one of the most beautiful parts of our trip was the drive south the icefields parkway, connecting jasper to lake louise. here are a few impressions from our stops. we wanted to drive up mount edith cavell as well, but the road was closed.

astoria river bridge and athabasca river.

a beautiful lake and the athabasca falls.

mountains, and the columbia icefield.

our car, and the upper waterfowl lake.

the bow lake and the crowfoot glacier.

lake louise.

after two days in vancouver, we rented a car and drove up to the beautiful town of jasper. from there, we visited, among others, patricia lake, pyramid lake and maligne lake, whose photos can be found below as well as a photo taken at a rest stop somewhere north of kamloops.

after yellowknife, we flew to vancouver. things you can see in the photos are the steam clock, vancouver city, stanley park, a spider, views from the capilano bridge and its park, and a sunset at the pacific ocean’s beach.

another day, we did a trip to the great slave lake, a huge lake (its area takes 7% of germany’s area, or two thirds of switzerland’s area).

we started our canada tour by flying up to yellowknife, the capital of canadas northwest territories. it’s a town having around 20.000 inhabitants, but it is probably the most touristic place in the northwest of canada, and there are a lot of (non-expensive) flights going there. and, one reason why we went there, it’s quite likely that you can see northern lights. besides that, the area is also very different from southern canada.
on our first day there, it was sunny and we did a hike on the trail around frame lake. this resulted in many beautiful views and photos, some of whose can be seen here:

maybe you, the reader, noticed that i didn’t really wrote anything here during the last three weeks. well, the reason was that i had a visitor here, namely my girlfriend, and that we did a 10 day tour through western canada. in this and the following posts, i will show some photos from our trip.
the first thing we did was attend our department’s excursion, a hike on top of ha ling peak. here are some impressions from the hike:

after watching shakespeare’s a midsummer night’s dream, we walked around on prince’s island park, near to the shore of the bow river. the shore area is really nice, it is green while being mostly deserted from mankind. lots of green corners, where one can hide, even though the surrounding freeways are still audible.
here are some impressions:

on saturday, some friends and i went on a hike to lillian lake in the canadian rockies. due to time restrictions, we didn’t continue to galatea lakes. in fact i’m happy about this, as this was the first hike for me in this season and i was really done when we arrived at the lake. gladly, the way back was a lot easier. here are some impressions from the trip:

last week, i was in the black forest for three days, staying in a wonderful and quiet place called maierhof.

monday.

i travelled by train to oppenau, where i was collected by car. here’s a view from the station in oppenau:

on the first evening i did a small tour. after a very short time i met a cat sitting on a bench:

here are some impressions from the trip:

tuesday.

on tuesday, i planned to visit the all saints waterfalls. i first did a longer walk:

then, i got there:

the waterfalls remind me a bit of the sundance canyon which i visited last year:

finally, a view on the all saints’ abbey:

wednesday.

on wednesday, i went on a trip to oppenau:

there, i got a piece of strawberry cake with hot chocolate:

on the way back, i found a really beautiful place:

the second-last photo shows the maierhof. later, in the evening, i went on a second trip, and found this view in a forest:

on december 8, 2008, i did another trip which i never wrote about so far. this time, i visited switzerland’s jungfraujoch, featuring europe’s highest train station at 3.454 meters above sea level. i did that trip on a monday to avoid the hordes of tourists wich invade the jungfraujoch in particular on weekends.

eigernordwand station.

the first stop of the train inside the mountain is the eigernordwand station.

eismeer station.

the second stop of the train inside the mountain is the eismeer station, giving a wonderful view on the lower grindelwald glacier.

note that the windows were steamy, which adds a neat glow to the scenery:

the top of europe.

at the final station, jungfraujoch station, one enters a huge station. here are some views from one outside part of the station:

two panoramas; the first gives another view from the station, similar to the one above, and the second one shows in detail a metal rope which survived an ice storm:

art & ice.

inside the station, one can find several pieces of art, including an ice palace consisting completely of ice:

outside, again.

this time, on the other side of the station, where one can walk on snow:

another panoramic view:

the way back.

finally, some views from the trip back to zürich: