It's funny how cultural values show up in architecture. In France and Italy and Spain, you can see the cultural importance of food in the sheer number of farms you pass. In Germany and Austria, you can see the importance of bread in the presence of a backerei or bakhaus in every tiny village. Usually, its a backerei anbd konditorei, which explains rather a lot about the konditor & cook chain in London.
It's quite a comment on national priorities, as are the seriously free range cows all over the place, whose only real restrictions seem to be cliffs rather than fences.
In Slovenia, every petrol station seems to be linked to a casino. In Austria, I only came across one (so far), which was linked to a to a nightclub in the middle of nowhere and had the strangest subterranean decor I've ever seen in a loo.
And I've seen more rococo and baroque architecture than I expected. Especially as the buildings labelled as such weren't quite my mental image of said stylistic schools.
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