Bad Tatzmannsdorf - Austria

Bad Tatzmannsdorf is a small spa town of approximately 1500 people in the Oberwart district of Austria, and is one of Austria's leading health and wellness resorts.

The area was ruled by a Hungarian noble family as early as 1378, and has been settled by Germans, Turks and Croats through the centuries. It became a favourite health resort for "cures" for the Austrian aristocracy from the 1700s onwards.

We stopped for an afternoon for the Men of Note concert that was scheduled at the Kurzentrum Concert Hall in Bad Tatzmannsdorf.

One of the Men of Note members was born in Germany and is fluent in German, so was able to introduce the choir and the musical numbers to the mainly German speaking audience. Good idea, as the current repertoire is sung in English or Latin.

The Kurzentrum at Bad Tatzmannsdorf hosts a variety of cultural and recreational events including lectures, readings, recitals and concerts, as well as providing running and walking trails and spa and wellness activities for guests.

The gardens were filled with fragrant lavender, and we noticed some very large hovering insects who were enjoying the flowers' nectar. They looked like what I imagine a baby humming bird would be, but they were hoverflies or hoverbees. 
Edited: I have been told that this is a hummingbird hawk moth. A fascinating creature.

After the concert we stopped at the nearby Weinstadl restaurant for an Austrian buffet dinner. Lots of meat and potatoes!

And of course when in Austria, one has to sample the local brew. Puntigamer is a traditional beer from Styrias provincial capital Graz, and famous in Austria for its football sponsorship. Puntigamer supports Austria's First League football club "Sturm Graz". 

More pictures to come.
If you have visited Bad Tatzmannsdorf, leave me a comment and tell me about it.

Pour Me a Cold One

Summer days on the way, and I'll soon be sitting out on the deck under the sun umbrella sipping a cold one. But first I have to buy my beer.

Currently, if I want to buy a case of bottles or cans of beer in Ontario to take home, I have to go to the Beer Store which is foreign owned, or to the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) which is operated by the Government of Ontario. Sale of alcohol has always been strictly controlled here!

At my local Beer Store, here are my choices along with the prices.

The process of buying beer is: look at the board, decide what you want, tell the cashier, pay for it, and then your chosen case of beer comes rolling along a delivery chute from the nether regions of the store.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne recently announced that there is going to be a big change in the rules, and beer and wine will soon be available on the shelves of up to 450 grocery stores! Not all grocery stores, just a few, but that's better than the current arrangement. Will beer and wine ever be available in neighbourhood convenience stores, like in Montreal? Probably not for a long time.

Meanwhile.... the fridge is out of beer and the sun is shining...... I'm off to the Beer Store.