Top of the list

We couldn’t believe our luck when we looked outside this morning!  Another bright, clear day to look forward to.

Today, I remembered to look the other way from our terrace as well.  I hadn’t realised we could see St Isaacs so clearly from here.

We had only a short walk to the first place on our list: The Hermitage.  I couldn’t resist stopping in the middle of the pedestrian crossing to snap a picture of the Admiralty, shining in the sunshine though.

Just a couple of hundred yards further and we were in Palace  Square.  The Winter Palace looks super in the sunshine and hopefully, if we got it right, we should be there before the crowds.

Opening hours here are clearly posted. How long will our stamina last? (not till 8pm, I’m sure of that!)

We bought tickets from the machine – a bargain, really, at just R600 or about £8.50 each for all the Hermitage museums combined.

Pretty ticket, too

First stop the cloakroom.  If this is the small one though, how many does the large one take!?

No sooner were we through the turnstile than we were there – at the foot of the grand staircase, just as magnificent as we’d remembered from our previous visits.  We stood a while and took it all in. 

Magic.

We did need to know where we were going though, to decide what we wanted to see and how best to get there. 

Still, we can’t go wrong if we start by walking along the corridor with the paintings of the Russian Royals, can we?  I love those hats/crowns/whatever; conical with a fur band!

Each room we visited had some breathtaking feature, be it a chandelier

a beautiful floor

or just an interesting door handle.  (Before the advent of plastic/acrylic, what do you suppose that great “jewel” in the claw might have been made of?)

From time to time we gazed out over the River Neva through the rather dusty windows.

Some rooms were just too much and not to our taste at all.

Others looked like they had been brought from another part of the world altogether.

From time to time, we spotted something rather covetable.  Do you think any of the elderly women who stand guard in these rooms would miss the polar bear vase if I stuffed it under my coat?

So we went on, room after room, each one as stunning as the last, if not more so.

And as you’ll gather, we had the whole place to ourselves!

Well, not really.  Whilst standing in front of the throne to take the classic front forward shot, I was elbowed out of the way by a visitor of oriental origin; a member of a large group who were just ahead of us through this set of rooms.  Rather than stand and wait for every Mei, Wang and Lai to stand in front of it for their photograph, I just went around the side and took mine.

Further patience was required when we reached the Peacock Clock in the Pavilion room.

This is how it really was…

so we looked around the rest of the beautiful room and admired the decor and the chandeliers for a couple of minutes.

After which, we had the bird to ourselves.  Shame I didn’t compose a better picture, considering that, isn’t it!?

But you knew we’d catch up with them again, didn’t you?  In the room with a couple of major works by Leonardo da Vinci, a little more patience was needed.  Actually, taking pictures of these masterpieces wasn’t easy anyway, for the lights reflected in the glass and the end result would hardly do the work justice.

On a little further then, past a couple of storyboards with photographs and descriptions of the days leading to the Revolution.  Obvious really, but it had escaped my notice until now, that this year is the centenary of those events.

By now, we were used to waiting till the crowds had moved on before we looked around.  This corridor was especially beautiful – known as the Raphael Loggias.

It led to a kind of armoury, where a couple of exhibits stood out from the rest.  This one looked a little shiny and new.

This one just looked weird – and was causing a stir amongst that group who were a few steps ahead of us.  They were both part of an exhibition

Jan Fabre’s “Knights of Despair, Warriors of Beauty” was to be seen here and there throughout the whole museum, though in this particular area, it seemed to be particularly noticeable.  The two suits of armour were amongst the most palatable exhibits, the rest of which ranged from body parts made from beetle-wings to art involving stuffed animals, some of which were a little disturbing.

We moved right along from those, suddenly feeling rather overwhelmed by what we’d seen so far and ready for a break.

Having explored the offerings at the snack bar, it was time to move on to a different building.  First though, there was the small business of the staircase.  Heaven knows how anyone with mobility issues manages here!

Anyway, over and out from this part of the Hermitage…

through the courtyard with the snazzy bollards…

and past the poster with a reminder to the dear guests, not to forget the “other building”.

Guess where we were headed?

Though first, I just had to take a look back and capture that glorious golden dome on top of the Winter Palace.

Now, the General Staff Building had served all kinds of purposes during its life.  Today, we were hoping to see some great art in there!

