Wood, but no working!

My last week was more stone than wood.

Nevertheless I have spent a lot of time in the woods.

It's June - Vacation time. This year we have decided to spent our holidays in Saxony. To be exactly in the "Saxon Switzerland".  We have never been there before and were surprised about the fantastic natural environment there. Although we have been out for hiking every day and walked through miles of forrest trails, there was no wood working.

But let me share some impressions with you.

On one of the first hiking tours we came through a small village with a lot of old houses. Watching this and that my attention was caught by some very low and broken windows.

A look into the room behind the broken glas exposed the following...

This looks like an abandoned metal workshop. You can see the transmission at the top of the shop.

And the belt driven machines in the back.

I would have loved to browser through the shop. But unfortunately there was no entry to find.

Another day, another hiking trip, I have seen the following shop.

This is the workplace of a farrier in a stable. Of course this is a museum exposition. But I liked it pretty much and it shows a former working environment pretty good.

We were out for hiking every day and had some surprise to discover. In one of the nice gardens we came along this wooden squirrel welcomed us.

Squirrel alert !!!!

After a lot of miles hiking trough the nature we finally had a few days at Dresden.

This is an amazing city and if you will have the chance then you should visit it too.

A nice anecdote happened in the famous opera at Dresden - The Semper Opera.

Semper opera

We had a guided tour through the opera. A pretty lady explained everything worth knowing and made it to led me up the garden path. The entrance hall has got some wall panels and she asked out of which type of wood these were made.

Guys, I'm a woodworker. A familiar look - Oak! That's clear.

"Oak" panels

She started to giggle and whispered something like "it works every time". To make it short. The wall panels are out of plaster. With a fake grain painting. It took over 2000 hours to do that painting.

One never stops learning.

And last but not least I could even more complete my collection of auger bits. I found these two copies on the huge flea market at the Elbe river bank. At any rate worth a visit.

"new" auger bits

So, that was my last week. It's the first day back at home and I guess I will go down to the shop soon.
I think next week I will have some project updates which will somehow be more interesting than my travel reports ;-).

Stay tuned!
Stefan