Styria / die Steiermark

I have often wondered why place names aren't just called by their place names. Why is Austria called Austria in English when it's Österreich to those who live there? Similarly, why is the state of Steiermark (in German) called Styria in English? There are many similar name changes (Suomi = Finland, for example) around the world, and it doesn't make sense to me. How do you know if you are really where you meant to be?

Yesterday we arrived in Steiermark (Styria), the state which borders Salzburgerland. In the fall we stayed near here, just outside of Schladming, a town well known for its world class skiing and its enormous Krampuslauf (boasted to be the biggest in the world). This time we headed a little further east to the tiny hamlet of Zirting near Gröbming. It's an area of huge mountains and little towns, and, at this time of year, ski slopes everywhere.

We're staying at a small, family run hotel with breakfast and dinner provided. It's hard to imagine traveling without most meals provided now that we've done it a few times. The food is really terrific here, with soup, salad, a main course, and dessert at dinner and a substantial buffet at breakfast. The rooms are lovely and the views from the windows are amazing. I was expecting a little bit of spring, as the high ski season is over and April is fast approaching, but instead we woke up to about six inches of new snow covering everything. Nikolas wasted no time in building a little snowman friend before setting off to the swimming pool.


The swimming pool has a wall of windows overlooking the mountains on one side, and wall murals of an Italianesque landscape on the other. Nikolas adores the water, and continues to build on his swimming skills, this time learning a kneeling dive. He seems to have lungs of steel and feels completely comfortable sitting on the bottom of the pool, coming up for a breath, and heading back down again.

Another highlight of this hotel is their Kegelbahn. Known as skittles in British English, this is an odd version of bowling with nine pins set up in a diamond and a significantly smaller 'bowling' ball. The pins are attached to strings, and the Kegel machine pulls up the pins, dangling them from their strings to reset them after each ball. We have no idea what the rules or scoring are meant to be, but Nikolas had a great time (and some success!) trying to knock down the pins.

One of the amazing things about these small Mom & Pop hotels in Europe is that they can be so beautiful and offer great food as well as terrific amenities like beautiful swimming pools and kegelbahns, all for quite a reasonable price. They are more like what we call 'boutique' hotels in the US, but without the boutique hotel price or the boutique hotel exclusiveness.