A Day in Salzburg

Last Wednesday (15th) we had a day in Salzburg, my wife's sister was on holiday so she came with us. It was a lovely sunny day and the bus ride took about 90mins. Well, I can't go to Salzburg without having just a peep in the game shops there. The first, by the Mirabell Platz is really good, it has two doors, one for adults and a small one for kinder, my wife insists in going in by the kinder door!! Anyway, I saw the Jubilee Edition of Alhambra there and I had been meaning to get get this for some time, grabbed it. Walking back towards the old city you have to cross the river Salz and just over the bridge is another fairly good game shop. Browsing around in there I saw the Settlers of Catan Geographies: Germany. I had read good reports of this and seen Tom Vasel's video review (although the camera work gave me a headache), so I purchased this one as well. Our day was great, nice lunch, my wife and her sister did some serious shopping, finished off by coffee at one of the many cafes, ours was just by Mozart's birth house.

The board and game pieces are superb
I must say that the production values of the 'Germany' edition are extremely high. If you like Settlers this is a great edition to add to your collection. I haven't actually played it yet but it sounds great. The monuments and cathedral pieces clip into a special moulded box insert which keeps them securely.

Close up of the high quality playing pieces

I wasn't so lucky when I opened Alhambra, the Jubilee edition has some special playing pieces which is nice, but I was short one scoring card and 9 money cards. Doh!! Very frustrating when that happens, it hasn't happened to me before though so I guess I've been lucky. Anyway, a quick email to Queen Games on the Thursday elicited a reply yesterday with an apology for the inconvenience caused and a promise to mail the missing cards which I thought was pretty quick. I played Alhambra many years ago with my game group in the UK and I thought it would be ideal for the players I play with now in Austria.