It was a dark and stormy evening, rapidly turning into the proverbial dark and stormy night, and I needed to find a place to stay. I was driving along an Austrian freeway, so I did what I’ve done on any number of previous occasions: I took the near exit and looked for a sign pointing to the nearest gasthof, or inn. The exit was Gleisdorf, between Graz and the Hungarian border. And off the highway, a couple of kilometers along the road, there it was, a sign at a lefthand turn, pointing up a narrow country road into the dark. The sign read "Gasthof Gruber" — so of course I followed the indication. Fifteen minutes or so later, I found myself in the village of Markt, at a quaint-looking inn whose windows glowed invitingly and whose balconies were full of flowers. A smiling woman in a floor-length dirndl led me to a comfortable room, equipped with a television and private bath. I dropped my bags, went back downstairs, and settled into the dining room, which was heated by a big, old-fashioned tiled stove. Soon I was sipping a glass of sturm, a mildly alcoholic, fleshly fermented grape juice, and digging in to a bowl of delicious soup. The room, with a full breakfast, cost 30, or about $ 36, and my dinner, with wine, cost 10. One of the pleasures of driving in Austria is, in fact, stopping for the night. All parts of the country are studded with family-run country inns that, like the Gasthof Gruber, offer spotless, moderately priced rooms and good, sometimes excellent, food that often features specialties of the region. Room prices average ∈25 to ∈35 for a single. Some inns are clustered in towns or villages along main roadways. But many are deep in the countryside or in mountain hamlets reached by winding lanes. Standardized green signs bearing the name of a gasthof and the symbols of a bed and crossed knife and fork point the way at many intersections. In popular vacation areas, there may be half a dozen or more such signs stacked on one post or standing next to each other at a turn-off. In years of driving regularly in Austria, I have rarely booked a room in advance, trusting always that I will find a pleasant place to stay by following the signs. I’ve rarely been disappointed, and often my night in a gasthof has proved such an enjoyable oasis between bouts of long-distance driving that I found it difficult to leave in the morning and get back on the road.
