The weather was a great deal clearer than my earlier visit, which made for some good views of the distant edge of the alps and the shiny towers of Vienna's transdanubian districts. However, even more notable was the abundance of wildlife, especially wildflowers. Having discovered that the Bisamberg is in a slightly different biological realm to the Wienerwald it wasn't a surprise to see a bunch of interesting plants that I definitely don't recall seeing before.
Other wildlife encountered on the walk included MASSIVE queen ants, after seeing one we assumed we had been extremely lucky until we came across many more in quick sucession and realised we had merely chosen to go for a walk on some kind of swarming day. Frankly the shape of the queen ants was just that tiny bit disturbing, the really thin body and distended abdomen just screams 'not normal' even though of course the things still come from earth like everything else. Probably.
Not the largest of these freaky creatures we saw...
Final 'wildlife' spot of the day were a field of ostriches. Not known for being natives of the area, one can only assume they came for the pleasing combination of the words 'Austria' and 'ostrich'. Interestingly, ostriches are called 'Strauss' in German, and I do wonder whether fans of the late great Waltz composer Johann (he of the ludicrously golden statue in the Vienna Stadtpark) ever associated him with these decidedly ungraceful looking birds.
At the end of the walk I finally managed to make it to a particular wine establishment I had had my eye on for a while, and we were rewarded by a man talking in thick and unintelligible dialect who sold us wine from the vineyards around his house for the princely sum of €1.10 a glass...
A few pictures, mostly of flowers and vineyards, can be found as usual hiding behind this green text.
Till next time
Der Tom
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