We always see posters for the Medieval festival in Eggenburg, Austria. This year I actually looked it up and it is a one hour train ride from Vienna, so we decided to check it out. We headed to Spittelau to catch the train, which is where you can see the famous waste incineration plant with a facade designed by the architect Hundertwasser. The kids loved the building and enjoyed the colorful walls and gold tower.
While waiting for our train, we walked down by the Donau and found some wild blackberries that were ready for picking. Most of the good ones were too far into the thorns for us to reach, but Chris made a pretty intense effort to make sure everyone got a couple good berries!
After arriving in Eggenburg, we followed the crowd to the festival! First of all, this town is beautiful. It looks like a medieval town with the large stone walls surrounding it, but has beautiful buildings painted all variety of Easter egg colors. It is the perfect place for a festival. There were a lot of booths with wonderful crafts, merchandise, and food. We had some yummy pastries, meat, chocolate dipped fruit, and also enjoyed the large barrel slide!
Elora found a station that sold blocks of rock that could be filed and shaped into a necklace. She sat and worked for a long time filing away at her rock and carved it into a rooster! She is so proud of it, and I can’t believe how patient she was filing that rock for such a long time.
There was a little bakery where the kids got to make a variation of fry bread. They had a great time in the rustic bakery! Elora got the recipe for her dough which was a cheese bread.
Elora and Oliver chose to paint their own souvenirs. Oliver chose a sword and did a great job making it into the Sword of Gryffindor. Elora chose a treasure box. Oliver even asked the booth attendant “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” when he wanted to ask about the rhinestones he had seen on the example sword. He must have wanted the rhinestones pretty badly, normally he doesn’t like to talk to people he doesn’t know!
Marion and James picked out some awesome metal shields for their souvenir. We found a really great garden that had some food and drinks, games for kids, and also tons of trees and shade. It was a beautiful area to relax in, and it was surrounded in part by the cities stone wall, which made it even more awesome. The garden area really made the festival much more enjoyable. Whenever we were tired and wanted a break from crowds and heat, we came to the garden and the kids played with the games or their swords.
There were several shows in a big arena at the far end of the town. We checked out the huge stone wall that surrounded the city, and found a little museum that provided entrance to the guard tower of the wall. We walked through the little museum which led all the way to the very top of the tower. There was a beautiful view of the surrounding area from there. Then we went down to a little outdoor walkway high up on the wall where we watched a knight fight a fire breathing dragon. The kids loved the museum and the dragon show!
We found a stand selling beautiful leather bound books. Elora picked one out that will be her prize for working really hard to improve her penmanship this school year. We also went to a craft booth where the kids got to make little leather pouches. The boys both ended up turning theirs into sheathes for their swords. The last stop of the day was for Langos – fried bread covered in garlic. There was so much garlic it burned my mouth. We didn’t realize that at night the trains only come every two hours, so we had to wait until 8:00 pm to take the train home. Luckily we made that train because it was the last train to Vienna that night. The kids were all super worn out, but it was definitely a great festival, probably the best medieval festival as far as the look of the town and the variety of booths and activities. A great day for everyone!
