12th September 2018
Vienna, Austria
A young couple descend from a train at Völs station and take a post bus up the valley. Their destination is the village of Gries im Sellrain in Tyrol, where they will spend a romantic honeymoon. The couple are my parents, and the year is 1951. After my father died in 2013, my mother moved […]
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21st February 2017
Vienna, Austria
My introductory video from last September noted the importance of visiting all parts of Austria; and of the dialects spoken in different regions. You can watch me attempting to learn the wonderful and challenging Tyrolean dialect in the video above. Clearly it’s easier in a snowstorm; up a mountain; in the cable-car going down; or, […]
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16th February 2017
Vienna, Austria
The wind is whistling at the top of the Hungerbergbahn. But my teacher is encouraging. ‘It’s bärig,’ she says. ‘Innsbruck ist bärig’ (‘Innsbruck is terrific’). I repeat; and repeat; and repeat again. I’ve written before about the variety of Austria. A country dissected by great mountains and steep valleys has developed, over centuries, a patchwork of […]
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