Every December, I visit the lakeside hamlets of the Salzkammergut in Styria. They celebrate Christmas in that part of Austria with a spirit that Anthony Hope would have recognised. A giant Advent candle is floated on the waters of Lake Wolfgang, the largest lake in the area; its progress back and forth interrupted only by swans. During the crisp days there are concerts in the square where Mozart used to play as a child, and the Konditorei serves vanilla Kipferl and Linzer torte.
The scenery is like a train speeding backward into another time. Local women look sepia-tinted in fur-trimmed capes worn over woollen dirndls handed down by their grandmothers. Men drive clickety-clack horse-drawn carts, and wear felt hats ornamented with the brush of wild deer. In the evenings, the younger villagers dare each other to plunge into the icy water, hollering with cold, before finding solace in plates of blutwurst and fried potatoes.
Amid this bucolic simplicity is real joy for the Christmas traveller; Technicolour for the senses and the soul. After a 50-minute drive from Salzburg, one arrives at the medieval village of St Gilgen. The town inn where I stay has been open since 1445. Frescoes and ivy-adorned antlers decorate the entrance and, at night, guests sit by candlelight on the terrace, hugging bowls of goulash and half expecting the precipitate arrival of Rupert of Hentzau on some escapade.
Further along is the old country house where the Duke and Duchess of Windsor spent their honeymoon in 1937. It belonged to a wealthy Austrian count, who installed a croquet lawn and tennis court for his exalted, exiled guests. The fruits of his efforts were then overrun by excitable Pathé newsmen, who chased the duke through the village, brandishing cameras on wooden sticks. Old photographs in the town hall show the ex-king wearing tiny lederhosen and an expression of not very regal irritation.
Styria is the home of what Austrians call Bohemian cooking. On the shores of nearby Lake Toplitz is a Hansel and Gretel restaurant that excels at this cuisine. Toplitz is one of the most mysterious lakes in Europe. Surrounded by dark pines and forbidding caverns, it was used by the Nazis for a covert wartime operation. Workers in the area were forced to print counterfeit English banknotes in an attempt to destabilise the British economy. The forgeries were so accurate they alarmed even Churchill. At the end of the war, the notes were bundled into crates and thrown into the lake, along with, some believed, Nazi gold.
Gold has never been found, but some of the bank notes were salvaged and can be observed behind glass in the restaurant. History buffs make pilgrimages here, as do food lovers. The lake trout, grilled on coals and served with wild garlic, is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Christmas pudding is germknödel, a local speciality consisting of a hot yeast dumpling filled with stewed plums, in a sauce of poppy seed. This time of year, the restaurant is a haunting sight. At night, we help the owner light fires, gaze at the constellations and wonder irreverently about the Norse gods of old.
There is a nearby trail which takes you up into fields filled with goats and wooden huts, where the herders live. I once made the hike to an enchanting Almhütte that juts over a mountain pass. For 600 years it has provided beds and food for travellers. The rooms have four-posters and there is no electricity, only candle light. In the colder months, the proprietor’s wife greets you with spätzle, the Styrian version of macaroni cheese. Equally warming is the pine-tree liqueur the family makes every year. Kurt, a 12-year-old who assists his father in the preparation, took me last summer to the small distillery where the pine barks were being stripped before being placed in barrels with alcohol made from wheat and herbs. The resultant liquid resembles amber with a tinge of ruby and tastes like a bittersweet garden.
The church in Wolfgang dates back to 989. There is a Nativity scene carved on the late-Gothic altarpiece, which is made of wood. Most of the church faces the water and there are shrines in the lake, dedicated by fishermen whose prayers rescued them from storms. Mass at Christmas, the pathway to which is lit by flares, is lovely in its intimacy. Everyone comes, from the smallest child, to the 97-year-old father of the local herbalist. Unlike the fishermen, I do not know whether prayers are answered or not, but I will whisper one for my mother, Verushka, who has dementia and is reaching the end of life.
My mother is half-Austrian and always drank traditional egg liqueur at Christmas; so back in St Gilgen, I always make a pilgrimage to the 18th-century tavern that serves this golden liquid warm, in thick shot glasses. The properties of the ancient recipe have an almost hallucinatory effect on the drinker. As the wolf moon comes up between the pines, I cannot help but wonder what ghosts inhabit the paths here, still delighting in the wild joys of the Styrian landscape.
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