Villach Austria

Last Saturday we took a day trip into Austria. There's a town right across the border that's charming, and has a ton of great activities to do with the children.



Here's the front of the St. Nikolas Church with the girls, I, and a new friend (?). This crazy, in a good way, group of Austrians insisted on being in the picture with us.



The historical center is now a pedestrian mall, and it still shows damage from bombing in WW II. It's filled with modern shops, cafe's, and restaurants. The only mistake that we made on this trip was not realizing that Austria has its own "riposa". All the restaurants shut down in the afternoon, we had no choice but to eat pastries and coffee for lunch. Ah, the hardship of Austrian pastries.



We experienced out first roasted chestnuts from a street vendor. No wonder they're in songs, those things were great!



Now onto the really fun part of the trip....
On Villach's website we'd seen a listing for "Monkey Mountain", and how can you not go see something named Monkey Mountain?



I grabbed this shot on the way there, it's a castle that's been rehabbed into a bird of prey sanctuary. After grabbing our tickets for "Monkey Mountain" we hiked up to see it.

The start of the hike....



The finish of the hike....



And some views from the top....






It was closed, but we still got some great sights of owls, and these Griffon Condors.



After looking at the picture you might ask yourself, as we did,"...hmmm. are the tops of the cages just open?". But no, that is a wild Griffon Condor perching on top of the cage. We were able to stand right next to the cage. After seeing the wingspan of these birds, the size of their beaks, and how agitated they were getting with each other, we backed away slowly, with Liz behind us. Here's a good old wikipedia entry on them, looks like we were pretty lucky to see a wild one! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffon_Vulture
We dug around the castle grounds for a while.





Then we went down to "Monkey Mountain"..To clarify here, Monkey Mountain is a research, conservation, and visiting station for the Japanese Macaque Monkey. These monkeys are most famous for being the Three Wise Shinto Monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil). Evidently the climate in Austria is very similar to their natural habitat in Japan, and the monkeys have thrived. They are also some of the few monkeys in the world that are known to swim and dive. The family units are matriarchal, with the meanest female ruling. Her "vice-president" is a male who is always a very intelligent peace keeper and very socially advanced monkey (how backward is that from most animals?). They do not stay in cages, but are free to roam as you'll see.
Just for a laugh, here are some of the rules that they give you before entering:
1. Do not touch or stroke the monkeys!
2. Do not hold direct eye contact with an individual monkey for too long, they interpret this as intent to attack.
3. Lead your children by the hand throughout the tour.
4. When a monkey approaches too closely, please make way and guarantee a safe distance of at least three paces.
After reading this we had the "safety talk" and entered our guided tour. Most of the others had been on the tour, so they did most of it in English for us.
You quickly realize that everyone else ignores most of the rules, the one exception being to touch them. According to our guide, the monkeys don't like it.











There is no way that I can describe how incredibly cool it was to see these animals up close, and they came REALLY close. I don't know how many times we looked town to see a monkey brush by us. Our guide was incredible and educated us for almost an hour about their habits, intelligence, and quirks. To hear them "talking" and see them running and playing in the forest was an experience I'll never forget.
www.affenberg.com They have an english area on their site if you'd like to learn more.