Christian Eggermont, Hendrik Haak, Andreas Röver, and a whole bunch of Italians visit

We were lucky enough this past month to have Christian Eggermont come for a few days visit.  We've known  each other for a while and he and his girlfriend decided to come for a short visit to the WPC. 

They had a bit of trouble on the way down and arrived rather late at night.  Not to worry.  I had dinner all ready for them and when finished, we had them settle into the (ex) lego room.  

Of course I had to have them try the puzzle door. 

This was a short vacation for them.  I am not sure if they played with many puzzles during their stay, but They did enjoy Sacra Bosco and a trip into Orvieto.  

We had a Berrocal dinner as is the norm with a small number of visitors.  

Mosolino was the restaurant this time around and we enjoyed it as always.  We are doing a 'rotation' of the 4 in town when visitors arrive.  This keeps it fair. :) 

Our next visitors were Hendrik Haak and Andreas Röver.  They arrived for a week and spent a great deal of time puzzling and chatting.  George and Andreas worked on a new puzzle that will be (hopefully) coming to an IPP soon.  

We took them to Sacra Bosco for a visit and in the afternoon we had a great pizza in Orvieto.  

On the 6th the Grape Festival started in Panicale.  We had a nice simple dinner at home then went into town to see what this was all about.  George and I have lived here through 2 in the past and didn't see a thing last time.  George and Andreas opted out, but Hendrik and I tasted the wines on offer.  I'm glad I did it once, not again though.  It's not good for my aging body.  But we had a good reason to go.  

I passed my theory test (Folio Rosso) on the first go and was thrilled.  Time to celebrate.  For those that don't know, this is not really a test of driving knowledge, but rather a language and memorization test.  The language used is antiquated and not in everyday use.  There are over 7000 questions to memorize and the driving school really doesn't teach anything other than "if you see this word on the test it is always true" sort of thing.  I have been studying for almost a year and managed what over 50% of Italians don't.  I passed.  This has been a real cause for concern, and I have had literally no free time in the past month to write or do anything really.  Now I can have my life back!

The next morning I took them to the train station where they returned to Rome for the flight home.  As usual, there were strikes here so their flights were delayed.  Thankfully the train still ran.  Both eventually made it back safely. 

Around Noon, our next group of visitors arrived.  This time it was a group of Italian puzzlers.  They spent only one night, but it was jam packed with loads of puzzling, magic, chat, and of course good wine and food.  

We took them for a walk around town and dinner in Mosolino as they had room to accommodate us all. 

Sadly this visit was all too short as we had tickets to the Opera at 5 and while I told them to puzzle as long as they wanted, some of them had to work in the morning so they left around the same time we did. 

The Opera was Puccini bits, and was amazing. The last act had me in tears.  It was just so beautiful.  

During this month we also celebrated our Antonio's birthday,

and finally got the tags on the Tesla.  

George and I visited a Sculpture park near the lake

and we've had a few picnics.  

It's been a busy month and I haven't even told you of the work in the hotel.  Next post or so I suppose.  We have a short break before the next batch of guests start to arrive on Wednesday.  Just enough time to clean the house and do a bit of grocery shopping.  

Heading home

We left Nuremberg and headed out to see a friend in Austria.  Stephan Baumegger has been making puzzles for many years now and I have been a great fan of his.  We had recently just purchased quite a few puzzles and I thought we might as well go pick them up in person.  

He and his lovely wife we so accommodating.  We had planned to visit for a few hours, see the workshop, pick up some puzzles and head out. Instead, they surprised us with a wonderful lunch!  

Stephan did give us the tour of his workshop as I requested, and it can be seen here and here.  They are 2 very long videos but really show his layout.  Below are a few photos that may be of interest.

I was impressed by the  puzzles he had on the walls, and the chickens thrilled me.  

What beautiful eggs they lay. 

For the record, I did pick up quite a few puzzles, but they are as yet, still unopened. I'm trying to get on top of things with unboxing and packaging and so far, it's not working.  :( I need to purchase a new Lightbox because the ones we had in the States are on the wrong voltage here. After lunch we said our goodbyes because we had a hotel booked in Zagreb that night.  

Why Zagreb?  Well because we can now.  No really, it is because of the game EuroRails.  Zagreb is one of the cities in the game and we have decided we would like to travel to every city.  There are 60 cities in the game and so far we have traveled to 43 of them so far.  A few more to go.  

What surprised me about Zagreb was the number of casinos.  Everywhere we turned we saw them.  Astounding.  While there we took the time to visit the Tesla Museum that was a few blocks from the hotel.

It was well worth the trip. I wish we had more time.  Next trip I guess.

Our next stop was Bologna to visit with Dario Uri and get a book signed.  While there we took some time out to see the city.  It appears the Bolognese are worried that their leaning tower will fall over soon so we wanted to see it before it was gone.  While thre we saw a few other sites as well. 

That night we met with Dario and his wife for dinner at a local place.  The food was delicious and the company was amazing.  We had such a wonderful time.  The following day, they brought us to their home where they had a small puzzle party with a few of their friends.  We spent the night puzzling and Giusi made an amazingly large dinner for us.  It was truly a wonderful night.

As we were leaving, Dario and Giusi both gave us an amazing gift.  Dario gave us his copy of Uri Blocks to add to the museum and Giusi gave us a hand made hanging that she made. Both are now given space where all can see them.  

These are both truly amazing gifts.  

Until next time....