Not a "Boar"ing Time at All: Naturpark Sparbach

Tuesday's activity du jour was an outing to Naturpark Sparbach, Austria's first nature preserve, bequeathed to the empire in 1810 by the Liechtenstein Family.  The preserve contains Roman ruins, including a temple, and the remains of three 12th century castles. There are farm and wild animals, as well, including the star attraction, Wildschweine (boars).

Beautiful paths and gorgeous weather.

First up, donkeys and goats.

While cooing over the farm animals we heard rather loud squeals and hurriedly walked up the path a bit to find real boars!  Without an enclosure!  The rangers feed the boars twice daily, and we happened to be there at one of the feeding times.  There seemed to be some tensions between the pigs, so at all times we city slickers remained close to an enclosed area to which we could retreat. You know, just in case.

We are a little late in the season to see the striped piglets, but we were totally charmed with this little guy. Except for the eau du piglet aroma.

Leaving the boars we continued along the path, with one of the castle ruins peeking up from the Vienna Woods. Had we planned better (as in hiking shoes and water bottles) we would have climbed the 571m to the top to view the other castle remnants as well as the Roman ruins. Next time, as the park is less than an hour from the house.

The first time I have ever seen Zander in its native environment! Usually they are grilled and on my dinner plate with a lemon wedge.

 We walked to the base of the Ruine Johannstein, not an impressive feat given what we are capable of, and then took a different route back to the Visitors Center.

At one point Anna Grace grabbed my arm and said, "Look!"  About 5 meters away, we were being spied upon.

And nearby was this little piggy, heading into the cool forests for a nap perhaps.

To end our preserve outing, several deer sauntered by, but darted away too quickly for good photos.  No matter, we city gals had all the nature fun we could manage for one day.

On our way out of the preserve we stopped at the Visitors Center for a snack. (No, we did not have the Widlschwein sausage!)

Into the Vienna Woods: Mayerling and Heiligenkreuz

On Saturday we were not in the mood for a long day trip; no, we were not feverish, we just have a summer holiday approaching that entails a fair amount of driving. Thankfully, there is always a castle or palace or stately villa nearby that is worthy of exploring, and in this case, it was the Jagdschloss Mayerling, the former hunting lodge of Crown Prince Rudolf, heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne.  Except for that murder-suicide matter with his teenage mistress. And WWI, of course.

The Vienna Woods are gorgeous this time of year.

In less than an hour we arrived at the lodge, just ahead of four tour buses!  Sometime after the Crown Prince's death, a chapel was added to the lodge, encompassing the bedroom where the incident occurred. 

The Crown Prince led a troubled life. His parents were not particularly affectionate; and as a most eligible bachelor found himself caught up with ladies of ill repute, let's just say. He even brought along one of his mistresses en route to Belgium to marry his wife, Duchess Sofie of Belgium, and convinced a different mistress to end her life with his. His story is rather tragic.

In the former bedroom now resides a statue of the Virgin Mary, with a "dagger of anguish" piercing her heart, along with a pictorial of the Emperor upon learning of the death of his son.

In the tea pavilion there is on exhibit several of the Crown Prince's sketches, most of them ornithological in nature, as he was big into birds.  To think that if only the incident had not occurred, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand may have never found himself in Sarajevo on that fateful day in 1914...

Near to Mayerling is Heiligenkreuz, a small village home to the oldest continuously occupied monastery in the world.  Beautiful grounds to walk about for a little bit before lunch.

During lunch this delightful insect (?) amused us; and then, an easy drive home before the late afternoon rain showers arrived.