Week four... a lazy feel to the air

I suggested previously that it's hard to know whether moving to another country in lockdown is just plain difficult, or whether it is secretly a helping hand, making things happen at a leisurely pace of its own. Perhaps we'll never know, but what we've all learnt in the last year is that you have to grab whatever opportunities lockdown provides when they come along. After a year in a locked-down Lake District we know all about making the most of empty tourist hotspots and this weekend we again wandered through the centre of an almost empty Vienna. This gave us uninterrupted views of stunning architecture, sculptures and courtyards - sometimes sharing them only with a pigeon or two! Absolutely stunning and probably unlikely to happen again (hopefully).

We have also stretched our legs outwith the city, having been invited by a colleague of Anna's to join them for a walk in the Wein Vierterl. The quiet rolling hills north of Vienna are full of vineyards with a network and paths, tracks and trails enabling the walker or cyclist to explore at length. It's an attractive, gentle landscape with a lazy feel to the air, and being just on the doorstop I know we'll be back.

Organic farming is a big deal in Austria - there's no shortage of "bio" in every shop. And this hasn't been ignored in the Wein Vierterl. The leader of our little band of wanderers got chatting to a gentleman hoeing between some vines and this led to an impromptu tasting of the bio-wine from the family business, which was very good indeed. Past experiences of "natural wines" haven't been great; the word "cider" was used a lot. But this stuff actually tasted like wine! Earthy, but clean. Suffice to say, they did well out of us and the house port (a new venture) went down well with our fellow perambulators.

House hunting continues apace and this week we viewed a property with the potential to provide the most Viennese experience possible... because it had its own grand piano (what!?!?). And it was located next to a park dotted with classical statues of opera singers... of course. As it happens, it's not quite right for us, but the park was a real find and easily accessible from our bit of town so another place to return to. Warm evening sun in a quite meadow with easy access to the city anyone?

And so to the bulleted bit at the end:

• Our trip to the country also provided our first journey on an ÖBB train (Österreichische Bundesbahnen). It's like train travel should be and we got to sit upstairs too!

• We've both had hair cuts, which we are very excited about

• I'm getting to grips with the confusing flour and baking some ok bread again

• Anna saw a beaver on the way to work... yes a beaver!!! (I should point out that it was Anna that was on the way to work, the destination of the beaver remains unknown)