Austria is the way we used to be, closing the shops at midday on Saturday and not opening again until Monday morning. We had about an hour, just wandering around and looking at all the changes. There are new buildings in each village, shops no longer there and not being replaced except by apartments. A bit like home really!
We went to my favourite clothes shop, Farbinger, but I was unlucky this year, there was nothing I liked, which is very unusual for me! Maybe I'll have better luck when we go into Bavaria to visit Berchtesgaden next week.
From Lofer, we made our way to St Martin, a little hamlet with a lovely church which is only a few minutes away.
I always go into the church and light two candles for my parents.
This church is unusual in that it has the body of a saint inside a glass case and on its own altar. The skeleton of St Gaudentius is covered in bandages and the fingers have jewelled rings on them.
The church yard had the traditional graves, no stones, just fancy, wrought iron grave markers. Many have everlasting candles and little enamel pictures of the deceased.
From here, and just around the corner is the house, known locally as the flower house. It certainly lives up to its name and looks different but wonderful every time we visit. A great deal of hard work must go into caring for the hundreds of plants in the window boxes.
Before we returned to the farm, we visited the local garden centre to look for a plant we had seen at the farm and really admired.
We actually found a similar one, but it is so big that I don't know if we can get it home! It's an amazing bargain because the price included the tall pot it is planted in! We shall have to see if we can manage it.
We went back to the farm and as I parked the car we could see a couple sitting on the bench by the small farm memorial at the edge of the driveway. They were English and we went over to chat with them. They had come on the Shearings coach and explained that they were having a last walk before they leave this afternoon. I asked them about their hotel, the Tiroler Adler which is in the centre of the village and next to the Cafe. They said the rooms were good but the food wasn't! I wont go into detail but, suffice to say, if we came here again in the winter we would probably stay there but NOT be on half board!
Once they continued on their walk! we had lunch, I had a little sunbathe and listened to my audio book but before long it was time to go to visit our friends at Cafe Schmid.
Here are a selection of the fabulous cakes, but the photo does not do them justice. They are massive and this one is about ten inches high!
Today I had a banana split, mainly so I didn't have to eat so much ice cream. The Husband had his usual, cappuccino and Black Forest gateau.
We had fun with our friends because I have an audio translation app on my phone and I was seeking into it and it translated my words into German!
We said our goodbyes for th day and made our way around the corner to the local church. We always visit it as it is SO beautiful. Again, I lit two candles,so I should be in good books up there!
It started to rain heavily as we left and I only had a small umbrella, due to SOMEONE forgetting the big one so I got soaked going back to the car!
We got back to the farm, intending to go out for tea at about 7pm, as usual. We watched TV for a while and by that I mean Sky News, the only English channel. However, when I went in to our bedroom to get changed, there were ants running over the bed! I nearly had a heart attack and ran to get the owner. She was mortified and got her husband to come and vacuum them all up. Fortunately, there isanother double bedroom in the apartment, so we are using that tonight until everything is checked tomorrow.
After all this excitement we decided not to go out and just had a light tea, having had Cafe Schmid earlier. We watched a downloaded film on my laptop then went into our new bed, for hopefully a good night's sleep!
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