Today was meant to be the day for going up the mountain, but sadly the weather has turned on us. This is only our second day of rain on our entire trip though, so I think we are doing pretty well!
Our plans today changed to a trip to visit David’s workplace at the airport, as well as visiting the aircraft and car museum, and a behind the scenes tour of the maintenance hangars.
It was so cool to see what goes on behind the scenes, from the construction of individual parts, to the process of painting each part and of course the construction of the plane as a whole. It was amazing to see the amount of work that happens in a relatively small airport – it’s one of the only airports where everything can be completed in the same place to get an aircraft flight ready. The different businesses all work together to get the jobs done, and many of them are flown around the world to do jobs if the aircraft are unable to be flown to them.
Like DJ, Dad would’ve been in his element.
After our little field trip we got dropped off in St Gallen.
St Gallen is a Swiss town which evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall and was founded in the 7th century. Here we visited the Abbey Library, Vaulted Cellar and Cathedral.
Fun Fact: The Abbey Library holds the oldest collection in Switzerland, with almost 160, 000 volumes.
Included in the collection are around 2100 manuscripts dating back to the 8th through 15th centuries. We weren’t allowed to take any photos and we had to wear special slippers inside, but the library itself was so beautiful, and it was crazy seeing books from years with less than 4 digits! The vault held some interesting pieces, including a model of the abbey which was used as the basis for construction, and a very old, 20kg bible. It was here that we also discovered St Gallen used to be a hub for the linen industry, exporting their top quality goods around the world.
The cathedral was so beautiful.
Completed in 1767, it has been the cathedral of the Diocese of St. Gallen since 1847. This cathedral was definitely more inviting than the Cologne one, and features one of the three oldest surviving bells in Europe.
After visiting the cathedral we meandered the streets (in the drizzle), slowly making our way back to our agreed meeting point for pick-up. On our wanders we came across a watch shop and because it was a Swiss watch shop, naturally, we had to check it out.
It was here we witnessed what a 275,000CHF (around $434, 424.00NZD) watch looks like…
This was a whole new level of watch shop.
On our way back to Herisau from St Gallen, we stopped in at Mediamarkt.
Another store I’m glad we don’t have at home…
DJ loved it and could spend hours there just looking at all the electronics.
We had dinner with the whole family this evening – except David’s son, Sebastian, who is off travelling at the moment.
It was really nice to share a meal with everyone and chat.
We will try get up the mountain tomorrow if the weather clears.
KJ xx