Mushrooms, Blueberries and Caterpillars
Austrian Adventures
This summer, my daughter and I joined my parents in Austria, for about a week. We lived through many different adventures. Such as a dangerous hike or visiting happy cows and happy pigs.
The last hike we went on was the climb of the Hamberg, which is always fun, especially I. The summertime as you can make your way up eating real blueberries. These blueberries are blue outside and, yes, inside! (The restaurant we were staying at makes amazing blueberry pancakes that are all blue). 
And lingonberries, which are close to cranberries but alpine and wild. Once again I felt like I was inside a fairytale. When I was a kid I had a book that was all about a boy walking through blueberries. It’s Peter in Blueberry Land by Elsa Beskow which was originally published in 1901. In this book Peter is of such a small size that the blueberry bushes are trees. Even little one was far bigger than Peter is in the story… But she did enjoy the blueberries a lot.
My parents and my sister climbed all the way to the summit of Hamberg, I myself felt that it would be wise to not try to climb over rocks while carrying a baby. Instead we rested in company of an enormous caterpillar. It must have been 15cm to 20cm long. I wonder what type of butterfly it is?
When our sandwich and Manner wafers were all eaten and we started to be wrapped in a cloud. I decided, that it would be wise to start our descent. It had rained a few days prior this we came across a very magic mushroom.
This hike marked the end of our trip. The next day everyone said goodbye and I felt like as if I was leaving home to go home. That said, the first time, that I ate in the Landgasthof Linde was 19 years ago. I will try to write a review one day, but I have no practice in reviewing restaurants and/or hotels.
Little one and I took our train home. It was an uneventful trip, besides a passport control and people being ushered off the train at the Austrain-German border. Little one slept and was an exemplary child. In the bus in Paris I looked outside and my eyes once again gel on the Moulin Rouge. But this time it was in all it’s might. Beautiful and illuminated. I guess that it is a place that lives at night.
All photos are hosted on flickr
© Solveig Werner 2015. All rights reserved.
Solveig Werner 
Great photos, but the red mushroom is really interesting. I’ve never seen anything like that!
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Thank you Joanne!
These mushrooms are rather common in the Alps and beautiful too. But not safe for human consumption…It’s often considered to be the magic mushroom as it’s hallucinogen but poisonous. In German we call it a “Fliegenpilz” so a fly mushroom. I just checked wikipedia, in English it’s a Amanita muscaria or fly agaric. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria
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I had to go into google translate to get the pronunciation of the word Fliegenpilz. Love it! Sounds like something I would want to call someone behaving like an idiot 🙂
… as in ‘what a complete fliegenpilz’!!!
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This post is begging to be an illustrated fairy tale … the mushroom and caterpillar make perfect characters!
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I haven’t thought of that. But I guess you are right 🙂
Do you have a story in mind?
I suppose that if I am going to do an illustrated children’s book one day I’ll have to consider your collaboration…
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Beautiful photos, Solveig! This makes me miss the Austrian mountains, they are so green and lovely. The mushroom is a beautiful find! I’ve never seen one that size and red before, it truly is like a magic mushroom.
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Thank you! I have some mushroom photos from past trips too, always big and read, just this one was in good lighting too. But as it was really hot and then rained and heated up a bit again the mushrooms were having a party when it came to growing. Thank you 🙂
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That mushroom does look like it should be in a fairy tale. It doesn’t look real, it is so beautiful!!!!
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