St. Gallen

Today we slept in until 9:30 in a real bed. What a luxury, I haven't slept so well in ages. Bob, Sabine and I had a breakfast and enjoyed slices of Zopf a soft, delicious Swiss bread and cappuccinos from their Nespresso machine. If you are not familiar check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r50sKBB7Fys&NR=1

After breakfast we went up to the hospital to visit Alain. This is one nice hospital - quiet, peaceful, views of the mountains and room service for the patients. Yes, real room service. Alain just pushes a button and his order is taken and arrives shortly. We had a nice time talking about our trip and baseball of which Alain is a huge fan. We are hoping that they will both be able to visit and go to an Indians game sometime in the future.

This afternoon we went on the city tour of St. Gallen after Bob had a famous olma bratwurst. The city was established in the 7th Century by an Irish Monk and contains an Abbey he established. The Abbey is an UNESCO world heritage site as it contains a library filled with incredible books dating from the 9th Century. However, we started our tour learning about the textile industry here and visiting the textile museum.

St. Gallen is very famous for textiles and embroidery. The city was made wealthy on the trade of fine laces and incredible fabrics. It remains a textile center with new fashion fabrics introduced twice a year and through AKRIS fashion shows. In fact, Michelle Obama's inaugural suit was made with fabric from St. Gallen that is on display at the museum. Embroidery was once done by hand but in the 19th C machines were developed in Switzerland that allowed for the work to be done more quickly and precisely. We saw one of these now rarely-used pedal operated machines on display.

From the textile museum we walked through the city center and learned about the "Nouveau" architecture that is famous here. New architecture in Switzerland is from around 1900. I find this rather amusing being from a place where anything older than 1940 is not considered 'new' at all.

We meandered to the cathedral to marvel at the Gothic style. Sabine and Alain got married at this church in October 2007. She has said there was no need for decoration in the church because it was so ornate and now having seen it I can't argue. The gilded gates, incredible frescos and blue-green malachite paint detail work are remarkable. There are also 3 pipe organs in the church and so many beautiful hand carved choir seats.

From the cathedral we went to the Abbey library. The floor is beautiful old parquet that is carefully guarded and we had to put on over-sized felt house shoes over our sneakers before we could enter. The library is ornate and lined with alcoves of incredible ancient volumes. There is a balcony floor that wraps the entire room as well. In the center they rotate displays of carefully guarded hand-written books dating from the 9th century. We saw books detailing geometry, astronomy, student handbooks, teacher grade books, a beer delivery receipt from the 8th Century and one with a hand-carved ivory cover.

The library also has an ingenious catalog system in hidden panels next to the shelves. You could look up books and see if they were checked out or available. There were also angels marking the subject areas of the room. The angels are holding objects to indicate what subject area is represented there. No photos allowed, this is from the web.

Afterwards we headed home for another great meal with Sabine of Zurcher Geschnetzeltes and roschti. Wonderful day. We are again being spoiled by a fantastic host who will not let us do a thing. Very relaxing time, we are very happy to be here.

Crystal, "went hiking today and took a scary gondola, it was fun. Tonight is the Lucerne music fest. I hope to see some yodelling." Hope to tell you more later!