I'm back

Rome was wonderful! It's crowded, it's noisy, it's a bit dirty, yes. But it's beautiful and the sights are amazing! I loved the Colosseum and the Forum, I loved the beautiful churches and the fountains that were, really, everywhere, the food was good and the wine was great, and so was the shopping :) I did even find one craft store that had both knitting and stitching stuff, but I didn't buy anything as the prices and the products were similar to what we have here. The weather wasn't great or that warm either, but it was better and warmer than here, so it was good :)

I bought one magazine called Casamia from a newstand. It's similar to Marie Claire Idées. It's a mix between a decorating magazine and a craft magazine. Eventhough I don't speak a word of Italian, I'm sure it'll give me lots of inspiration :)

More about the trip

Okay, I think I’ve now caught up on every blog on my Favourites folder. If I haven’t left a comment, I apologise, but there was a lot to read! Everyone’s been really busy and productive this past month!

During our trip, I didn’t get to do much crafting. I didn’t take any stitching with me (I know, gasp!, but I can’t stitch in a moving car without getting carsick). I did take two knitting projects with me anticipating to get a lot of knitting done during all that driving from one place to another, but surprisingly I was too engrossed in the landscapes to dig my needles out. I only got a small start on this top (most of what you see here has been done during the few days we’ve been home):



But I did not forget my dear hobbies! I knew there was a Zweigart factory oulet somewhere in Germany and before we left I emailed them for directions and opening times (it’s near Stuttgart in a town called Sindelfingen). And then, one morning we were there! And it was wonderful! One wall was lined up with all the possible colors of linen and Lugana… Truly a lovely sight to see (why didn’t I take a picture??) and just anything and everything that Zweigart does. What I found the most interesting though, were the discount baskets (and there were lots of those too) and as you can see from the picture, I took a bundle of them home :)



I was surprised to see that they also sold knitting yarn there and I picked up there 100% alpaca balls for a bargain price of 1.50€ each (why oh why didn’t I buy more?). I also got some dinner napkins (I think they are cotton or cotton-linen) for 1€/each, which I thought was a good price.

It was a wonderful experience visiting that store, and my dear husband didn’t once complain that I was taking too long (or buying too much!). :)

I didn’t see any (other) cross stitch stores on our trip, but I did see quite a lot of yarn stores. The sad thing is, I only saw them when they were closed. But the good thing (?) is that most of what I saw through the windows were yarns that I can get here as well. It made me quite happy to realize that even if we are the worst country in the world when it comes to stitching supplies (I might be exaggerating here a bit, but not much), we have it pretty good in terms of knitting supplies (except American yarn, which is virtually non-existent here).

Home again

We got back home late on Sunday evening. We had an amazing trip. We spent most of our time in Germany, with a four day visit to Austria to see our friends there (actually one of those days was mostly spent in the Czech Republic) and a four day visit to France.

My favourite things, although they are hard to pick, were:


...going to the world's largest medieval knight tournament in Kaltenberg (Germany). There was a huge market there and a fantastic two-hour show with very gifted riders.


...visiting the Moët & Chandon champagne house in Épernay (France).


...and I really enjoyed our visits to old palaces (I could have gone to lots more): Charlottenburg (in Berlin), Neuschwanstein (in Füssen, Germany), Fontainebleau and one in Krumlov in the Czech Republic (I can't remember the name of it right now). The picture above is from Fontainebleau. Sadly, you weren't allowed to photograph inside any of the castles, palaces or forts in Germany.


And in general, I just loved walking in the old city centers of various towns and looking at the beautiful houses and knowing that some pretty well known people had possibly walked in the same exact spot and seen the same things (we visited, for example the hometowns of Bach and Luther). The picture is from Quedlingburg and the buildings date back to the Middle Ages.

We also visited several WWII and Cold War sites, including a concentration camp (Sachsenhausen near Berlin), which were interesting and, I think, well worth a visit, eventhough they made me feel very sad.

The weather wasn't really co-operating with us. For more than a week it was cold, windy and rainy, which was okay for driving in our non-air-conditioned car, but not so great for sight-seeing (especially if you forget to pack a jacket) and then the temperature decided to jump up by a whopping 20C and it was suddenly unbearably hot (around 35C) for a week.