I spent the past week in Austria, surrounded by mountains, forests and lakes.

Everywhere you look is a sight like this. 

It was a proper family holiday, but that didn’t mean I left my pens behind. As usual before a trip, I spent more time planning which pens to take than anything else. These five made the cut.

Five beauties accompanied me. Fun fact: I stood next to Kate Moss in the security queue. These were better looking.

Left to right:

• Pelikan M400 white tortoise, Montblanc Swan Illusion
• Visconti London Fog, Edelstein Topaz
• Pelikan M805 Ocean Swirl, Iroshizuku Tsuki-Yo
• Pilot 823, Montblanc Lavender Purple
• Montblanc 1912, Montblanc Red Fox

The heavy Germanic influence was deliberate!

You may note that these are all expensive, all gold-nibbed, and most are fairly new to me. Perhaps therefore not the greatest choice for travel, but I looked after them well in a Nock Sinclair, and kept them in the hotel safe when I wasn’t carrying them, and all was fine. And since there were quite a few days of heavy walking under changeable Austrian skies, my pens certainly weren’t constant companions.

Austria is a stunner. Pens took a back seat.

Unusually for me, I also took my full-size A5 Hobonichi with me for journalling, as well as a Tomoe California pocket notebook for day plans. It was a cathartic part of the daily routine to sit at the hotel room’s desk and dump the day’s events on to the page after another cheese-heavy Austrian dinner.

Cheese and figs. Five courses every night. 

My partner took her Prera and A6 Hobo, and my daughter took her unicorn-snot Birmingham Model A, Kaweco Perkeo and Lamy Nexx. Only the Prera leaked on the plane, because it was the only pen not stored upright.

I even managed to sneak in a little bit of pen shopping on a daytrip to Innsbruck. What’s this lurking next to the huge arch?

Ernst Schmid is a lovely large stationers with a pretty big fine pen department. Lots of Montblancs (both standard and LEs), Pelikans, Caran d’Aches, Grafs, Kawecos and Lamys, including a demo Dialog and a demo Imporium. Unfortunately, everything was at the sky-high Euro list price so I wasn’t tempted to buy anything.

So that’s why the blog’s been quiet for a while. I hope you’ll forgive me.