Behind the original facade of the former office building, there’s a new extension and exhibition space.  Lavish architecture with many interesting details – but no public lift!  Thankfully, a  member of the security staff noticed us looking at those stairs (with no consistent handrail) and offered the use of a staff lift.  He waved over to a colleague who accompanied us to Floor 2.

Actually, we’d intended to go straight to floor 4 and work our way down, but floor 2 was all that was offered.  We got out and walked through the large, modern space – not quite what we’d come to see, but interesting nevertheless.

The main exhibit in this first room was a cloth full of scribbles.

Yes, really.  A cloth at least 6m long and 3m high, fully covered with ballpoint pen scribbles.  Opposite was a similar technique on a large wooden cupboard.

OK.

We moved into the next room where there was an extension of the Jan Fabre exhibit, including what appeared to be stuffed cats and dogs.  Not our kind of thing at all (and we are not alone it seems).  We moved right along returning to our original aim of getting to floor 4.

We walked through what seemed like miles of featureless corridors like this one, doing our best to follow our map but somehow failing!

Eventually, thank goodness, we came upon the Faberge rooms and this glorious miniature copy of the Imperial Regalia, beautifully displayed on exquisite little cushions and remarkably well lit too.

From here, having now found our bearings, it was straightforward to find our way to the rooms containing the most incredible collection of Impressionist paintings we’ve seen.  A room full of Van Gogh’s work, including the one above which was my favourite.

A similar collection of work by Cezanne, including this tree (and a few hillsides).

And there, amongst the Bonnards, the Pisarros, the Monets and the Manets was one of my favourite pictures by Renoir.  Sorry about the strange angle, taken to avoid the reflections, but I included it simply to remind myself how pretty it looked in a small corner of a room full of treasure.

Sure, there were Gauguins a plenty, there were works by Degas and just about every other Impressionist painter you can think of (with the possible exception of Berthe Morisot!?)  I think we could have possibly spent a whole day in these few rooms alone…

But oh my, were our feet complaining?  Mine certainly were!  And however many great things there are to see, there’s only so much we can take in one mouthful.  so, we bade the Hermitage farewell for this time and returned to the hotel with pictures of golden rooms, malachite pillars, wonderful paintings and the sheer extravagance of it all turning around in our heads.

Just the kind of weariness that calls for an hour in the most luxurious and relaxing spa!

What a wonderful day.

Мы здесь

We are here.  In St Petersburg, that is.

I know, no sooner have I finished rabbiting on about Switzerland and all of that, and here we are, just a couple of weeks later in somewhere totally different.

Life, eh?  (Good, innit? )

The glorious sunset was captured as we arrived at LHR last night.  With a flight leaving at 9.20am this morning, we chose to stay overnight at the Sofitel, expecting to meet Edward and Amy there sometime mid-evening.  But the hours wore on and it was almost midnight by the time they appeared, feeling slightly discombobulated by a succession of transport hiccups along the way.  Never mind.  We were all together and all was well!

Because this was Edward’s belated birthday jolly, organised in January for a supposedly quieter time, even if the quieter times only really exist in our imagination. 

A flight time of nearly four hours, together with a time difference of another two and it was mid afternoon when we arrived, in spite of that early morning start.  Never mind.  The sun was shining and we were happy!

I’d arranged a transfer from our hotel, not wanting to spend valuable time fiddling about with taxis and the like, so in minutes we were speeding down the motorway into the city.

Our travelling companions lost no time at all settling into the fine surroundings.  We quickly sorted ourselves out and decided to get out there and enjoy what was left of a beautiful Spring afternoon.

I mean, look at that sky!

We weren’t going very far – just across the road in fact, because we thought we’d begin gently and take a look around St Isaacs Cathedral first.

Now, it’s not long since we were here, is it?  Just last September, in fact.  But we had loved what we saw and we couldn’t wait to share it with Edward and Amy.

I think they were similarly bowled over.

Of course, he was there watching, still.

And I did my best not to take all the same photographs again, trying to look at things slightly differently and to notice small details which may have escaped me previously.  But actually, it didn’t matter at all.  It was simply amazing to just be here, to sit and wonder at the magnificence of it all and to enjoy the whole experience.

So that’s what I did.

When we were all ready to move on, we walked down towards the river, heading towards the large statue of Peter the Great, past a most impressive building with the name in gold letters above the arch.  I find it so frustrating to not be able to read the names of places, but at least the bright spark amongst us recognised a word which resembled “bibliothek” in there somewhere, so we assumed it includes some kind of library. ( I googled it later, and yes, it does)

I loved the view of the street through the archway.

