Books in cages and a lizard stuck with an angel

The last time I was in St. Gallen it was rainy and really, really cold. This Sunday the little town greeted us with glorious sunshine. Initially, Trev was going there to pick up a synthesizer he had bought from a guy off ebay. But we thought it would be a good opportunity to visit the famous abbey library and have a little stroll through the old town.

We saw a very sad bear and a lot of impressive buildings.

The library is great! I have never seen so many old and precious books all in one place. They were all caged in their shelves to keep people from touching them. Some of them were really quite tattered.

The pictures are from the website because you're not allowed to take photographs in there. We also had to wear funny slippers over our shoes so as not to wear out the old wood floors too much.
I love books and looking at them was very inspiring. But as you can see, the architecture of the room is equally fascinating. There are vast ornaments and lots of the little baby angels (putti they're called, I think). Each of them is dressed up to show one of the trades the monks used to work.

When I was looking at them, I suddenly saw that somehow, somebody had stuck something on one of them. At first sight I thought it was a plastic model of a dinosaur. But when we had a closer look we realised it was a real stuffed animal, some sort of big lizard, or maybe a baby crocodile. It had a piece of tiger fur wrapped around its belly...
Now don't laugh, I'm telling the truth!! I have no clue how that thing got there, it's clearly not part of the architecture, but it's not a random object that any prankster would pull from their pockets. Maybe that particular putto was the zoologist?
I could bite my own ear for being too dazed to think of going and asking a staff member about it. I mean, they would know, wouldn't they?

We made it to the train just as a little thunderstorm struck and rain started pouring down.


In the evening we had Chinese food and watched a movie and then we built a little tent and then ate popcorn and had tea in there.
It was a really great day.