Austria - No Driving Today!

We were easily persuaded to stay at Lehnerhof for another night; a time to just relax.  We decided to visit the local Carriage Museum (Kutschenmuseum Gruber).  If you like old carriages, sleighs, cars, carts... - you would be in for a real treat.

Kutschenmuseum Gruber is a family run private museum where sleighs and carriages have, as one website puts it,  "been brought together with great effort and have been painstakingly restored in the carpentry workshop on-site. On an area of ​​around 1000 m², 82 vehicles of various types are exhibited.  Every single piece lives and tells its own story. Whether it is the sleigh with which Josef Werndl drove or the car traveling with Anton Bruckner, the pallet stretches from the heavy harvest van to various public cars to the elegant "Landauer" of the nobility and the black count."   We were bowled over by the lovely collection and spent quite a long time at the museum.  The courtyard of the museum is often used as an area for amateur theatre productions - indeed a lovely setting. Afterwards a lovely ginger and white cat was lying in the sun caught our eye and so we gave our undivided attention for a few minutes.  A young friendly tabby came and joined us, seeing attention for a bit.  It followed us out of the gate and to where the car was parked, across the road.  I know it wanted to come with us but we had to persuade it to go back home!

This afternoon we relaxed and spent time in the hotel's spa.  It was very nicely laid out and clean, complete with a relaxation area, bar and tables.  Our host gave us a towelling gown and carpet slippers (huge on me!) to use.  We ended up being the only ones using the spa but we reckon it is a favourite with the villagers (yesterday we had seen a 5 or 6 people leaving with their gym bags).

Certainly a lot of money has gone into the building.  The original building was a farmhouse and has been in the family for a number of generations, the farm going back at least 500 years.  It would house the family and farm workers.  Today the land is leased out and some of it has been sold off.   The family still manage the adjoining forest.  The family are friendly - we saw the children and made friends with the cats too.

I felt quite tired after the spa session so I had a nap and Paul watched a bit of this years F1.

We are staying in Großraming - somewhere on this map!

We wanted to eat at a different restaurant this evening but, on driving around, didn't find a place that took our fancy so we went back to the restaurant that we went to last night.  The food was good and oh so filling!

Tomorrow we are going to hit the road again. I hope we will come back to this area again - so lovely.

Feel free to see my photographs on facebook via this link:  Kutschenmuseum Gruber