Oktoberfest Video!

Reutte, Tirol, Austria

On Friday morning, we set out for Reutte to visit our friend Thomas. Thomas worked with all of us at some point during a one year exchange program at Stowe Mountain Resort. He and his brother now own the hotel that his parents handed down to them. It has been in the family for over 200 years. He said there are so many people with the same last name in the town he doesn’t know them all. It is in downtown Reutte, a small Austrian village surrounded by mountains and ski areas.

Upon arriving at the hotel, Thomas greeted us and offered to take us to the famous castle near Fuessen. This castle, built in the 1800’s (relatively new for European castles) is the castle that the Disney World and Disney Land castles are based on. We went into the entrance area, but in order to go inside the castle you have to pay for a tour. He calls it Chinatown, and you can see why. He said everyone in China has visited this castle he thinks. We didn’t have the time or desire to do a tour, so we snapped a few pictures and then headed back down the hill. He said the castles are what bring the business to the area in the summer and fall so he can’t complain. We went to some ancient ruins from the 1400’s where he caters a lot of functions. It is where they used to trade “white gold” salt and there were some medieval battles. He drives like a crazy man but that is how they all drive except for the Germans. He says Germans don’t know how to drive but they own the nicest cars as he passes them on these little country roads.

Thomas had to cook afterwards (he is the Executive Chef for the hotel) and offered to make us an authentic Tirolean meal. When Thomas and his friend cooked at Stowe, there was a strong Austrian influence to the menus, so we all had been looking forward to some authentic Spaetzle, Weinerschnitzle and other dishes we hadn’t had in a long time. Boy, were we in for a treat! Thomas sent out the full spread, starting with a delicious traditional soup made with sliced pancakes, or crepes. The broth is much like in miso soup. Afterwards, a full family style meal followed, with a beautiful salad, amazing spaetzle with a local cheese he said makes the dish (other restaurants use cheap cheese that doesn’t work as well). Then some pasta filled with mashed potatoes and local cheese shaped like big perogies made from his grandmother's recipe that she always made them for them growing up. He said she once told him and his brothers that they couldn’t all come over at the same time because they ate too much. The third bowl contained a sort of home fries but with herbs, bacon and boiled beef. We each had a local steak (Kristin had pork) as the main course with a potato pancake on the side. It has some great mushroom sauce over it with herbed butter on top of the steak. A very rich and starchy but amazing dinner.

That night we went out with Thomas to a local bar across the street and talked to his friends and brother for a few hours. In Tirol they “burn” this amazing schnapps and so of course we all had to have a few shots of it. We had apricot and honey that went down a bit too smooth. It is distilled but they call it 'schnapps brennin' or burning but they couldn’t tell me why. He also had us drink his favorite beer which was very good. One of the locals came in about half drunk and starting testing Jason on his German pronunciation, and he passed after some lessons. Roland, Thomas’s brother, asked Jason why he spoke German (as if it was very strange) and said that everyone speaks English so why speak German.

After that we ended at a club a few blocks away but everyone was tired so we barely finished one beer and went home.

Breakfast was very good the next day and even included eggs which was a first for us except for the soft boiled ones we had that you need a little spoon to eat after breaking off the top. Very European. We had to part ways with Kristin & Charlie, as we were onward to Frankfurt and they had to return to the hotel in St. Johann before making their way to Munich to fly home.

After we said goodbye to Kristin & Charlie, Thomas was kind enough to drive us back to the castle to pick up a few souvenirs and then to the train station just over the border in Fuessen, Germany so that we could start our journey to Frankfurt. It took about 5 hours to get to Frankfurt...which we'll cover in the next post!