Consider the Schnitzel

My friend Alison and I just spent a few days in the Wachau Valley, a wine region in lower Austria. We biked along the Danube—stopping now and then to swim in it—through vineyards growing Grüner Veltliner and Riesling, through towns lit by red terracotta roofs, past naked locals braving the heat wave, and right up to a giant sculpture of a nose. We saw olive trees. We saw a snake scribbled on the bike path. We saw little weasels sticking their heads out of holes in ancient dry-stone walls.