Still St Gilgen: Sat 20th to Tue 23rd

Saturday was Kaiservilla time. Franz-Joseph, the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had a summer villa (=palace really) at a nearby town, Bad Ischal. He rose every morning at 3.30am, and was in his office at 4.15 to start conducting affairs of state. He had a house built down the road for his mistress for affairs of a different kind. The villa and contents are immaculately preserved and are still owned by the same Hapsburg family, of whom Franz-Joseph was a member. Their immense political power (but not wealth) came to an end with the First World War.

On Sunday we visited a local farmers festival, something like our harvest festival. Many traditional farming activities were on show , in particular beer drinking, and the picture shows the local choir performing. Disappointment: no yodelling. Note the choir’s traditional dress, but numerous people don these sorts of clothes as everyday wear. Knobbly knees at the ready!

Yesterday’s little trip was to the arboretum. With so many wonderful, stately trees in the forests here, we thought the arboretum would be the crème de la crème. But what a miserable set of specimens we found, tiny trees and bushes, some having died and disappeared leaving just the descriptive plaque. Jane said it ought to be renamed the twigoretum!