this year, we travelled to the nordseeküste for another time. we had a very nice time, and fortunately, it was much cooler than inland. just around 25—30 degrees instead of 30—40 degrees... we enjoyed the high water a lot (it started in the morning when we arrived, and ended in the late afternoon when we left ­— perfect!), but also the wadden sea.

we were also able to see this year's total lunar eclipse, though it took some time until it was possible to see the darkened moon through the clouds.

we visited dat otto huus, a museum dedicated to east frisian comedian otto waalkes.

afterwards, we continued to norden, where we visited the seehundstation norddeich, where abandoned harbor seal pups are raised until they can be released back into the wild.

one week ago, while we were in vacation, one of our last two remaining cats was killed by a car, apparently while crossing a street.

rest in peace, tetris teero!

today, we had to put down our oldest cat, tomtom. (two years after his brother.)

rest in peace, tomtom!

a couple days after the previous stroll, i repeated the stroll. this time, there's a lot of snow!

on new year's day, we enjoyed a peaceful stroll through the nearby forest.

after visiting the gotthard base tunnel, we continued to bellinzona to enjoy the rest of the day. in ticino, it was sunny as opposed to the fog north of the gotthard! we visited the castelgrande, explored the old town and had some nice thick hot chocolate and marroni cake.

on friday, we took the special train gottardino through the new gotthard base tunnel, where we had a chance to explore parts of the sedrun underground station which will in the future only be available for emergency stops.

first, we took a boat tour from lucerne to flüelen. the weather in the german part of switzerland wasn't very awesome, but we got some nice cloudly looks.

in flüelen we boarded the gottardino, which took us into the mountain to the sedrun station. the station had a lot of information material and a film about the base tunnel. it was around 30 degrees centigrade, and so pretty enjoyable in a t-shirt.

after a 45 minutes stopover, we finally continued via train to the south gate of the tunnel and stopped in biasca, where we left the train with some souvenirs:

in late may, we (again) visited val bregaglia for another very nice vacation. the weather was great, except on monday when it snowed. we stayed once more in vicosoprano. we did some hiking from soglio to castasegna, and from castasegna to chiavenna:

we also visited the mountain diavolezza close to pontresina. it was pretty warm up there, despite all the snow, though not as hot as at the base station.