A Day in Salzburg

Monday last we went to Salzburg for the afternoon, had some shopping to do and while we was there I thought I might as well just pop into a couple of game shops. The weather was fine as it has been for the past week and the trees looked wonderful.



There is a shop run by an english chap called, amazingly, the English Shop. They stock most things that you can't get in Austria that you miss from home. We paid him a visit and bought a few things that we needed. Then we sat in the square and had frankfurter hotdogs and beer, very nice indeed. We looked in the game stores and noted that they are already getting the Christmas toys and games out. Oh oh....I spotted Thebes, a game I had been reading about on BGG and that appealed to me quite a lot. I love games with ancient themes, Roman, Greek or Egyptian, 'you said you weren't getting any more games before christmas', says the wife. Ah...well, this is game I really would like. Oh, go on then, but this is the last one!!


So, I have been reading more about the game on the geek, about the luck and so on. I have tried a sort of run through of the rules and can't wait to play. Tina likes Egyptian stuff too, so she maybe might like to try this soon.

Happy Gaming!!
PS if you want to see more pics Austria and Salzburg go here:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Colin.Jen/Autumn2008#

More pics of Autumn in St. Wolfgang

Here are a few more pictures of the lovely scenery around where we live in St. Wolfgang. The weather has been lovely and sunny for 4 or 5 days now, almost too hot, we are going to Salzburg tomorrow so I hope it continues for at least another day.

Autumn in St. Wolfgang

 

The weather here is fantastic at the moment, bright sunshine with folks in swimsuits sunbathing by the lakeside. The autumn colours make the scenery pretty spectacular as well. We went for a walk yesterday and I took the camera to record some of the autumn scenes, the cows have been brought down from the mountains so they add to the overall picture and make the scene typically 'Austrian'.
I have also been looking at the Essen threads on BGG and going a very pretty shade of green. Some of the offerings this year look pretty interesting, but I keep thinking of all the money I will be saving by not going. Well.....I keep thinking it, but it doesn't seem to be working!! I know Richard, Garry, Steve and Jo are going and hopefully I will get a report on how it was from one of them. Ah well.....I'll go and look at the lovely scenery one more time.

Happy Gaming!!

3 Games of Settlers

Well, 2 posts in two days. We actually sat down and played 3 games of basic Settlers straight off the bat today. Tina picked it up really quickly and quite enjoyed it I think. The score was 2-1 to me, but this game may actually make the table again in the future. When our English friends come over in October I think this could be the game to try them on.
The weather here is pretty depressing at the moment, rainy and cold, still at least there's no snow yet. This weekend they are bringing the cows down off the mountain and make quite a big thing of it. Bands and beer I think, and the cows have a pretty good time too!!

First Post for Ages

Well.....I never realised that it was 2 months since my last post. Tut! Tut! must do better. Anyway, what have I been up to, well, we went back to the UK for a couple of weeks in September to visit family which was nice. Tina's mum is 92 and not in the best of health and my mum is 84 so it was nice to see them. We haven't been on any more trips to shows or anything and I am getting really twitchy now as it comes up to Essen 2008 and I am not going. I know all my gaming buddies from the UK plan to make the trip and I am really jealous.
I have been playing mostly online, loads of Settlers and Knights and Cities some Hacienda and Year of the Dragon. I had bought the Settlers card game ages ago in the forelorn hope that the wife would play it, but no luck, anyway I have just bought the expansion sets so that's more games that will not get played lol. I seem to be getting into a Settlers mood just lately, I must admit that when I first played it way back when I first started boardgaming, I was not all all impressed, I just didn't get the dice rolls and my first placement of towns was useless. Which of course is half the battle when trying to get a good start. So when we were in Bad Ischl shopping last Tuesday I thought I would just have a look in the one game shop they have to see what was about and I came out with.....you guessed it, Settlers of Catan, the boardgame. I definitely hope the wife will play as I have found some interesting looking 2 players rules on BGG. Well pigs might fly I suppose, but you never know.
On a more opimistic front, we have made friends with an English couple that have bought a flat out here. Both teachers, one retired, one not, they come out about 10 times a year and when they saw my boardgame collection expressed an interest in them. They both like boardgames they said, but I think that maybe not german boardgames as they didn't recognise anything in my collection. So, a chance to introduce another couple of people into the wonderful world of Eurogaming. Next time they come over (October) we have scheduled a games evening....what to play, what to play. Should it be Ticket to Ride, Settlers, Pandemic.....I don't know, still it looks promising, so fingers crossed.

That's all for now...happy gaming!!

Opera in Morbisch

 

On August 1 and 2nd we had a trip to Morbisch, which is Burgenland in the east of Austria. We were going to see a performance of the operetta by Ralph Benatzky 'The White Horse Inn', set in St. Wolfgang in the Salzgammergut, which is of course where we are living now. The stage is built over a lake, the biggest lake in Austria in fact, and is open air. We travelled by coach and as it rained in the afternoon we were hoping it would clear up by the evening. It did and the performance was very good, we had terrific seats and at the end there was a fantastic firework display. They are very big on fireworks in Austria, they seem to have fireworks at the drop of a hat.
The next day we stopped at a very old town called Rust, it is a big wine area and there were a lot little 'Vinotec's', where you could sample the local wines and purchase them too. Another feature of Rust is the White Storks, because of the proximity of the lake and abundant feeding grounds they build their nests on the chimneys and the town is awash with Storks roosting or on their to or from the feeding grounds. At the end of August after producing their young they fly off back to Africa.



White Storks roosting in Rust, Burgenland

I have been looking a bit at the Print and Play games on the Geek, first I printed out and mounted Pocket Civ. For my next game I tried Sword and Sail, which is found here: http://www.biglittlegames.com/
A simple design concept, really nice graphics and it only took me a couple of hours to print, mount and play my first game. There seem to loads of these self produced games around, many of them on BGG. Some are obviously better than others, but some are well worth investigating, Sword and Sail is one I think.


Sword and Sail from BigLittle Games

Opera and Pandemic

 

The open air arena at St. Margarethen

First post for a while, the weather here has been alternately very hot, thunderstorms and like today wet and chilly. Still, I'd rather be here than working in dirty old London. On the 13th of this month we went on a 2 day trip to see 'La Traviata' at St Margarethen, which is in the east of Austria not far from Vienna. It's performed in an open air arena that was a quarry, and believe me it was pretty spectacular! We kept our fingers crossed for the weather because it had been raining earlier in the day, but our luck held. The set was amazing and the actual performance was superb and at the end there was a fantastic fireworks display.

On the boardgame front I am still playing every day on the play by web sites. At the moment I have games of In The Year of the Dragon, Tikal, Amun-Re, Kreta and In the Shadow of the Emperor on the go. A week or so ago I played 3 games of Pandemic with the wife, lost all of them. Two were on normal and one was at heroic. The last game was pretty close only one cure to get but the outbreaks got us.

In a couple of weeks we are going to another open air concert, this one is in Morbisch, which actually isn't far from St. Margarethen. This one is in the middle of a lake and it is a performance of Ralf Benatzky's 'White Horse Inn' operetta. I think we are stopping at a wine tasting on the way back so that is something to look forward to. Report to follow about that.

The group that I used to play with in Sussex, UK have got Agricola fever, I think they have played it 10 times in 2 weeks.....some going.

Happy Gaming!!!