Stams Monastery

We've so often seen it from the outside while travelling through the Inn valley in Austria. It's hard to miss the huge  onion-domed towers of the monastery at Stams. The palace-like building dominates the landscape for miles around.

Yesterday we took a bus down to Innsbruck and then a short train journey to the village of Stams. This place is also famous as the location of the schigymnasium, an international school  specialising in ski-ing.

But back to the monastery which we finally got to see inside. I felt the same about the great basilica in the monastery as I do about Blenheim Palace (more monument than family home). It is certainly impressive with some stunning works of art but not a place to inspire me to pray. In any case the only way to see it was as a guided tour and the scheduled tours that morning were all French language. This meant I had to give full attention to the guide who thankfully spoke French well with extremely clear diction.

I would love to write more but trying to do so on a tablet that won't always do what I want it to and with an internet connection that is slow and keeps dropping out is just too frustrating - so that's it for today. Just a holiday postcard!

photo credit: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zisterzienserstift_Stams.jpg