For my birthday this past weekend we took a trip to a renaissance castle in Lower Austria, about an hour’s drive north of Vienna, the Rosenburg (Castle of Roses).
The boys were excited to watch a bird show, as this castle is famous for its falconery.
The weather was perfect – just look at that sky!
Here are a few impressions of this gorgeous place. Not much beauty stays hidden there, but since it is the title of the series, bear with me… 😉
I’m lucky to live in a country so rich in cultural heritage and, yes, beauty. Hidden or right out in plain sight.
What is it that you love about your country? What is special about the place you call home?
Olfactoria's Travels 
I love castles! So thank you for the lovely pictures, they are the next best thing since I wasn’t the one visiting it. 😉
You are welcome! 🙂
Flying through the clouds, so beautiful and clear. Looks like you had a beauty of a birthday.
NZ’s real name, Aotearoa, means The Land of the Long White Cloud. The clouds hover close and keep NZ green.
What a beautiful name, thanks for that info.
Where to start? The U.S. is huge and there is so much variety in it’s beauty. Quite often when my husband and I are driving someplace just in California we will look at the passing scenery, look at each other and calmly state, “Ho-hum”. It’s our way of saying, yes, we live in an incredibly beautiful state. I love crossing the Golden Gate bridge with it’s beautiful orange red towers. Other things I love about this state, Yosemite National Park with it’s ancient redwoods. The Pacific Ocean and the variety of it’s coast line from the warm beaches in San Diego, to the towering cliffs in Big Sur. I love Lake Tahoe in all it’s deep blue, icy depth. I love San Francisco and it’s hilly streets and cable cars. I love that a 20 minute drive in any direction from San Francisco gets you to beautiful redwood covered hiking trails. I really, really, really love the afternoon fog as it comes curling over the ocean ranges like fluffy, white, cotton candy (I think the British call it spun sugar candy) bringing a cooling breeze with it. I could go on and on. My husband is a native and often talks of moving somewhere else in the states. I just look at him like he’s crazy, because for me California is prettier and more diverse than any of the other places I’ve lived. That said, I think the folks who live in Oregon or Washington or Hawaii or many of the other states would argue that theirs is the most beautiful state in the union.
Oh, I’m totally with you, Tatiana! California is amazing. I adored northern California most, the Redwoods, the coast line, gorgeous!
I also really love the desert… and the mountains – you are right, California has everything!
We call it “candy floss”. 🙂
Just visited the loveliness of San Francisco last week – one of my favorite places in the US!
Tatiana, I agree with you wholeheartedly about California. It is paradise to me. I grew up there, and go there on many vacations, and I plan to end up there. I love most of all the hills of Sonoma and San Fransisco. You are lucky.
Tatiana, I loved reading this! The first time I visited northern California, I told my friend she lives in paradise. The whole state is so beautiful and unique.
Oh and I love your photos. The one thing we lack here are beautiful, historic castles.
Well, nobody’s perfect. 😉
Oh boy! Check out the wing span on that bird of prey. Beautiful setting for your birthday. When I heard the name of the castle, I thought immediately of the opera ‘Der Rosenkavalier’, but I don’t suppose there is any connection.
Stafford and its surrounding area has a ruined castle, an C11th church with mysterious ‘Green Men’ gargoyles, a row of very cute almshouses, umpteen canals and the largest half-timbered (Fachwerk!) house in the UK. Just don’t glance slightly to the right or you will clock the neighbouring McDonald’s.
Lol, the McDonald’s really is an aesthetic asset to any area! Glad Stafford doesn’t have to do without! 😉
Castles and birds! Love it!
It’s a good combination. 🙂
Beautiful! Must get to that castle soon. I adore crisp blue skies like that. Thanks!
It’s really not far from the city and very much worth a visit!
What a beautiful place, Birgit! That bird’s wingspan was huge!
I love Minnesota. We have the drama of 4 completely separate and distinct seasons. Each one is full of beauty – fall colors, snow and ice, spring gardens awakening, summer’s lush greenery. We have pine forests, over 10,000 lakes, many parks with biking and walking trails, historic buildings, the Boundary Waters, well-kept public gardens, and our main cities are clean and have trees. We have rich traditions of our Scandinavia, German, and Irish settlers, still very much alive. We have many outdoor festivals and art shows in the summer, everyone is so happy to finally be outside in the warmth!
Minnesota sounds lovely! I always think of the stories about St. Olaf that Rose of Golden Girls told. 😉
Oh that’s a funny reference! 😀 I can’t remember it enough to know how accurate it is, but probably fairly so!
