It is becoming increasing difficult to find a winter hiking location in Austria that has snow. In this respect, I should consider myself lucky to reach the Grossarl Valley in the Salzburg region a few days after rare heavy snowfalls. Last night, the combination of light rain and a temperature drop coated the branches of trees with a thin layer of ice, making them look like something out of a fairy tale for a short while. In the couple of hours that I hiked in the valley’s end, I made the only truly winter-like photos this season, which made the entire trip worth it.
By the time I reached Gasthaus Talwirt, the most obvious restaurant in the area, all the icicles had melted, and all the luckless travelers who had arrived after me and thus missed the short-lived beauty had decided to go for lunch. There was not a single table available, and disappointed, I walked into the nearby farm shop, thinking of buying some presents and, if I were fortunate, a bottle of something that I could drink outside before continuing with my hike back to the town of Grossarl.
Surprisingly, not only had the shop a few tables indoors, but most of them were vacant and there was even a printed menu containing beer and a Brettljause. There were a few other dishes, too, but the choice was easy for me.
The shop must be a family-run business, and the service was simple but very friendly. Quite some attention must have gone into arranging and decorating the Brettljause, for it looked nice and was well-balanced. Speck was the Jause’s highpoint – very tasty and authentic, as one would expect from local farmers. The cheese had a smoky taste, and the horseradish was pleasantly fresh and occasionally tear-inducingly strong. I was not that impressed with the other ingredients, such as salami, however. While it was nice to have them, they did not taste differently from the stuff one could get from a supermarket.
Still, it would be very unfair to complain. Bauernladenstüberl may not offer anything extraordinary in terms of souvenirs, but one can spend a quiet and pleasant hour there drinking beer, nibbling on Speck and enjoying the pictures of farmers/hunters standing next to various dead animals.
Leave a Reply