Castles, cafes, classes: two days in the life

We're off this weekend for a week in Florence and Rome with the crofters, so we've been staying pretty close to the castle the last couple of days.  Yesterday was S's last agrarian philosophy class (appropriately on the terrace), and now it's aesthetics every day all the time (hence Florence and Rome). Today, we went for lunch at the guesthouse up at the big castle (Schloss Tirol), where we opted for specialties of the South Tyrol:  kaiserschmarren and spaetzle.  We had a whopper of a thunderstorm yesterday (I saw the Mut (the smaller mountain closest to us) get smacked by lightning!), and everything is even greener now.  One of the very special elements of this place is that, unlike places in the U.S. with similar mountain ranges, such as Colorado or California, these snowy rocks are surrounded by green countryside.  I just can't get enough of the view out our windows and the confluence of alpine and Mediterranean landscapes.