Hello lovelies,
I never shared my trip to Burg Bernstein and Burgenland, somehow my travel stories always get so long, I never quite know when to begin.
But what about procrastinating from writing my thesis and an exam and writing a blog entry about a trip I made a year ago? Yes, this is definitely a good idea. I hear future me cursing me in the distance, but she is not yet me. 

So, what happened? Covid happened. After February 2020 and lockdown, Italy was the last trip I made. And we wanted to travel again but at the same time, not leave Austria because we were unsure. What if we left Austria, got sick and had to spend quarantine in another country? Or what if we really got sick and had to rush to the ER in a country we did not know the language?
So Austria it was. But where? I wanted to start my new project, Castles in Austria and found this wonderful hotel/castle in Burgenland. It had amazing reviews on google and the rooms also looked fantastic. I could also take some nice outfit pictures in the room, so why not?
So we called the hotel and booked our room for the 15h to 18th of June 2021. 

I was already so excited for the trip and couldn't wait until we finally made out trip.
In June we took the scenic and longer route from Vienna which took about 2h instead of 90mins and drove to the castle. I would not recommend trying to go there by public transportation as I found only one connection to the castle....per day. Returning to Vienna is a bit better and I found three connections but they are far from comfortable with a minimum of 4 changes.

The castle itself is beautiful. It's a bit rough from age but the flowers soften the hard look and make it almost look romantic. We were immediately captured by its beauty and the owner allowed us to look into every room as we were the only guests staying in the castle for this day. And we did.
But before that, we ate some cake, petted the cat and enjoyed the sun. 

 

 
The rooms and the castle, in general, were very cold, it had almost 30 degrees celsius and in the rooms, it was probably about 20°c? Maybe less? At least I was super cold in my flimsy nightgown even underneath the blankets.

The first room we went to was obviously our room. 

 

We had booked "Gottgetröst" a 100m² room with a bedroom, living room, toilet and a private terrasse. The bathtub was inside of the bedroom which was a bit weird at first but makes sense. We stayed in an old medieval castle, the people living during that time did not have the luxury of an indoor bathroom and did not plan a room for it. It was only built into the room after it was turned into a hotel. The same goes for the toilet. It was built in between the walls, where a door used to be.

The next room was the common room, it had the best internet connection and we were in dire need of that because M. had a work appointment the next day he couldn't miss. 

We wandered through the castle and it had so much history. I felt like in a museum instead of a hotel. I thought how weird and fantastic it must be to be the owner of this hotel and there are pictures of your ancesters from 100-300 years ago, watching your every move? 

From the first floor, we went to the second floor and we took so many pictures until my phone and my camera run out of battery at the same time. There were just so many gorgeous rooms, I wanted to live in them all. Or just live in the castle. 

 

In the end we landed in the big dining room with these fantastic stucco of various greek myths.

After our tour, we rested a bit and then took the car to the next city in search of a nice restaurant as we were in desperate need of a good dinner. The castle only provided dinner from Thursday to Sunday, if I remember correctly and we, therefore, had to look for food somewhere else.
I had a very typical salad which wouldn't qualify as a salad anywhere else but this is Austria! It's called Backhendl salad and is fried chicken on potato salad with a bit of field salad and pumpkin seed oil. It's delicious and it's also the only salad I really like, for obvious reasons. 

 

After that we had ice cream then rolled back to the castle. 

We slept soundly through the night.
The next day we had breakfast which was included in the price of the room and M. went to his work appointment. We got our breakfast served at the table in a kind of buffet style? 

I read my book and scrolled through social media until 11am, then took part in the guided tour around the castle. The history of this castle was a very fascinating one and I will elaborate on it more in my upcoming video. wink wink.
M. was finally done with his appointment and we drove to the next shopping centre. We did not expect to freeze at night and therefore we bought some warm cardigans and clothes. In the shopping center I snacked on some french fries with lots of delicious cheese and jalapeno. Delicious!

We drove back again and then I  dressed up in my Regency carb and we made the Regency pictures I shared a while ago. 

Remember me?

In the evening we went out for a pizza and the dough and the ham was delicious! I was not so fond of the mushrooms because they were obviously canned but the owner had already told us he was only serving pizza because he was missing all of his staff because of covid. I picked the mushrooms off and enjoyed the rest of the good pizza. 

 

We went for a night stroll and then returned to the castle. It was a bit creepy hiking up the small hill as the street was lined with huge chestnut trees and they really looked eery in the night. 
The next day we ate breakfast then took my lolita pictures, I had also shared these a while ago. 

Surprise!

We had also decided to drive to the chocolate factory Zotter which was not that far away. And let me tell you, the factory was amazing. I felt like Charlie from Charlie and the chocolate factory. Too bad the covid restrictions prohibited the factory from actually letting us taste everything and therefore we just got an assorted box of chocolate at the beginning of the tour. Boooo. But that's a perfectly good reason to go back again!

There was a large farmland behind the factory with animals and a huge garden, all of the animals and the produce were used in the restaurant which was located at the end of the path. 

I ate the most amazing Gulasch and Tartufo there. My mouth waters just thinking about it. 

At the end of the tour was a big chocolate shop and we bought so much. I can't believe we bought almost 70€ worth of chocolate. Crazy!

After the factory, we drove back to the castle, read some more and relaxed in the garden once again until it was time for dinner. This time we ate in the castle and the sister of the owner and his wife made dinner for us. We had vegetables with couscous which was okay because I am not really a fan of vegetables but they only cooked one dish and M. can't eat meat. Oh well, doesn't matter. The cake afterwards was delicious though. 

 
Night came and the next day and suddenly it was time to leave again. We had another good breakfast and packed our bags, paid and then left the castle. It was a pricey stay but you pay for the wonderful service, the ambience and the castle. And for that, it was really great. 

 

I hope to go back again and stay in another room that screamed Biedermeier...and maybe finally take some cute indoor pictures of my Biedermeier dress?
Maybe.
Stay tuned for the video which revolves more around the history of the castle and less of my travel...and all the best,

Auris Lothol