Those photos are great! I have never been to a castle. It seems so magical! Thank you for the photos.
I grew up living next to a castle, it’s a feeling of being very close to a fairy-tale. 🙂
Happy belated birthday, Birgit! Looks like you had a grand outing – and that third photo of the bottom, where you captured the falcon as its flying away from the castle is breathtaking.
I love many things about the US — as Tatiana mentioned, its diversity in terms of landscapes: its wide open spaces, gorgeous coastlines, and breathtaking mountains, especially out west. I love its freedoms and opportunities for advancement, and am always hopeful that those aren’t lost or diminished, as I find it moving to think that the US is a country where people can prosper if they are motivated and work hard.
My hope is to to move to the desert southwest someday, but if I live out the rest of my life in Pennsylvania, I know that I’m still blessed. Other than long winters, we have a beautiful rural state with lots of pretty mountain ridges, pastoral landscapes, gorgeous autumns and winding country roads.
I like the Southwest very much too. I hope you get to live there some day (I’ll come visit!).
What a wonderful setting and weather you had for your birthday, how lovely. Glad the boys enjoyed the falconery. I agree with Suzanne – that photo with the bird in flight over the castle is stunning.
London has loads of cultural and historical offerings, but I also love the Great British countryside – it very calming to be surrounded by nature.
The British countryside is the best!
The manicured lawns, the gardens, the manor houses, overgrown cottages… sigh. I’ve read too much Rosamunde Pilcher (I’ve actually never read a single novel of hers, but she stands perfectly for the cliché I’m referring to. 🙂 )
That made me laugh!
🙂
Ha, now I’m giggling – I read her three main novels in preparation for my first (and only, so far) trip to England, years ago. And I must say that the English countryside fully lived up to my expectations, but Ms Pilscher’s stories made me long to visit Scotland, too. 🙂
Haha, she does a good job at promoting her country, no doubt about that! 😉
Hidden or not, there is certainly a lot of beauty in Austria. Here in the southeastern US, some of the things that I find beautiful are the old antebellum estates, and the appalachian mountains.
Gone With The Wind and Bill Bryson’s A Walk In The Woods come to mind. 🙂
It is such a beautiful area you live in, Jim.
I agree 🙂
I live in the rural midwest US, close to Lake Michigan. Springtime means the fields are full of horses and colts and cows and calves, with flowers everywhere. Amish farms are neat as pins with white houses and big vegetable gardens. Thanks for sharing your birthday pictures! That one straight on with the falcon is amazing.
The Amish are fascinating, what an interesting and beautiful place to live!
What a fun outing and beautiful photos. Sounds like a very cool place to visit especially with the falconery feature.
I am from Michigan…close to Lake Michigan and I LOVE living in this area. There are some breath-taking vistas along the Michigan shoreline. My dream is to travel up to the Upper Peninsula and see Pictured Rocks. Many people that come to Michigan for the first time and actually see the Lake(s) are floored because it is like being at the sea…one can’t see across to the other side of the Lake and the waves can get huge. I also love the Smokey Mountain/Blue Ridge Mountain areas and I adore New England. The West has its own beauty but I haven’t been further than Wyoming and Nevada…dying to travel the West Coast.
I say all of this while always wishing I lived in your neck of the woods. ; )
I was indeed floored when I saw the great lakes, and amazed that Lake Michigan even has tides! I loved the area and hope to be able to visit again some day.
Thanks for chiming in, Heather!
Happy Belated Birthday B… Seems like you had a great time and wow! great place that you have there. I am so jealous because we do not have such piece of architecture on our continent.
what I love about South Africa is its beauty and its people. I am not a native of South Africa but I have adopted this country unreservedly and it is my home. We have amazing blue skies and sunsets and I love that you can just drive a few hours away to nature and see the wildlife. Our sea shores are also absolutely stunning and I hope that you will have the opportunity to visit our shores some day.
Oh, I hope too! South Africa must be stunning. Thank you for describing your homeland a bit, Nana.
Because I live in New York, I don’t actually consider natural things when i think about what I love about where I live. I do have to say that I love the people. New York is full of amazing people and they are really beautiful.
I’m not really talking about all the models, the fashion people, or the actresses (who you run into so much, you just stop seeing them because they all look the same after a while), I mean the woman on the subway with the kid she let go to school with a butterfly wings (it wasn’t Halloween), or the guy who plays the recorder in my subway station who has the friendliest smile, or the waitress who never forgets my grandfather’s favorite kind of tea. That for me is truly hidden beauty.
What a lovely picture you paint of NYC and its people.
I’m convinced (not that it needed much), I’d move there in a heartbeat…