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In travel related plans, summer is drawing to a close. While the nation as a whole has sweltered, roasted, and boiled, we've been having a somewhat cooler season than usual up here in the High Rockies. John Denver country. Well, it could be Hunter Thompson country, but he was mucho loco and I'm getting a little long in the tooth to take up excessive and irresponsible drug abuse and reckless gunplay. On the other hand, if we're talking John Denver, well, less said the better, I'm thinking.

Since it has been a couple or three years since our last visit to the Disney EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival, and because Mary wants to avoid the traditional first snow of autumn which usually occurs on or around October 1st, we'll soon be off to Orlando. To share, with our fellow Americans, the underappreciated art of sluicing vast amounts of perspiration off our bodies because, although people here in the mountains will be bundling up as the first brisk zephyrs of winter approach, in Central Florida it'll still be the third circle of hell. With monstrously large mutant skeeters thrown in for good measure.

For the uninitiated, the Food and Wine Festival is a wild bacchanalia where wine flows from fountains large and small, whole roasted oxen are carried through the streets by laughing youths to be deposited on vast tables groaning under the weight of the richly sauced provender that is supplied for free to the happy populace. Oh, according to Mary that's the VIP events. The little people have to be content to stand in line and pay for everything, including standing in line. Sorry.

I love Europe. And what's not to love? Fine cuisine, culture, scenic towns, cities, and countryside. A place where tradition still holds sway, from the panoply of royal audiences to the nightly collection of the drunks from town gutters. Though to be honest, that's really more a British tradition and not so much something you see a lot of in the rest of Europe, unless of course there's a bunch of British tourists visiting.

We have our little traditions too. For instance, every time we travel, and I mean every single time, Mary likes to soak up the local diseases almost as much as she likes to soak up the local culture. Well, maybe 'like' is a poor choice of word. Let's just say she has an amazing propensity for collecting and incubating viruses. Personally, I wish she's collect shot glasses or those souvenir spoons they sell in airport gift shops, or maybe turnips that look like famous rock stars. But no, she collects diseases. Colds are her specialty.

This last trip she caught a humdinger of a cold. That, by the way is a technical term. A humdinger is not quite as bad as a doozy, but significantly better than a whiz-bang. You really don't ever want to see a doozy if you can avoid it. For that matter, you're better off avoiding a humdinger if you can, I speak from experience here.

You know I could have just written an Airline Behaving Badly article about this because it's easy and fun, and did I mention, easy? The Airline Behaving Badly articles are enjoyable because they're often kind of funny, the kind of funny you get when you hit someone in the head with a shovel, over and over again. Hey, if it worked for the Three Stooges.... So, anyway, I usually find the Airline stories kind of amusing, a little bit irritating and mostly a reminder of what airlines I should try and stay away from. You know, like Ryan Air.

But the truth is that this particular incident isn't the fault of the individual airline unlike say this, or this, or this. Nope, there's an even easier explanation and it goes, taxonomically speaking, by the title of Commonus Senseus Lackius. See, anyone can make up a new disease or psychological problem by using Faux Latin. It's the newest craze! All the kids are doing it!

One shouldn't get the impression from the preceding entry that we did not enjoy our culinary outings in Austria. We did. Quite a lot actually. And one of the better and more interesting adventures along the way was dining at Stiftskeller St. Peter.

They - the restaurant that is - claim that there has been a facility of one sort or another operating at this locale since 803 AD. Yes, Eight Hundred, Anno Domini, that's right. The restaurant was part of an ancient monastery and probably started life as an inn.

There's a rumor, unsubstantiated of course, that Christopher Columbus popped in for a quick snack before jaunting off and discovering the New World. Poppycock, obviously. Why would an Italian under contract to the Spanish court wander up to Austria for a bite when Florence and Venice (and the fritto misto) are so much closer? On the other hand, I'm dead sure Charlemagne stopped by for a ham and cheese sandwich, perhaps with a frosty ale on the side, before continuing with the conquest of central Europe. And of course, Bill Clinton dined at St. Peters. We've discovered that no matter where we go for food in Europe, ol' Bill has been there before us, charming the locals and hovering up the cuisine.

The interior of the place is one of the more schizophrenic that I've seen in recent times. Some of the rooms look like they've been carved out of bedrock while others look like Mozart would be dashing in for a dish of ice cream at any time (I have it on authority that he was a huge ice cream freak).

The food was surprisingly good for a touristy place. We enjoyed it a lot. It was of course the usual schnitzel and sausage fest, but in an authentic old place kind of way, so different. We thought it well worth a visit. Just so you can say you've dined in the oldest eating establishment in Europe.

I'd hesitate to call Austrian cuisine monotonous, because really, it isn't. I mean you have an extensive selection of sausages to choose from. And for dessert there's any number of tortes, cakes, and pastries available. But if you're looking for traditional dishes, the selections do seem to be a bit, shall we say, limited.

