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?

A wonderful discovery

We’ve explored this part of Switzerland pretty well during our several visits here – or so we thought.  Having picked up a leaflet in the Textile Museum with the title “Textilland” I visited the associated website and suggested to my Hero that we could use some of the suggestions for a little rundfahrt.  The next day, we set out and headed for Arbon, a town on Lake Constance.

As soon as we arrived, it was clear that there was a rich history here.  The grand, Victorian mansions were richly decorated and there was a “resort” feel to the buildings overlooking the lake.

Our satnav took us to the first place on our list and an adjacent car park, though we appeared to be in some kind of building site and were none too sure where the entrance to the museum was.

We followed the sign and thought we’d found the way in but the map and the sign alongside with arrows pointing around the corner added to our confusion.  Eventually, we got it – we had to go and buy our tickets from the hotel next door and then come back here to gain entry.

I liked the look of the electricity sub-station and became yet more curious about what was in the museum.

It was to become a little stranger still.  We put our tokens in the turnstile and entered the museum, which appeared to be empty! 

“Hello?” (spoken in my best Hull accent)

“Hallo?”  (better speak German, just in case )

The mannequin wasn’t saying anything, so we just went in…

The first small room set the scene.  “Franz Saurer was born in a turbulent time.  Napoleon continued his conquest of Europe and England prepared itself for regular construction fever following James Watts invention of the steam engine…  The industrialisation starting gun fired and Franz Saurer would soon be sucked into it all”

We didn’t really know what to expect and this first orientation scene didn’t bode so well.  Underneath the caption about the first railway engines (dated 1830) was this small toy train – from a century after that, said my Hero.  Not so impressive!  Here’s hoping the rest of the museum would get such details correct, otherwise we were going to be irritated…

We opened the door into the museum proper.

Ooo!

A huge warehouse-type space was filled with assorted machinery, but the first thing which caught my eye?

Samples of a variety of machine-embellished fabrics cleverly displayed on light fittings.  From left to right, Soutache (I’d say couching), Superpose, Tullestickerei and Atzstickerei (also known as “guipure”)

Four more were set at right angles to the first group: Locherstickerei, rather similar to Broderie Anglaise, Abzeichen (badges or patches) and Allover .   

Nearby was a sample book as we’d seen in the textile museum yesterday and some larger, more contemporary fabrics alongside.

These were all examples of the kinds of products created using the Saurer machines in the museum and rather than linger longer here, we went right in to see what’s what.

The machines were arranged in a kind of timeline, with the oldest, manually operated embroidery machine right there opposite the samples.  4 or 5 metres in length, the operator sat at one end, facing the pattern which was pinned on the board in front of him/her.

This pattern had been precisely drawn to scale and was linked to a pantograph, moved by the operator’s left hand.  At the same time, the feet operated the machine in the same way as our mothers used the treadle) and the right hand turned the wheel to lift the needle up and down. 

Multitasking?  Oh yes.

As the single tracing was made, twenty four patterns were embroidered on the frame.  In this case, each was an individual motif, though I imagine the design could easily be manipulated to form a continuous row or edging.

The tools of the trade were close on hand too, the tray looking remarkably like my own sewing machine kit.

My Hero and I both love the engineering, the heavy moving parts which are made to move smoothly and precisely to create the fine end result.

Across the way was a slightly newer machine which was set to create a continuous pattern.  this one showed the schiffli  - the bobbin which contains the lower thread.  I’d heard the term schiffli used in relation to machine embroidery but until now had not made the Swiss connection (in Swiss-German, the suffix –li is used instead of the High German –chen or –lein to form a diminutive)  So, the word for a bobbin, schiffli is literally, a little ship.

A machine like this was operating twenty four needles or more, each one with a schiffli underneath carrying the bobbin thread.

So the next machines to be developed were needlethreaders…

Note the bottom line of the explanation which states that in twenty years, Saurer sold 6600 of these machines.  This was big business, wouldn’t you say?

The needles were threaded and delivered in a line, ready for use.  What a time saver!

No surprise that another development was a bobbin winder then.

By 1907, these machines could wind at a rate of 3500 – 4000 turns a minute. 

Better have a good supply of schiffli on hand, then!

So at the same time as developing the embroidery machines, Saurer was designing and manufacturing the supplementary products, applying their technical knowhow and engineering skills to enable textile manufacturing to develop at incredible speed.

Patterns were transferred from scale drawings to punchcards and yes, here were the machines to do just that.

Further automation and larger frames followed.

I would have liked to know how long it takes to set up such a machine but we were still alone here, with no other person in sight!

We were working out how everything worked then and actually rather enjoying the puzzle.  Is this a device for creating a punch card from a scale drawing?

And we understood the need for precision in those drawings, so high quality technical drawing and pattern making tools were needed such as these wheels which created dots/holes at regular intervals.

But what was the difference between the sets with different coloured handles?  We couldn’t see any, and yet…

Aha!  Here was something I did recognise.  This machine was creating a broderie anglaise edging.

And just like my Bernina machine, there’s both a needle and a blade, cutting fabric as well as embroidering it.  Fascinating to see the similarities here.

Alongside was a panel with photographs of the modern equivalents of these machines and a sample of contemporary fabric, much like the samples we’d seen in the museum in St Gallen.

Reminiscent of that exquisite piece of whitework embroidery with the medals, this piece of work was no less impressive and required a similarly high level of skills, albeit rather different ones!

