High on the hill was a lonely goatherd

[nineveh_uk]

Back from a delightful holiday in Austria, involving wine, food, the magnificent art and dubious translations* of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the company of the splendid azdak, who bore up nobly under questioning as to when we could next expect her to produce some Wimseyfic. The main event involved a three day point-to-point walk, with luggage transported separately, round the Ötscher, which is a mountain in Lower Austria that as far as I can make out from the guidebooks no-one in the English-speaking world has heard of. I certainly hadn’t. I was happy to be educated, for the walk around, and also over the top, is delightful, involving some impressive canyons, a lot of trees, and (optional) a very big ridge that was brilliant, notwithstanding that in going down rather than up it we technically did it in the wrong direction.



Though some bits did involve going up:



And down was also energetic:



The third day was more generous with the flatter bits:



The weather, having threatened with a dodgy forecast earlier in the week, perked up enormously and was pretty near perfect, being fine and sunny and calm, but not too blisteringly hot (just hot. Return to grey UK skies was an unpleasant surprise) and the torrential rain holding off until we had finished and were having a late lunch in the hotel.

*All reading along in perfect idiomatic art gallery English clearly done by someone who has a very high standard of English, and throwing in words and phrases that make no sense whatsoever, such as “stroy” for “fringe”. I can only assume that they followed the practice antisoppist complains of, paying someone to do a professional translation, and then deciding that they could make bits of it “better”

Comments

[aella_irene]

My mother has made a hobby of re-writing the English translations of German information.(I am particularly fond of her criticism of the Kupzinerkapelle information.) The odd idiom is usually alright, but doesn't really work when you are left staring blankly at the cycling instructions.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The wierd thing about this was that it was all but perfect and read as if done by a native speaker (or equivalent), expect when they through in things that weren't actually words...

[tree_and_leaf]

Lovely pictures!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Thank you - it was lovely scenery.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

That looks a touch steeper than the North Devon coast. Is it a process of gradually working your way up to the volcanoes? It also looks as if it was sunny, which is impressive of it (ETA as indeed you did say).

Random oddness in otherwise excellent translations often happens when something changes and they rewrite that bit themselves because it's only a sentence instead of paying you to do it. It is extremely frustrating when, as the translator, you wanted to point people at their website as an example of your wondrousness.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

There was more of it, but other than the large quantities of rock faces, the paths were necessarily steeper! Also, I had since been advised by colleague that the fastest way to get up hill is slow and steady with stops, and she proved to be right.

That would explain the odd bits. I sympathise with the person no longer linking to their lovely translation disfigured by "the stroy and stubble locks".

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Looks lovely :)

Vienna's a beautiful city with some lovely museums, I went once for a conference and spent more time sight-seeing than I should have ;) Can't remember if that was one of the museum's I went to or not though.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It does have an awful lot of museums - I have a whole one full of Klimts still to go!

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Ah, I did go to that one, they were lovely :)

[caulkhead.livejournal.com]

I have never heard of the Oetscher, but I think I have just put it on my list of Places to Walk, especially if I can get somebody else to carry the baggage.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Great pictures! The Austrian Alps are really very pretty, but I tend to prefer looking at the alpine sublime from the bottom of a vale. :)