Austrian’s check-in area quite easily and checked in without any waiting. The agent invited me to visit Alitalia’s lounge, where I watched a Euro 2008 match with a glass of wine and a salad.
BOARDING
Austrian allowed early boarding for business class passengers and within minutes I was comfortably ensconced in my business class seat. The crew …
