Day 55: Gruss Gott!

The girls and I helped Stan celebrate his birthday by giving him two of his favorite beverages...apple cider and German lager! Actually, the cider mill, Cold Hollow, had run out of its apple stash weeks ago and is now awaiting the next crop. Alas, no cider (even though this particular mill produces over 1 million gallons of it every a year). But we did get to sample apple cider doughnuts--yum! We also tasted many of the mill's condiment products, such as apple cranberry chutney, apple butter, apple cider jelly and apple chipotle bbq sauce. We wished Teensie were a foot longer than she already is so we could stash cases of the stuff. I doubt we'd have anything left by the time we reach home. SOOO tasty.

Tummies happy with our snack, we drove further north into the charming town of Stowe. It's a resort village, chock-full of b&bs, gabled inns, restaurants of every flavor (but not every price bracket...all seemed pretty high end), and flowers of every imaginable color. The Trapp Family Lodge, still run by the Trapp family of "Sound of Music" fame, is just a couple of miles up the hills from the village, but it seems a world away in terms of view and culture. Arriving at the alpine lodge, boxes of geraniums at every window, I felt I'd hopped a plane back to Austria.

The Trapp family, which had established itself as a singing troupe in pre-WWII Europe, fled their large estate and most of their belongings in Nazi-held Austria in 1938.  Captain Von Trapp, retired from a distinguished career in the Austrian navy, had recently turned down an offered commission in the Nazi navy when Hitler asked the family to perform at his birthday party. Scared and disgusted, they caught a train to Italy and made their way to the United States, arriving with $4 in hand. (The movie altered their story in many ways; perhaps the most important variance from the truth was in Christopher Plummer's portrayal of a cold, insensitive man. In reality, the captain was warm and quite engaged with his family.) Upon arriving in America, with nine children--and another on the way--to feed, Georgg and Maria booked singing engagements around their new country and the world. As their income and fame grew, they purchased a small, working farm outside Stowe, and built an Austrian mountain house on the property, renting it out to skiers and tourists. Its popularity led them to build the present-day grand lodge, to which many additional structures have been added over the years.

We had lunch in the Trapp Lodge deli, overlooking the valleys and mountains of the surrounding countryside. And Stan had his long-awaited Trapp Lager, brewed on site by the family. Happy boy. We'd love to come back to this special place someday. The problem with our trip is that it's not getting the travel bug out of our system...it's actually leading us into daydreams of future adventures!

Apple press

The girls were intrigued by the automated donut-maker.

Trapp Family Lodge

In spite of catching Stan with a bite in his mouth, this pic is fun...I happened to capture Sam Trapp in the background (wearing a hat), grandson of Maria and Georgg! He's the brewmaster.

Trapp Lodge vegetable gardens and a gorgeous view

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