{"id":8744,"date":"2024-06-23T08:06:39","date_gmt":"2024-06-23T08:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/beautiful-villages-rolling-hills-upper-austria\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T09:56:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T09:56:22","slug":"beautiful-villages-rolling-hills-upper-austria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/beautiful-villages-rolling-hills-upper-austria\/","title":{"rendered":"The Austrian Countryside: Why M\u00fchlviertler Alm Is Austria\u2019s Best Kept Secret"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arriving into Mu\u0308hlviertler Alm, after leaving the rather impressive Melk Abbey, was something of an eye-opener \u2013 in part because it\u2019s not a part of Austria I knew much about; but mostly because it looks nothing like the idea of Austria I had in mind.<\/p>\n

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Here you\u2019ve got stunning rolling hills, which look even amazing as they create wonderful silhouettes against each other in the setting sun!<\/p>\n

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I wish I had more time to stop for photos but this would mean a very late arrival to where we would be staying for the night – Wanderreithof Heimelsteiner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wanderreithof Heimelsteiner<\/a> is a farmhouse up in Mu\u0308hlviertler Alm (in Upper Austria) and spoiler alert \u2013 this turned out to be one of my favourite experiences in Austria till date.<\/p>\n

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The biggest reason why this is so is definitely the people \u2013 as we found out when we arrived (well over an hour late) to the locals at the farmhouse having evening drinks and very lively conversations. They were so warm and immediately made you feel right at home. We joined in for drinks before even heading up to drop our luggage into our rooms.<\/p>\n

We had absolutely no plans for that evening except for a horse and carriage ride through the hills. After a quick beer, we hopped onto our horse and carriage, joined in by some of the locals we’d just been drinking with (a couple in the carriage but most on their own horses) who were very keen to show us their home of Mu\u0308hlviertler Alm.<\/p>\n

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This, of course, meant that we got to stop off at a few of the neighbour\u2019s homes – some of whom we’d just met for the first time but were immediately keen to show us their beautiful patch of Austria and share their 15-year-old Schnapps (and more beers)! *Sidebar: The Schnapps was at Plaimer\u2019s<\/a>, btw.<\/em><\/p>\n

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It’s so easy to feel at home here straight away and by the time we hit the local pub, everyone was chatting with us like we\u2019d been friends for ages! Again, this is a huge part of why this part of Austria just feels so special \u2013 yes, it\u2019s really beautiful and all that but the people are just so welcoming \u2013 it\u2019s amazing!<\/p>\n

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For dinner, we were due to have a barbecue with the farmer and his family but seeing as we\u2019d made lots of new friends, our simple barbecue became something of an Austrian party!<\/p>\n

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Apparently, these impromptu group gatherings are not unusual in these parts of Austria. Coming from London, where it\u2019s so easy to never really get to know your neighbours (like you’ll say hi if you bump into them but you’d be surprised at how infrequently this happens), it makes for such a fantastic and much-welcome change!<\/p>\n

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The barbecue, which started off with beers, meats and lots of laughing around the fireplace soon descended into singing (loudly) and even more laughter! Before you knew it, it was 2.30am and remembering that we had a fairly early start the next day, we stumbled off to bed, eager to see even more of this part of Austria.<\/p>\n

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After breakfast the next morning (surprisingly un-hungover), I hopped onto the horse and off we went to check out Mu\u0308hlviertler Alm!<\/p>\n

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I say \u201cI\u201d instead of \u201cWe\u201d as we found out (though we\u2019d suspected for a while, especially since that time we were in the horse place in Ronda<\/a>) that Lloyd is allergic to horses. I wish I could I was more supportive but the way he went from zero to super-red itchy eyes in all of 5 minutes was borderline hilarious to me. Also, I\u2019m pretty sure we\u2019ve been on horses before (actually now that I think about it, we definitely did go on horses in the Faroe Islands<\/a> and in Iceland<\/a> with no reactions) so the adult onset of this allergy is something I have to admit I found both weird and fascinating\u2026 but then again, I did develop hayfever as an adult so I guess I kinda get it…? \ud83d\ude01<\/p>\n

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I didn\u2019t have my camera with me on the horse and in retrospect, I really wish I did because the woods, mountain tops and valleys we went through were absolutely stunning! The whole entire experience was one of a kind. Absolutely fantastic!<\/p>\n

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It was such a great way to see the Austrian countryside and one that I can\u2019t recommend it enough!<\/p>\n

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The locals who were free that morning (and the guests) also join in on the horse ride, which came with beer stops. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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Alas, this was our final day in Austria and so, after about 4 hours on the horse, we stopped off for a really delicious lunch at Moser Alm<\/a> (Lloyd and I went for the lamb ragu and it was just amazing \u2013 could easily have had two of that, if we had even more time here).<\/p>\n

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With that, it was time to say farewell to Upper Austria and indeed Austria as we headed back to Vienna to catch our flight back to London!<\/p>\n

Even though we\u2019d gotten to explore 3 distinct parts of Austria, I left absolutely wanting to see even more of this amazing country \u2013 doesn\u2019t matter if this is skiing in the Alps in winter<\/a> or making the most of the stunning natural scenery in Summer, Austria as a whole is stunning and an absolute must visit!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arriving into Mu\u0308hlviertler Alm, after leaving the rather impressive Melk Abbey, was something of an eye-opener \u2013 in part because it\u2019s not a part of Austria I knew much about; but mostly because it looks nothing like the idea of Austria I had in mind. Here you\u2019ve got stunning rolling hills, which look even amazing … Continue Reading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,396],"tags":[760,355,961,962],"class_list":["post-8744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","category-travel-journal","tag-austria","tag-europe","tag-muhlviertler-alm","tag-upper-austria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justpaste.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}