The main thing we’ve noticed so far has been how grey everything is.  Until the sun came out this afternoon, there was a dreary look to the city with not a blade of grass or green leaf in sight.  This patch of parkland looks threadbare and brown, but the sunshine and clear blue sky brought everything to life and the whole city twinkled in the light.

Actually the sun made it hard to take a decent photo of this, the Bronze Horseman.

But looking the other way, it was difficult to stop taking them!  Cities on water have that special something, don’t they?

High above the Admiralty building, the flag flies at half mast following the incident on the Metro earlier in the week.

We continue along the river front to the Hermitage.  No time for a visit now, but it’s good to get our bearings and work out what is where, and especially good to wander independently without a guide too.

The four of us stood for a while, counting our blessings and feeling very thankful to be here.

We resisted the temptation to ride in a horse drawn carriage – or is it a pumpkin?

Because by now, we were feeling peckish.  Elena, the concierge at our hotel had recommended Gogol, a Russian restaurant serving traditional fare, so that’s where we headed next.  It was 7pm by now, anyway.

Was this his hat and coat hanging in the hall?

The menu came in the form of a book, with chapters for each course.

It made for quite entertaining reading, even before the food arrived.

Yes, of course he tried that.  No, not the tongues, but the lard!

We’ll remember Gogol for the bell on each table though.  “Please ring the bell when you have decided what you’d like”. 

Somehow, though, it didn’t seem right to ring the bell for attention, even if the moment we did so, our waitress would come running (or maybe, because that’s what happened?)  Suffice to say, we had a super meal, the beef stroganoff was delicious, as was the smoked salmon, the Siberian white fish and everything else we ordered.

Returning to our hotel in somewhat lower temperatures than when we’d set out, St Isaac’s was looking rather lovely in the mist.

We are so pleased to be here and feel that, whatever the weather chooses to do tomorrow, we will always remember a sparkling afternoon in the city!

Not quite finished

A busy couple of days means I didn’t quite get to finish our Swiss stories. 

Our flight wasn’t until 6pm or thereabouts, so we had a day to enjoy.  We wanted to spend some time in Zürich so headed for the airport and returned our rental car first.

Zürich airport is very familiar and works brilliantly!   First thing to do was to leave our luggage in a locker for the day.

 

Squeezing in two suitcases and two carryon bags wasn’t easy, but I left my hero to do the tricky part whilst I went to get 9CHF in change – by buying chocolate of course   (and of course, I took a photo of the locker, just in case we forgot the number or location)

Just gone 11am then, and a train due to Zürich Hauptbahnhof at ten past.  Love it.

But there’s tickets to buy first.  Yes, of course there’s a machine right there and yes, of course it’s all in working order and takes credit cards…

Down the escalator onto the platform with plenty of time to spare!

At 11.10am precisely, the train pulled into the station and we hopped on board.  Efficient, no?

We’ve spent quite some time using Swiss railways and always enjoy travelling by train here.

In just ten minutes we were arriving in the city.

Our train was going on through Zug and Bellinzona to Lugano – how lovely it would be to stay on board and ride to the sunny side of the Alps and spend the day with Toni and Pietro, our sweet friends there!  But the city awaits us…

It was a greyish morning, but thankfully dry.  We planned a simple stroll up the Bahnhofstrasse and had a couple of things on our list to look for.

We always enjoy a browse in Globus a stylish and very attractive department store with rather enticing displays.

Something often catches our eye here and today was no exception.  Look at these nifty table lamps, designed like books!  We opened and closed them, looked more closely (they appeared to be battery operated, so could be used anywhere).  Hmm.  What do you think?  

As we stood, thinking of several places where one of them would fit right in at home, I turned one over and spotted the price.   

We didn’t need one anyway!

A little further along the street then, heading towards the lake and aiming to be at our favourite restaurant for a late lunch, we dropped into a couple of other shops for knitting yarn and bath salts!

We took a closer look at the new version of the TAG smartwatch and I reflected on the #connectedtoeternity hashtag.  Now, that would be something, wouldn’t it?

We still had one more thing on our list – the Zuger Kirschtorte I referred to in my first Swiss post.  Any local konditorei will probably have one, but the most reliable source in Zürich is Sprüngli who are to be found in several locations, including our favourite shop in Paradeplatz.

