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