Disney In the Alps
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re in Kas, a village on the Turquoise Coast of Turkey. It has grown like crazy since we were last here, in 2016, but the food is still delicious, the views (of the Greek island Kastellorizo) are still spectacular, and ancient history is still scattered around town, commingled with traffic furniture and souvenir shops and stray cats. I wrote this just before we left Austria, which seems like ages ago now, but was actually only Monday. Weird.
Disney In the Alps
We all want a little escapism on vacation—that’s the whole point of going away, right? We want to forget our daily grind—the sameness or stress or hard work of our normal lives. A vacation is a chance to step into a different life (be it one of adventure, decadence, or seeing the sights) for a few days, then go home relaxed and refreshed.
I fully embrace the joys of a quaint historic village. I love winding cobbled streets, ancient architecture, and the fingerprints (real or metaphorical) of past lives. If beautiful European villages are your vacation jam, I am your people.
The other day, while wandering down one of those little historic streets here in ‘our’ village in Austria, I was listening to a podcast about the US publishing industry, and learned that Amish fiction is a huge bestseller, across demographic groups (ie, non-Amish people of all stripes). Apparently it appeals to people who are suffering from something called ‘future-shock.’ It’s like culture shock, but instead of being overwhelmed by immersion in a new culture, sufferers are overwhelmed by the pace of change. So they enjoy escapist reading—books that contain no cell phones, no technology, no worries about cryptocurrency or artificial intelligence or the corrupting influence of social media. It’s like they’re looking for quaint European villages, in book form.
And that’s great—I am glad those authors have found an audience, and vice versa. I can’t emphasize strongly enough: read what makes you happy.
But (you knew there was a but) the future keeps coming at us, no matter how much we stick our heads into the comforting sands of a novel about some kind of idealized ‘old-fashioned’ culture.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that vacations, like escapist reading, present a bit of a conundrum. So often, we head to a new city/country/region looking for something different from our normal life. We want an experience. We want ‘authenticity.’
But what is ‘authentic,’ really? It would be so, so easy to visit Finkenburg, the little village we’ve come to love in the Ziller valley, and think Austria is straight out of a storybook. We’re surrounded by chalets that look like the cover illustration of my childhood copy of Heidi. We’re even staying in one, complete with window boxes full of bright pink geraniums. The town is pristine, the air is pristine, the trees are laden with ripening apples, the burbling streams are crystal clear, and the view is idyllic. We listen to cowbells and eat mountain cheeses and wake up to the smell of freshly-cut hay. It’s perfect.
And if you look closely, every fairy-tale chalet has a tiny little sign, indicating how many guests it can accommodate. Every restaurant in the village has an English menu. As a matter of fact, every waiter speaks English. The beautiful blue sky is dotted with paragliders, and every community has a ski-lift, leading up-mountain to ski slopes that, in summer, become hiking and biking trails. The weekly market has no fruit or vegetable stands; the vendors sell local honey, or wine by the glass, or tasteful artisanal souvenirs. It’s not a place for locals to do their grocery shopping. It’s a place for vacationers to ‘experience’ market day in an Alpine village.
It would be incredibly easy to spend a week or two here in our Alpine Disney, and not see or notice any of the quotidian sameness that keeps modern life running as smoothly as it (usually) does. The other day, Lee and I dropped our friend off at the airport in Innsbruck, then we went to the IKEA, because I needed a lighter-weight blanket than our apartment provides (hello, heat-dome). We’ve seen refugees and immigrants in this country, along with strip malls and huge anonymous apartment blocks. There are political frictions and natural disasters and bureaucratic snafus (it was here in Austria that our luggage was held hostage last summer).
Having been here twice, for longer periods of time, we’ve gotten the tiniest little glimpses of what real life looks like for the people who actually live in this ‘authentic’ mountain village. When we were here two years ago, our host messaged to say that the municipality had advised that there was a problem with the water system, and we shouldn’t drink from the tap for a couple of days. This time, when we checked in, she was very proud to tell us that they’d upgraded to faster internet (even so, it’s still a bit glitchy). As I’m writing this, on our last full day of this visit, we’re standing on our balcony watching the river rise and suddenly understanding the significance of the flash-flood warning signs I find so amusing. They no longer seem quite so silly.
Disney’s tagline may be ‘The Happiest Place on Earth,’ but even Disney has to deal with 21st century realities sometimes.
Take care,
Lisa
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