IHWS December 2014 and a trip to Salzburg

Hello dear friends and followers,

it was IHWS this weekend again (if you are not familiar with it, just click on the icon on the right-hand bar) and I did some stitching, but what I definitely did not do is hermitting... lol!

DH and I had booked a weekend trip to Salzburg, which is a three hour train ride from Vienna. This of course gave me some time for stitching. Oh, Salzburg is a wonderful city and if you have never been there you should seriously think about going! Especially in Advent there is a certain magic to that place.

We were really lucky with the weather, on Friday and Saturday it was unusually warm and sunny for this time of the year (many Austrians are already complaining about the lack of snow for Christmas, but as I am not a winter person, it is all right with me) and we had the most wonderful time walking around the town. We headed up the Kapuzinerberg to a tiny old castle named Franziskus-Schloessl (Francis' castle). This means about half an hour of walking uphill and especially at the beginning it is really uphill, but it always is well worth the effort.

Francis' castle - just look at the gorgeous weather and DH in front of it ;-)

There are some wonderful Christmas markets in and around the city at this time of the year and so we took the bus to Hellbrunn palace, were they had put up lovely decorations.

And if you are looking for the perfect place to drink your Gluehwein (mulled wine in German), you have to go to the heart of the city, to Europe's oldest restaurant.

since 803

Stiftskeller St. Peter - St. Peter's Abbey's cellar

This is the entrance to the yard where you can spend the most romantic evening

The entrance to the cellar/restaurant itself

Just look at the old vault with the wonderful decoration

In the evening they have a brass quartet playing Christmas songs, which certainly adds to the athmospere. There would not have been a better and more romantic place to spend the 4th Advent weekend and if we had not been in Christmas mood before, we certainly were then!

But IHSW! Yes, I did some stitching on the train ride, so here are the two cover kits from previous issues of British cross stitch magazines I had started a while ago on Thursday evening when I popped them into my tiny suitcase:

Fizzy Moon Christmas card from The World of Cross Stitching

Lickle Ted Christmas card, likely from the same magazine

 And where I left them yesterday evening:

All this backstitch drove me nearly nuts, but it looks sooooo cute

Way to go, maybe for Christmas 2015?

 A merry Christmas to everyone of you who celebrates it and I hope to see you all soon again on my little blog!

Best wishes,
Silvia