Escape

Much as I love Flocki, my vintage Toyota, the fact that he does not have air-condition makes driving around in 30+° temperatures quite a sticky challenge. I like cycling to swimming pools in Vienna, but let's face it, there are much better places for swimming available than chlorinated pools. Such as the beautiful Thermalbad in Bad Vöslau, a 30-minute-drive from Vienna, which I have raved about here before.

Last weekend,  I combined visits to my great-aunts in their respective nursing homes with a visit to said swimming dorado in order to minimize sweaty car-excursions.

As could be expected, other people had had the same idea and the lawn around the mineral-water-pool was very crowded:

The cool natural pool was comparatively crowded, too. 

But nowhere near as much as the (chlorinated) sports pool. 

Nonetheless, I managed to spend a peaceful afternoon in the shade with plenty of space around me, simply by walking up the staircase to the pine forest.

There, I did not even feel the heat and only realised how hot it was when I walked down to the pool. 

Breathing in the lush pine scent and more or less successfully blending out conversations in German, it was easy to tell myself I was in Italy or France rather than not far from Vienna. The climate along the so-called "thermal line" south of Vienna is beneficial for several types of mediterranean plants, by the way and I have even seen almond trees grow there.