Watercolor 477

Fruit

Watercolor 476

Snack Time

Watercolor 475

A Path

Watercolor 474

Warm and Cool

Watercolor 473

Summer Poppies

Illustration

Black Bird

I have been putting hours of time into illustrations for an upcoming book promotion. Most can’t be public yet, but this  little one you can see. It will be reduced to about a half centimeter for its use.

Excursion, Part 5

Finish

To end our excursion, we walked up to the cathedral and looked inside – no photos allowed and a service was about to start. We also checked into the monastery store, and got some children's German books to help a new learner with language study. Little rhymes are helpful and among things in pictures builds vocabulary.

We saw some beautiful carved wood figures, including these of Saint Florian, protector of firefighters and building from fires.

Saint Florian in many sizes

And Saint Christopher (left), archangel Michael (back left), and Saint Hubertus (middle)

I was checking to see if there were any more of the majorly-reduced-price auxiliary crèche figures that we had seen at Christmas time, but I didn't see any – until we were exiting (one line for in and one for out to abide by distancing rules – though they were very close together anyway). Then I saw a few left with some sale items and convinced myself (not a hard job) that "now or never" meant now.





Note, the Swiss franc is almost equal to the dollar. 

So aren’t they irresistible?

End of Excursion.

Watercolor 472

Violets

New Interface

Soon

According to Blogger, there will be a new Interface at the end of this month. I have no idea what that means for this site, but if one of you with knowledge of such things wants to look into it, it might be helpful. If, for some reason, everything becomes unworkable, it's been interesting and thanks for following along.

Excursion, Part 4

Einsiedeln Lebkuchen

After visiting the antiquities library, we went back into the town centre and found the Goldapfel Lebkuchen museum and store. The building is old, a multi-generation business, and over the scores of years many things were saved and are now displayed, from family portraits to carved cookie moulds, to odds and ends of period decor.


After wending ones way through the exhibits, one ends up in the delightful scents of the spicy filled cookies and cherry liqueurs. We did take a bag full home with us; how could we not.

A house on the way back into the town centre

A little public park

The Goldapfel

A part of the collections

The front entrance

An imposing ancestor

Things saved

Carved wooden cookie moulds

Display window on the street

Somebody in the family went to war; somebody was part of the Swiss Papal Guard.

This is where one can sample and buy Lebkuchen and liqueurs 

More cookie moulds 

More handsome ancestors

And more distinctions

 To be continued with one more short section...

Watercolor 471

A Bridge

Back to Excursion next time, probably.

Excursion, Part 3

Einsiedeln

The Monastery Cathedral

Maria found us a tucked-away spot to visit, past the small town centre and up a hill and behind the shrubbery. Beside this stately home was a Mario Botta library of ancient manuscripts, mostly on architecture.

A few books were open for us to see the fine engraved illustrations.

The rest were in row upon row of shelves, beautiful leather bound and hand stamped (note the crooked letting on this spine) volumes of the collected wisdom of ages (that some barbarians of our time would love to destroy as others did in earlier ages).

This is how one selects a book from the upper shelves: the best library steps ever.

A fine reproduction of the first century Hellenic sculpture group, Laocoön and His Sons; original in the Vatican 

And "TOM" was everywhere.
(It means "volume," but brings to mind my Thomas.)

This is the entrance hall and the view to the garden.

An unlabeled bust

The garden gate handle

All over the walls and ceiling were these ancient illustrations of  philosophical concepts.

And in the basement was this etching of The One Thing Needful.

Excursion, Part 2

Schwyz

This mural shows why you didn’t want to fight the Swiss. They would maneuver you to a narrow position between a mountain and a lake and roll boulder down on you. Yes, they won. 

Across from this building is a former post coach station, now a restaurant called the White Pony. 

The food is local, fresh and fine. The view out the windows was of the nearby Mythen in and out of the drifting clouds. 

Social distancing in effect.

Local beef

The view out the window, with the Mythen large in the background. 

All the streets are flower-lined. These are roses and lavender. 

To be continued. Next, on to Einsiedeln.