I think it’s clear how much we were both enjoying this small, deserted museum and we were not even half way around it.  I loved the insight into the development of sewing machines, knowing that my favourite Bernina is located just a few miles along the lake in Steckborn.  No accident, that – we are in Textilland, after all!

So, what else was in the museum then?  All will be revealed in the next post.

In die Schweiz

We are just home from a few days in Switzerland.  We flew to Zurich on Friday lunchtime, arriving in the late afternoon and feeling very happy to be there again.

It’s always been a favourite, ever since our first visit as a couple in the summer following our wedding in 1980.  Driving past a road sign to Effretikon just a few miles from the airport brought back happy memories of that first trip, when the generosity of lovely Swiss friends of my family enabled us to discover the character of a country which enchants us both.

Even though the weather forecast didn’t sound too promising, the late afternoon sunshine highlighted the Alpstein nicely to greet us and the clouds revealed Säntis there on the horizon.

We left the laptop at home this time, so there are still a few stories to tell and a lot of details to share.

We stayed in St Gallen, where the peach and grey building holds a treasure trove of riches to interest me.  What better place to spend a rainy Saturday morning?

For sadly, the sun doesn’t shine continually and those green fields need a drop or two of rain to keep them looking lovely.  Saturday was especially wet and driving to a concert in Winterthur in the afternoon we made sure we had umbrellas and raincoats with us.

My Hero will surely be reporting on this grand occasion, when the highlights of the programme were works by Joachim Raff, bringing Swiss, German and British Rafficionados together to share enthusiasm, research and friendship throughout the weekend.

We might have enjoyed a few “white angels” lovingly created in the brewery next door to our hotel, the oldest brewery in Switzerland, no less.

At this time of the year, there are not so many visitors around, so we enjoyed peaceful times by the lake.

We were the only visitors – the only people – in the museum where the cloakroom is imaginative and utterly charming.  That was a fantastic place to visit!

When the weather brightened, we drove out and up into the mountains to new places and old favourites.

Sadly, the aroma of a Swiss cheese shop simply cannot be effectively communicated.  You simply have to be there.

The Gold Bunny on top of the car park was a reminder of something else on the shopping list.

Finally, with a couple of hours to spare before returning to the airport, we never have a problem simply sitting in a favourite place and watching the world go by.

So, the next few posts will surely be about our glorious weekend.  I’ll try not to forget to share the story of the Zuger Kirschtorte too. Textiles, transport, music, landscape, Weissbier, chocolate, cheese, rösti, friends, mountains, lakes and fun.  We love it all.

Oh, and there’s this, too.

Wood.  (I’ll explain later)

Hooked again

About ten years ago, my Mum and I were perusing stuff we might watch on TV together and stumbled upon The Gilmore Girls on DVD (or it might even have been VHS?)  In no time at all, we were hooked, though my Mum had trouble following some of the time.

They do talk awfully fast.

But the quirky characters and the storylines hit all the right spots and the series became a firm favourite with my hero and I too.  We watched avidly until the end of the final series, feeling sad that it had come to an end, whilst appreciating that it really couldn’t last forever.

Somewhere in there, we learned that Mary was a fan as well and before long, Gilmore Girls references were making their way into our conversations; so Mary would ask if the place we stayed was anything like The Cheshire Cat Inn or giggle if we mentioned Friday Night Dinner.

But with the show coming to a sad end with the infamous Season 7, Lorelai and Rory faded from our lives and we moved onto other favourites.  Borgen won its way to our hearts, we watched House of Cards in its American setting and during our road trip TV binges, grew to love Modern Family.  Then we discovered The Good Wife and suddenly, a familiar face pops up.

Hey, wasn’t he Rory’s boyfriend?   I googled and discovered that yes, Matt Czuchry, who plays Cary Agos did indeed play Logan Huntzberger.  Oh, how we still missed the Gilmore Girls, we said, as on more than one occasion, I suggested it might be time to begin to watch from the beginning again, on DVD.  After all, we had the full set somewhere, alongside the box sets of ‘Allo ‘Allo, The Golden Girls, The West Wing and Northern Exposure.

But in the meantime, Netflix had come along.  BBC iPlayer and Sky catch up services  meant that we no longer missed any of our favourite shows and an upgrade to our broadband made streaming TV a realistic alternative. 

And look what appeared on Netflix earlier this year!  Suddenly, we are invited to return to Stars Hollow and pretend season 7 never happened.  The original writers are back on track and four extended episodes will draw the show to a proper conclusion, once and for all, this November.

Well, it seems as though we (and Mary) are not the only ones who have been missing Stars Hollow, for a plethora of websites have popped up and the trailer has created yet more excitement.  Googling any aspect of the show – Stars Hollow, for example - leads to a wealth of information, a Gilmore Girls Instagram feed offered some insider jokes, there are countless fansites and a few coffee shops turned into Luke’s for the day.

And how have my hero and I been preparing?  By going right back to the beginning and watching an episode on Netflix each night!  Somehow, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to binge watch all seven series, so we have been taking our time and rediscovering Stars Hollow all over again.  I’m not sure we’re going to get to the end in time for the new episodes on the 25th November, but we’ll give it a good try.  We are currently coming to the (uncomfortable) end of Series Five, having watched the penultimate episode last evening.

So please.  Bear with us.  We have 45 episodes to fit into the next 25 days!

No time to go shopping for ephemera, but how funny was it when this dropped into my inbox the other day?!

Love it!