of sunshine and go hiking, driving, picnicking, bicycling, canoeing, and mountain climbing as the Austrians. I seriously estimate that at least one million people stream out of the city and head for the forests, rivers, mountains and fields. You've never seen anything like it. Hundreds of thousands of them will be wearing lederhosen (short leather pants) and carrying knapsacks on their backs. They are a people devoted to the outdoors and there is no wonder in this since the Austrian outdoors are surpassed nowhere. I believe that one of the strongest memories I shall always have was a picnic I went on with an Austrian couple one unblemished July day. We drove from Vienna to Mariazell, a small town to which yearly are made pilgrimages. Nearby a towering mountain's peak can be reached by a cable-lift (a startling experience in itself). On the very top we spread our lunch and ate and drank our Gumpoldskirchner wine, while looking out over what must have been the greater part of Austria. This book is by no means a travel guide, but in dealing with Austria I must certainly mention the fact that if you are a good food fan, then Austria is a land you will love and Vienna a city you will adore. Austrian restaurant prices are a fraction of those of France or Italy and by the very cosmopolitan nature of Austria's capital, the variety of dishes is endless. The specialties of those lands once contained within the Austro-Hungarian Empire are also specialties of Austria so you can run the gamut from Germanic sausages to Italian pastas, from Hungarian goulash to Czech roast goose, or Yugoslav brodet. And I must add a personal note; as a beer drinker from way back, I have never found a beer I liked better than the Viennese Schwechater dunkle (dark). If retirement on a shoestring is your desire, if you wish to find a beauty spot in which to settle down, permanently or semi-per-manently, you have few better bets than Austria. If I were to list in order the cheapest countries in Europe it would probably go: Spain, Greece, Austria, Portugal, Ireland, Norway. But if I had to list them by compatibility of the people it would be: Austria, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Greece, Portugal. Because there is one important thing Austria has which the other economical countries haven't to nearly as great a degree. She has a people that you will get to know, who will be your equals (if not superiors) in
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