Paula Maia's Wine blog

Stepping off the train from Vienna felt just like coming home. I love Munich for many reasons beyond my understanding. Maybe those deep roots do have an influence after all. My great grand-father was German and my great grand-mother was Austrian or Hungarian- or both. I, on the other hand, never had any interest in Germany until I met my husband, who’s German.

I don’t know if it’s the beer, the wine, or the Schnitzel that gets me, or if it’s something about their obsessive methodology, efficiency and perfectionism that draws me to it. Perhaps it’s all those wursts, all that green and all those fancy cars, but there’s definitely something about Munich that feels so homey. I love to walk around the historical city center, to stroll through the Englischer Garten and to simply wait and count the seconds until the bus arrives at the exact scheduled time.

From the Hauptbahnhof we walked to Hofbraukeller at Wiener Platz, where we had a Schnitzel of course, in their Biergarten near the Gasteig- Munich’s Philarmonic. It was the perfect way to end the trip and prepare myself psychologically to go to my real home in New York. Actually, the trip really ended at the airport, where I enjoyed a Currywurst with a Weissbier at the Airbräu- the next closest thing to heaven.

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The next day my friend Silvana and I took a train from Munich’s Hauptbahnhof to Vienna, capital of Austria and UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001. Founded around 500BC, Vienna was once the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that ended after the first World War in 1918. The city though, seems to have been preserved in its grandiosity.

Culture life in Vienna is at all times sizzling. Home to a number of opera houses, theaters, museums, churches and famous for its architecture and design, Vienna is a true metropolis with a medium town feeling. With an abundance of outdoor spaces, it seems like the Viennese really know how to enjoy life. Everywhere you look there’s a Kaffeehaus, a Biergarten or a Gästehaus, where one can enjoy an Apfelstrudel, a glass of Grüner, a Schnitzel or simply stare in wonder.

We were in Vienna for only 5 days, which is enough time to get to know the city, visit most prominent sites and- if you are lucky- even catch an opera for $6 Euros a pop. However, if you fall in love with Vienna, like I did, then you probably will never get enough of it. I cannot wait to go back, but in the meantime I rejoice in local alternatives as close as a block away from home.

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Breakfast in Italy, lunch in Austria, dinner in Germany, oh the good life I have! Besides the natural anatomy of those countries, and the fact that if you drive from Germany to Italy you must cross Austria, it still sounds utterly decadent to be in three countries in one day.

Also in the Alps and surrounded by three very high mountains, Innsbruck is an international winter sports destination. In 1964 and in 1976, Innsbruck hosted the Winter Olympics and the First Winter Youth Olympics of 2012 is being held in Innsbruck as well.

Believe it or not, the day we were there they were having a festival that happens only every 20 years. We beat the odds of this all-weekend drink and dance fest that had most residents celebrating in traditional costumes. After checking out the altstadt we stopped at Stiftskeller for a Wiener Schnitzel and a Gruner Veltliner. By 10 o’clock we were back in Munich having- you guessed- another Schnitzel, this time with an Augustiner-Braeu.

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As crazy as it sounds, after being to 7 wine regions, we headed straight to Munich in time to catch the Oktoberfest. The funny thing is that the Oktoberfest is actually in September. What happens is the weather is so bad in October that they started to push it back until it stayed in September, when the weather is still bad, but better than in October.

It was my first real Oktoberfest, but being from the South of Brazil, where the 2nd largest Oktoberfest outside Munich happens, the original one didn’t impress me as much as my proud German husband wish it did. About 100km north of Porto Alegre- where I hail from- there is a great deal of Germans immigrants. That is in Novo Hamburgo, Sao Leopoldo, Gramado, Canela, Bento Goncalves, just to name a few. Today you can still hear amongst themselves a dialect, so old that my husband hardly understands it.

In my next Oktoberfest, I will make sure to park in the Sekt Tent as opposed to a sought after Beer Tent. It’s almost shameful to deny the importance of the liquid gold and its national supremacy, but there’s only so much I can drink of it. Now, wine is a different story and a mass- or a keg rather- will do me good. Did I have fun? Of course, I just wish I was as drunk as everyone else.

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