4th – 5th June, 2016

Here we are in Austria after a longish day getting here from Germany. This was my fault as I had planned to visit the Stiftskirche and Bibliotek (abbey and library) in St Gallen, Switzerland. The library is one of the finest Baroque rooms you will ever see and the abbey is also lovely. However, the key to seeing them is to know what they are called in German before driving through the largish city of St Gallen! This includes driving through what appeared to be a busy pedestrian zone as the satnav tried to take me into pastures new. Anyway, we did eventually make it and it was well worth it.

The library does not allow photography, so I will attempt to find something on the internet.

We even had to wear slippers over our shoes and sort of slide along (polishing the floor, as Val pointed out). There is an amazing collections of some 160,000 books, of course, with some 1,650 printed before 1500. Truly stunning and reminded me of the Bodleian at Oxford (although, in total, that has over 12 million books!).

The abbey was also worth the visit…..

And we even saw these guys!

It was then off to Austria. We had been advised by Manfred to avoid the motorways in Switzerland as they charge the same (CHF40) for using them for one hour as they do for a whole year. So we organised the satnav to take us on non-motorway roads only, which proved interesting – and much more scenic than we could have hoped for. It really is like being in a scene from the Sound of Music with mountains and meadows and chalets and immaculate farms. My father always claimed that the Swiss actually comb their manure stacks to make them look smart. I think it is true.

We eventually arrived at the Club la Costa Alpine Resort Centre at a place called Harham, just over an hour south of Salzburg and about 10 minutes north of Zell am See. All very nice – two bedroom apartment with kitchen and living room, swimming pool, sauna, gym and table tennis. So we have great plans for the week.

We spent Sunday recovering from our journey, though we did make it to the table tennis table! The view from our apartment is pretty stunning – especially if you do some judicious cropping!

More soon!