Luck was not with us, though.  No Kirschtorte!  All is not yet lost…I suppose there’s the shop in the station and another at the airport.  We’ll have to try elsewhere and keep our fingers crossed.

Both of us were beginning to get hungry by now, but wanting to leave lunch until later, we carried on to the end of the Bahnhofstrasse to Bürkliplatz where we knew we could pass a happy few minutes.

We found a bench by the water and looked over to the Uetliberg and the Enge area where we rented an apartment for a week a couple of years ago.

Feeling (and possibly looking!) like our Grandparents, we sat on the bench and watched the world go by for a while.

We knew there was a steamer due, for the lunchtime round trip of the lake and thought we sit and watch it arrive.

People were turning up on the jetty to wait for the service and provided us with ample to talk about!

So we just sat and watched, perfectly happy to do nothing for a while.

There were pretty ducks to watch, safely out of my scary zone and far more interested in what lies beneath the water than in me.

Sad pair that we are, we tried to guess where it might pop up next!

Eventually though, as the boat left the jetty, we just had to haul ourselves up and make our way to the Zeughauskeller, just off Paradeplatz, because lunch was not going to come to us!

It’s a long time favourite, reasonably priced and serving good, hearty Swiss fare just as we like it.

We thought we might just about have finished by the time they needed our table back.

Zürich is a great, walkable city and though we could have taken the direct route back to the station, with full tummies and plenty of time, we decided to take the scenic way back.

Past our favourite Storchen hotel, newly renovated.  We once had the room with the stork outside – thankfully, he didn’t leave any surprises  

Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine that we are in one of Europe’s main business hubs.

But we mustn’t forget we have still a kirschtorte to find.

The first Sprüngli shop in the station had also sold out but the helpful assistant directed us to the other station shop and thankfully, there was the cake of our dreams!  Well, perhaps that’s going a bit far…  Suffice to say, we were glad to have ticked the last thing from our list.

Time to return to the airport, collect our luggage and check into our flight home.

Which we did without further incident.

So what of the cake and the other little chocolatey favourites which we couldn’t resist?  When I took the photograph of our luggage, the bag was safely in the hands of my hero.  It safely made it through security, with the usual joke from the customs staff as it went through the scanner: will it come out the other side or will it disappear mid scan?

The (very expensive, of course) cake was carefully placed in the overhead locker of the plane and retrieved at Heathrow, where we made our way to collect our car at the valet parking facility.  It was only somewhere near Windsor that my hero slapped his forehead, made a hasty decision to leave the motorway at that junction and pull into a layby.

“I don’t remember putting the cake in the car”.

We returned to Terminal 5, screeched into a car parking space and I stayed in the car whilst he hurried back to the space where our car had been parked.

No cake.

There in the Valet parking office were three or four chaps sitting around a blue and white carrier bag – “Hello Mr Thomas, did you leave this behind?”  They had retrieved it from the parking space when the next car had been brought and taken it into the office.  They joked that had they known it was a cake, they might have had a tea party.

I can’t tell you how good that Zuger Kirschtorte tasted when we finally got to eat it!

Oh, and what about those light-books (book-lights)? 

Delivered by Amazon Prime the very next morning and looking identical to this one.  We love it.

It was hardly lunchtime

..and we’d already seen so much.  We consulted the Textilland brochure again and set the satnav for our next destination.

Our route was taking us uphill, into the Appenzell area and what’s more, the sun was trying to shine!

We made an uplanned stop in Heiden, feeling ready for some fresh air and a look around.  It was around 12.30pm by now and since rural Switzerland tends to close for lunch, there were few people about (the story of our day!)

The fresh, clean mountain air was, well, breathtaking and pottering about, we noted the picnic table in the middle of the village green.  The table formed the cross and the four stools on each corner the background – except it was the wrong way round for the Swiss flag? But maybe a white table would not have been a practical choice?  Who knows?

We love the way Swiss villages present local information so clearly, with detailed maps and places of interest.  Our own village at home could use something similar, since there are no house numbers at all and people are frequently lost!

The smart hotel overlooked the railway station and the valley below and we wandered over to take a closer look.

The ground floor level had been turned into a kind of showroom for a local electrical store and in the window was a washing machine on special offer.  We’ve commented all weekend about the prices here and our German friends with whom we had dinner after the concert joked about how poor they feel when they are in Switzerland.  So I took a photograph of the washing machine to compare prices.  Bearing in mind that today, 1 Swiss Franc (CHF) is worth £0.81, this washing machine has been reduced from £1 852 to £1 528.   A bargain?  It proved difficult to compare, since this appears to be an exclusively Swiss model (a means of Miele making comparison difficult, perhaps?) but the closest equivalent I could find in John Lewis is just less than £1000.  It must be so tempting to go shopping over the border in Germany.

