Saturday in Perchtoldsdorf

Our friends, the Haberls, invited us out on Saturday to Distl Heuriger in Perchtoldsdorf, just south of Vienna. After some wine and local food (I got the blood sausage and sauerkraut... yummmmm...) Elske took Calvin and very-pregnant Jen back home while Christian and Benjamin took me and Worthy and William on a hike through town and woods and heath back to their home in Rodaun.
The castle ruins in Perchtoldsdorf date back to over 700 years. Here's Worthy, William, and Benjamin posing on the Black Plague memorial in the center of town. Behind them to the left is the old church and to the right is the defensive tower that was built in 1521. It successfully housed and defended the town's inhabitants during the first Siege of Vienna in 1529.

They weren't so fortunate in 1683 when they had to wave the white flag of surrender ("die weisse Fahne zum zeichen der Kapitulation"). The Ottomans then murdered many and enslaved the rest.

Inside the church

From there we hiked through the Vienna Woods and then through the Perchtoldsdorf Heath.

There was lots of Baerlauch about, which happened to be what Elske's soup was made of earlier that day. It grows only a couple of weeks out of the year in early Spring and smells like garlic.

A deer blind

We walked by several vineyards.

Hot chocolate waiting for us back at the Haberl home. 

Someone's got a crush :)