On Tuesday morning, we went to Astrid's parents for a short visit. We wanted to see her father's blacksmith shop, and also visit a bit longer. He makes antique looking metal work. Some of it is actually art. He used a furnace or a torch to heat the metal, and a hammer and anvil to form it. Just by watching him, you could see he was an expert in his trade. He demonstrated for us by making a horseshoe from a flat iron bar. A few years back, for his wife's 60th birthday, he made her

On Tuesday, we went to the village of Zlan. The Lutherans that joined the Hutterite Church went to church in that town. On the pews, in front of every person, there was a plaque with his last name on it. We found the Kleinsasser name, Hofer name and Waldner name, without the ‘n’. Somehow they forgot th....

On Monday, we headed out to South Tyrol with Lynda Lederer as our guide. This part of the country used to belong to Austria. After World War 2 or is that World War 1, I’m not sure now, it became part of Northern Italy. The signs change from German to both Italian and German. Our mission was to visit the birthplace of Jacob Hutter, which is located close to Bruneck. Right next to his house....

On Sunday, we went to Innsbruck to visit the famous Goldene Dach, where Jakob Hutter was burned at the stake. I’ve seen lots of pictures of it, however, being here and actually seeing is another thing. That section of the city is very old, we're lucky that we're here before tourist season, they say it can get really crowded. It was Sunday morning and the bells in the neighboring churches started ringing. We went into Der Dom zu St. Jakob, which is another huge Catholic Church. I was watching from the back when the priest and his procession ca....

We spent the last two days touring the Northern Tyrol area. There is so much to report that I’ll have to figure out what to leave out. It would take too much time to tell about it all! On Saturday, we went to look at the ruins of Rottenburg Castle. This is where 71 Hutterites met their death in the early years of the church. It’s only a short distance from Linde Lederer’s house, it would be a nice long walk to get there.....