As we stood looking about, a young man came out of the office and asked how we liked Heiden.  Had we had chance to look around yet?  We replied that we had, but if he could share any further “must sees” we’d be glad of his suggestions.

“How about the Red Cross Memorial?” he said.

Just around the corner from the square, overlooking Lake Constance, is a memorial to Jean Henri Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, who died in a nursing home in Heiden in 1910.

It was a rather brutal design, but very much of its time I suppose.

It stood in a large open space too, offering room for commemoration and large gatherings.  Unusually, the peace and tranquillity was spoiled by a young man sitting on a bench nearby playing loud music on a radio – such an unusual occurrence in these days of earphones !

(and of course, the significance of the colours of the picnic set on the green fell into place, too)

OK, thank you, Heiden, for an hour of fresh air and fun.  Time to move on and make our way to our destination, Trogen.

We could see where we were headed, over there, to the village on the hillside.

It had clouded over again but was dry and still quite mild.

The Post buses are a frequent sight around here, with regular services (mostly hourly) between all the villages but this is the first time we’ve seen a double decker!

The two small children who had just got off the bus and were walking home from school wearing rucksacks and bobble hats looked like the pair from the StartRite advertisement.

At the top of the hill, there we were, in the Landgemeinplatz Trogen.  This is where the inhabitants of the village would gather to place their vote during elections, by raising their hands.  We parked the car outside the Zellweger’s “Double Palace” and headed off, following the recommendation of the leaflet to begin at the wash house.

The story of our day, it all appeared to be closed.  Not a soul in sight.  Never mind, we thought, we’re still enjoying our mooch about.  But of course, I had to try the door…

as I did, it creaked open, the lights came on and a multi-media presentation began!  We took our seats on a stone windowsill, sitting on cushions placed there for the purpose, and learned about the textile heritage of this small town and the family who developed it, the Zellwegers.

We loved it!  Here we were, quite alone (again) in a small Swiss village with such a well thought out visitor experience.  How pleased we were to have discovered it.

When it finished, we stood outside, rather captivated by the whole thing and thinking that before we moved on, we’d like time to sit and assimilate some of what we’d learned.  Thankfully, Einkehrlokal Ernst was just over the road, so we made our way over and knew it was a great decision!

A warm welcome (from Michi) delicious soft drinks and the scrummiest of chäschüechli (little cheese tarts) hit the spot and I loved the little details in the decor too.  First class!

Time to return to the square and to visit the three remaining locations on our “Zellweger Route”.

The cute logo clearly identified the relevant spots.

First, the church.  I don’t need to tell you there wasn’t anyone there, do I?

There was, however, a rack of guide boards – only as I took one from the stand did I realise it was a piece of mirror glass!   Be careful…

Very useful though, even if I did have to watch out for steps and other pitfalls which I might miss by peering into the mirror!

Just around the corner were the weavers’ cottages, rather grander and more solid (though also rather younger) than the cottages built for the same purpose in our own Cotswold village.

Back into the Square, the beautifully painted Hotel Krone wasn’t on our list but nevertheless caught our eye for obvious reasons!

We were heading for the Gemeindehaus, formerly another of the Zellweger’s properties and now the site of a small museum on the third floor.

The interior was just lovely and of course, we had it to ourselves.  As we made our way upstairs, lights came on automatically and the door was open to the exhibition.

I was immediately taken by the textile vocabulary printed on the screen.  Lovely words, auf Deutsch, natürlich , with names of fabric and the processes which were associated with them.

Here’s the dress on the other side.   I’m sorry, I didn’t note the significance.

Here was another self-service collection to peruse.  Lovely books with samples and clear explanations, though yes, more than a smattering of German was needed.

There was a huge table, filled with collections of material such as these old almanacs from the Zellwegers’ time.  Were they original?  I have no idea.  I just loved looking through them.

The box of photocopied letters was full of sheets filled with dense handwriting.

Some was projected onto the wall, as an animation so as if someone was writing it, speaking it as they went.  Rather lovely.

There was a small library

and floor standing browsers with large reproductions of maps, engravings and drawings

all mounted on heavy corrugated card and impeccably presented.

