Ultimate Blog Challenge - It's a Wrap / My 1331st Post

Welcome to the last post of July's Ultimate Blog Challenge!

We did it, we wrote and published a post every day for 31 days straight! Whenever it was suitable, I used the proposed writing prompts, and it worked out quite well. 

My eleven years' blogversary was last month, and I almost forgot about it, but this is my 1,331st post! (I also forgot the 1,300th one, but I figured, 1,331 is the cooler number anyway, plus it coincides with the last day of the challenge!)

So let's celebrate by looking at the pictures I took today. I went to St. Gallen in the Eastern part of Switzerland, a town known for its baroque cathedral with the abbey library, which houses some 170,000 documents – in part hand-written and over a thousand years old. 

I didn't go inside though, I preferred to stroll across the Old Town.

The city is home to the University of St. Gallen, one of the best business schools in Europe. I didn't go there either. My boyfriend when I was 18 - 23 years old studied there for a couple semesters. I have to say though, a lot has changed since.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the first embroidery machines were developed in St. Gallen. In 1910 the embroidery production constituted the largest export branch (18% of the total export value) in Switzerland and more than half of the worldwide production of embroidery originated in St. Gallen. A large part of the population of the eastern part of Switzerland was involved with the textile industry. However, World War I and the Great Depressioncaused another severe crisis for St. Gallen embroidery.

One more thing St. Gallen is famous for: the OLMA. The abbreviations stands for Ostschweizerische Land- und Milchwirtschaftliche Ausstellung, Eastern Switzerland's Agricultural and Dairy Exhibition. It takes place every year in mid-October. This year they'll celebrate their 80th anniversary. 

I understand an official highlight are the daily pig races. Cute little pigs racing against each other, spectators betting on their favorite pigs.

I've never been, but who knows.

Thank you so much  for being part of my writing (and traveling) journey. I hope you had fun. 

See you back soon!