Täglich Wiederkehrendes Abenteuer

On Thursday we went over to the botanical gardens in Linz. We got a coupon for free entry as part of our welcome packet, but we missed the window to get over there last fall. Now that it’s spring and everything is in bloom, we decided it was time.

When I envisioned the gardens, I thought of an all in-door thing. Yeah, it’s more like a giant open air park type dealy. And it’s a ways out there! We decided to just hike out there and do a few errands on the way. A half our later we arrived at the top of the hill and found the entrance. We got inside and looked at the fruit trees they had just sitting in large pots. They had lemon and line trees. It was kind of weird. The trees were full of lemons, but there was a big sign warning us not to touch them. They had been treated and would dissolve your skin or something… at least that’s the impression I got.

There was a small green house, so we went in there and looked at some of the more exotic plants, like the insect eating plants. Venus fly traps are much smaller than I expected. Next to the fancy plants, they had a couple cages with birds in them. One cage was just going nuts, so we stopped and watched them for a bit. We moved on into another section of the green house and saw some colorful rain forest flowers.

They had just watered apparently, so the flowers had some dew on them. It was very pretty.

They even had Minnesota’s favorite flower, the Lady Slipper! They had a bunch of varieties from around the world. Some were fairly small and delicate, while the ones from Asia were big and honkin’. “Honkin'” is a technical term.

Part of the green house was dedicated to desert plants. Yeah, they kept all the cacti behind glass. We understood.

They had all kinds of cacti, from the huge tree ones down to the pretty little flowered ones that look like they’re just fuzzy, not prickly. They even had brain cactus.

We continued through the green house and came to the real rain forest section. All the plants in there were huge and green and overgrown. I tell ya, it was like a tossed salad at a giant’s house!

We went back outside and looked at some more normal flowers. After all that cacti and huge salad, we were ready for something a little more tame.

We wandered down the path and soon discovered that this place was huge. We thought it was maybe a square block, but it was more like 6 square blocks. They started the gardens with normal flowers and a few small ponds. One pond was just packed with tadpoles. We’re curious when they’ll be frogs, because if they all turn into frogs, then every square inch of that place will have frog on it. Just… too many tadpoles.

There was also a little pond with a bunch of turtles in it!

Of course, as soon as we walked around to the side, we discovered the full extent of the turtle situation.

We took a side path that brought us around the back side of the garden. Parts of the garden are very flower oriented, but the backside is much more foresty. I really liked it. And since we were on one of the higher hills around Linz, it had a fairly decent view when the trees weren’t in the way.

It was a little weird though because it felt like forest, but then you could hear kids playing, look down the hill, and see a playground for a school or child care center. Still, it was really nice.

We meandered through the back path, then came back onto the main path with more flowers. Interspersed around the gardens were little patios with tables and chairs. We saw a lot of old people with dogs just sitting around talking to each other. I bet there’s some yearly pass you can buy and then people just go there all the time. I sure would!

We walked along and found this bush that had huge flowers.

Wait, I suppose that picture doesn’t really mean much, does it? Here, let me give you some scale.

That’s my little hand next to it. Stupid huge flowers.

We sat on a bench and just enjoyed the pretty nice weather. It was a little warm, but if you stayed out of the sun it was nice. Once we had rested, we checked out a little pond. This was an actual pond… as in a hole in the ground without poured cement. Right next to the pond they had set up a tent and were preparing it for some sort of performance. There were a bunch of chairs with umbrellas set up for the audience, and they even had speakers and a mic on the “stage”.

We walked along a bit and came to a garden with the garden. It was a small section with a wooden picket fence and all the normal garden vegetables you’d have at home: onions, carrots, lettuce, peppers, zuccihni, etc. There was even a little water fountain, so we got a quick drink.

We walked one and found some plants that are raised for oil, including rose and olives. There were some plants next to that that are used for dyes, but we didn’t really know what they were. Next to THAT, we found a hops… bush? Tree? If you don’t know, hops are a main component in beer. We kind of knew what hops looked like, but we never expected that they came from a climbing vine plant!

So now you know. Hops come from a climbey vine plant. We moved on and found ourselves back at the tadpole pond. This time I got some pictures of the lily pads for Joni. She likes lily pads.

We went down the path we hadn’t been on yet. There wasn’t much back there. It had some samples of various kinds of stone in the region. They had a few mill stones set up and an old stone trough for cows to drink from. It wasn’t all that interesting in my opinion. They did have a super creepy statue though, so that’s worth something.

And they had horrifying attacking vine plants… from the Amazon, I think.

On our way out of the garden, we stopped at the cafe and got ice cream. I had Stracciatella for the first time. We thought it was basically chocolate chip (and that’s what Wikipedia claims its supposed to be), but the stuff I had contained huge chunks of cherry and some sort of spice. I’m not a fan.

When we got closer to the dorm, I figured I’d give you another little look at life around here… and run down the camera battery so I could give it a full charge. Here’s what I ended up getting.

Then the battery was dead and I could give it a full charge. Why did I want to give it a full charge, you ask? Well, we’re heading to Prague this weekend. That’s right, the Czech Republic. Eastern Europe. Be afraid! OOOOOOOoooooggggey boooooogey!

Nah, I’m kidding. Prague is a modern city and has a bunch of tourist stuff. Expect a big post about the Prague trip sometime next week.