We tried a number of traditional Austrian restaurants serving traditional Austrian food in traditional Austrian ways. On the plus side, there's none of this Cheesecake Factory type mega-menu stuff with two or three hundred different dishes to choose from. It's pretty much the same 8-10 entrees. And I'm not talking about, 'oh they have a steak, and a pasta dish and a salad'. No, I mean it's pretty much the same entrees at all the restaurants. There's always a schnitzel. It's almost always a veal schnitzel (Wiener Schnitzel, which could be translated as Vienna Cutlet). There's goulash. That can be beef or veal. And there's sausage. That can be pork or veal or 'better not to ask'.  And there's usually some sort of pork dish (which was pork knuckle more often that I really thought possible) cooked in sauerkraut or cabbage, and beer. 

There are some airlines that you really should have second thoughts about booking. For instance, any airlines that are using Aeroflot hand-me-down planes. That's hardly ever going to end well.

I'd also be careful about airlines recently launched in countries in the Third World that you weren't even aware were actually a country until you looked it up on the Internet. One might have some justifiable concerns that the aviation certification departments in situations like these are willing to shave a few corners or look the other way, especially if it's a brother or cousin of the current President For Life that is CEO of this airborne disaster in the making.

I personally have an iron clad rule against flying on Ryanair mainly because I see little reason to reward Mr. O'Leary, the current CEO and all around jerk, with even the smallish amounts of cash he charges for his flights. 

On this past trip we flew out of Munich airport and I have to say, I like German airports. At least I like them if they're like Munich. Previously, I'd only flown in or out of Frankfurt airport and I never left the airport itself so my only impression was of a big airport filled with shoppertunities. And you can get some good German beer. They were quick stopovers and one has to establish priorities.

We enjoyed our recent visit to Germany, really we did. Beer gardens (or biergartens as our Teutonic cousins refer to them) are awesome. I could spend days there but sadly, Mary has some sort of genetic disorder that results in irritability and unhappiness if forced to listen to oom-pa-pa music. Or polka. Or any kind of music with an accordion in it. Quite sad. Lawrence Welk is lost on her.

Still I got the chance to try some things that I've studiously avoided over the years like head cheese and olive loaf. I ordered a platter than supposedly contained, among other things, cold cuts and giant pretzels because when we say cold cuts in America we mean ham. Sometimes bologna too, if it's somewhere in the deepest depths of the Midwest, but pretty much never head cheese or olive loaf.

Dear Sir (and I'm using the title here - not the generic greeting),

May it please your Excellency but we, poor misguided commoners that we are, doth humbly and abjectly beseech thee to forgive us our wayward ways and take us back into the warm and gracious embrace of Virgin Atlantic, let the airline's praises be sung from the highest heights.

We erred grievously by casting covetous eyes upon another. We cannot explain why we booked flights on British Airways except to say that we were blinded by their excellent advertising campaigns and in a moment of weakness, for which I blame my wife, Mary, we forsook our favorite transatlantic carrier. Aye, we are bereft. We missed our Cowshed with free haircuts and massages. We missed our in-flight menus with a choice of starters and entrees. We missed our preflight champagne. We missed our tasty, tasty Eggs Benedict in the Clubhouse. And we missed the hot breakfast on the plane before landing. And, most of all, we missed the wonderful service given by employees that aren't embittered striking unionists, or people filling in, apparently quite unwillingly, for embittered striking unionists.

We promise never to ever fly to Jolly Olde England again unless it is on a Virgin Atlantic flight. As penance, we will book another flight on Virgin Atlantic, going out of our way to find a connecting flight, as soon as we take out a second mortgage on the house.

Your humble servants,

The Warings

P.S. It really was Mary's fault. I never doubted you, ever. You're my favoritist ennobled tycoon ever. Please let me come back!

Vienna is known for many exemplary cultural type things. Like operas, symphonies, theaters, bookstores, cafes with dark, dark coffee and fine, fine pastries. But as a wise man said, man can't live on exquisite and elegant examples of taste and sophistication alone. Sometimes he needs a bag of Fritos and a beer, or better yet, some pork rinds and a Dr. Pepper. Or, if you happen to find yourself in Vienna, a wurst stand, where one can purchase for consumption - a wurst. Or as we uncultured American boobs refer to them - sausages.

The Viennese do like them some sausages, much like the inhabitants of Colorado Springs like them some steaks. Though, I will point out that I've never actually seen a single steak street stand in the Springs. Now, the Viennese, they do have a wurst stand on most every corner, and I can say after sampling a few - they're pretty awesome! Much better than hot dog stands, though if you're hankering for a weiner, you can get one of those at a wurst stand too, if you're so inclined.