Best of all there were the fabrics.

Each one was carefully labelled with the details.  Well of course it was!

As we returned downstairs, still a little awestruck by the whole Zellweger thing, we spotted the image of the Landsgemeinde in the square, right outside this building.  There’s a few more details and a better picture here

After such a great experience, it was really quite hard to leave Trogen.  Of course, we wanted to learn more of what became of the Zellwegers and felt that this afternoon was only the start.  We’d totally overlooked Trogen’s other claim to fame: The Pestalozzi children’s village, too.

But after such a breathtaking series of discoveries, we were ready for something more familiar.  Time to make our way back to St Gallen via Appenzell then.

I’ve described this landscape before as one with a green fitted carpet and the same is true today.

The rolling hills and patches of wild flowers are enhanced by the backdrop of snow mountains.  We love it here.

As my hero drives, I’m clicking away, taking so many photographs whilst absorbing the sights and sounds to remember forever.

We were not alone in Appenzell.  In fact, it’s hard to imagine there would ever be a time when there wouldn’t be others here, so popular is it.

There’s a good reason though – it’s a small, charming town with beautifully decorated buildings, a great cheese shop and a welcoming atmosphere.

We made a couple of purchases before returning to the brewery car park (same procedure every year ) though I resisted bringing a copy of a favourite German magazine home with me, having seen the €5 price overwritten by CHF10.  We stopped in the Migros for a couple of bottles of our favourite Flauder and some other Swiss grocery bits and were soon back in St Gallen, reflecting on a truly magnificent day.

Did I say how happy we are to be here?

and next…

 (this is a continuation of the previous post here)

I’d no knowledge whatsoever of Saurer before this morning, so I didn’t know that their principal products were vehicles. When we arrived in the museum and came immediately upon the embroidery machines, I wasn’t surprised.  But I’ll bet those who come looking for old vehicles are!

Towards the back of the museum were the vehicles then, including a lovely old Post Bus.

As we pottered about here, a door opened and a woman appeared.  We were not alone!  But she walked briskly through the museum and out of the door we’d come through, wishing us a cheerful “Grüezi!” as she went.  We were alone again.

I’d had so much fun amongst the sewing and embroidery, I was more than happy to browse the buses and lorries.  It was only fair…

But I knew my Hero wasn’t that fussed about such things, in spite of his professional transport background, so we didn’t linger so long.

Oh no, because both our attention was taken by further textile machinery!  Much more interesting      Looking closely at this first machine, we recognised it as being similar to the bobbin winder – except it was for winding shuttles.

OK.  We’re in the weaving department!  This huge loom was weaving terry towelling.

I’d not seen such a thing before and was interested in the table of samples nearby.

Next to it was another loom, this one with three placements for weaving narrow goods, such as twill tape.

These machines were more modern, from the 1940s and 50s we thought.

Similar, but finer machines were there too, for weaving silk ribbon.

Alongside a larger loom was a machine for creating a punch card design from a drawing.  It being Switzerland, the design was of a cow.

The card was made of plastic, more durable and less likely to be damaged with heavy use.

The loom was set up to create twill fabric with a linen weft, suitable for traditional tea towels, we thought.

The design was so cute!

I liked the look of the warp, too, carefully wound with precision, most certainly by some kind of machine!

Here spindles were loaded automatically into the shuttles, threaded automatically using what appeared to be a vacuum process too.

There alongside, was another unrelated sample.  We had no idea why it was there, but thought it cute too.  After all, who couldn’t like the backside of a cow?

With a last look at the most modern (and least interesting, in our view) weaving machines, we took the door through to the last room.

The cafe/gift shop.  Except there was no-one there either.

But on the counter was a small cardboard box with the word “geld”.

There was a tea towel too, with the cow edging and the embroidered motif. 

And since there was a price list, you know what we did, don’t you?

Well, who knows?  But you would have surely done the same, wouldn’t you?

By the exit was a small display about Saurer today, most significantly, the aquisition in 2012 by the Jinsheng Group.  Though there are still Swiss connections the focus of manufacturing appears, as in so many similar companies, to have relocated to the Far East.

I was glad to see that some aspects of the company remain in Arbon, though, including Melco, a name I recognised as a manufacturer of commercial embroidery software.  I googled to learn more about the company and spotted another of their locations…Seestrasse 161, Steckborn.

Now, where have I heard that address before?