Am Back From Travels...Some Austrian Miniatures

I have just returned from Austria, my first proper overseas holiday in several years, and it has been utterly brilliant. If you have emailed me in the past week or so and not got a reply, that is the reason why. I've now more or less caught up with the backlog of emails, thank you all for your patience. 

The holiday all came about through a chance remark one evening down the pub with an old friend, during a conversation about our "Bucket Lists"...as I have a rather special MEGA birthday coming up later this year.  It emerged that we both had always wanted to go to Austria in the winter. One thing led to another, and hence we found ourselves going right across Germany and down to Austria, and ultimately to Innsbruck by train.

View from our hotel in Innsbruck

The whole eight day trip has been quite an adventure. At times it felt we had literally stepped into a fairy tale land, utterly beautiful and magical. 

A famous Innsbruck landmark - The Golden Roof. 

Kufstein Fortress

Whilst travelling on the Stubaitalbahn Tram, just randomly we saw this model of a miniature building hanging on the side of a house. I have no idea what the significance of the model was, but am glad that I was able to hastily take this pic on my mobile. My pic. is not very clear, and my friend did try and take a photo of it on our return journey with her big posh whizzy camera, but just as she clicked a tram came the other way and blocked her view...much to the amusement of everyone else on the tram!

I can thoroughly recommend The Tyrolean Folk Museum in Innsbruck. We spent a wonderful couple of hours wandering around the place. Many of the miniature items were enclosed in glass cabinets, and therefore difficult to photograph.  Plus as I speak very little German, I could not decipher many of the "description tags", but I will show you some of the better pics anyway. Above is a miniature  nativity scene (situated centrally at the base)....surrounded by various other buildings and characters. The photo just does not do it justice, but it really is beautiful. 

I got a bit excited when I spotted this miniature house from afar, however on close inspection realised that there was a religious connotation to it, as it appears to depict a scene of "The Annunciation" (I managed to decipher the description tag on this one). There seems to be an image of an angel dangling in the air over a doll that supposedly represents Mary? 

But I was fascinated by the construction of the house and the furniture...absolutely exquisite. 

I can't help but wonder if it had originally been a dolls house and was latterly made into a religious scene? 

There were several variations of  miniature Tyrolean buildings with landscaped bases but many of my photos just did not come out due to the glass frontage....however above I have included a couple of images. I have no idea who the maker was or when or why they were made, but they are rather lovely and full of detail! They do not appear to be dolls houses as such but actual models.

Well, my holiday is now well and truly over and am hoping to begin more listing of vintage items to the website over the next few days, once one or two pressing matters have been attended to.  

Celia