yesterday, we visited the pizol. getting up was quite an adventure, though; we first travelled via train to bad ragaz, from where sbb.ch claimed bus 456 (a postauto) proceeds to the cable car station. unfortunately, as it turned out, the bus is only going during winter season. as we were waiting where it should leave, we noticed another small bus with “pizol” largely printed on it leaving at the designated time. the bus was hidden behind another postauto when we got out of the train station, so we only noticed it when it was leaving. since we weren’t the only ones standing at the postauto stop waiting for bus 456, we were a bit confused, and finally went to ask in the train station. turns out, they knew that the bus was still written on incorrectly and already passed the message on several times, but nothing happened. so we waited one hour for the next bus (walking would have taken around 40 minutes, but that’s not too much fun at over 30 degrees in the sun). well, when the (private) pizol bus finally came back, we also tried to inform the driver, who apparently never before heard about this problem. he also mentioned that from next year on, there will be a postauto also during summer… well, we hope that maybe now someone will put up a sign at the postauto stop that the bus is currently departing from somewhere else…

anyway, we finally took up the cable cars to laufböden, from where we wanted to walk the panorama trail (should be around 60 minutes). interestingly, the only sign up there pointing to the destination of the panorama trail said it would take 20 minutes. with no real different choice, we started walking that direction, until after 50 meters or so we found another sign, splitting up between the direct route (“standart-weg”) and the panorama trail. we continued the panoramic trail, though in the end we noticed we apparently screwed something up, as when we arrived at a lake inbetween, we saw that the panoramic trail leaving from there to our starting point left in another direction… whatever… anyway, we had a nice view, and up there the temperature was really nice and bearable. we also were able to put our feet into the lake, which was very refreshing. after circling the lake, we continued the trail to the pizolhütte where we had lunch, and finally proceeded down.

overall it was a very nice excursion, except that getting there (and also getting back to the train station) via public transport is apparently somewhat more complicated…

a happy new year to everyone!

we spend the last couple of days of the last year in braunwald, glarus, for a short skiing vacation. the weather was great, much better than announced. it was sunny most of the time:

(sorry for the photo quality. i only took my tiny compact camera with me…)

it was also the first time i ever stood on skis. after a couple of skiing lessons, i even managed to get down the little hill (school to braunwald) and – with a lot of help – the bigger hill (grotzenbüel to school). it was great, even though i was pretty dead afterwards. skiing is quite exhausting, especially with regard to some muscles which i don’t really need for my daily life :)

here’s my project 52 shot for the thirtyninth week. the topic was

zeichen der zeit.

and another photo from glarus, also taken in schwanden. from the beginning of this year on, the twentyfour (more or less) small cities in glarus were divided into three municipalities, among them glarus süd, of which schwanden is a part. having a population of less than 10,000, glarus süd is not exactly close to being metropolitan. nonetheless, some people might have a different opinion on this. and maybe eventually, we will all be broothers. whatever this is. please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 1/40s, f/8, 35mm, iso 200.

here’s my project 52 shot for the thirtyeigth week. the topic was

froschperspektive.

i was thinking about this topic, until i was walking in elm and suddenly had this view of elm’s church. it was just perfect for this topic. please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 1/250s, f/8, 28mm, iso 200.

here’s my project 52 shot for the thirtysecond week. the topic was

durch die rosane brille.

nature. mountains. cows. peaceful landscape. everything is beautiful. no bad things happening. everything’s clean. no dirt.
decide for yourself… photo taken at the almabtrieb in elm. please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 1/320s, f/8, 400mm, iso 200.

here’s my project 52 shot for the thirtyfirst week. the topic was

schatzkiste.

i’ve had several ideas for this topic, and during the last week started planning something more concrete, until i saw something better yesterday while being in schwanden. while walking up some stairs, we stumbled over a piece of wood in the concrete floor, which said “vorsicht geheime falltür!” – “attention secret trapdoor!”. beneath it was a dark hole, probably some kind of ventilation shaft. probably the hole was covered by a piece of wood to make sure no-one stumbles, and some prankster added the text. anyway, to me, it looks like a fantastic treasure “chest” :-) please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 1/13s, f/8, 35mm, iso 200.

yesterday, we did the panoramic hike near braunwald. on the first leg, from grotzenbüel to gumen, was really nice. it was sunny, and thanks to chinooks it was also pretty warm. around gumen it started to drip a little, and it got more cloudy and foggy and essentially stayed like this until we were back down. on the higher levels we found larger patches of snow, most of them not on the path, but some also crossing our path; on the way down, we had to climb over a larger snow hill crossing the path. but we survived it, and alltogether, the great scenic views on the first leg were worth the whole effort. though it would have been nice to just take the chair lift down from gumen, which unfortunately wasn’t in operation this time of the year. the following photos are a few impressions:

back in braunwald, we discovered this cute hydrant:

finally, on the train ride back, we did a stop-over in schwanden to drink something. on our way, we found among other funny tags this particularly cute one:

finally, a few meters from the tag, on a small staircase up, we found this:

this sunday, i was in elm at the glarner alpchäs- und schabziger märt, a kind of folk festival where you can have fun, try and buy cheese, eat traditional food, listen to bands playing folk music, and as a highlight, watching an almabtrieb. during the latter event, the cows from the alms are driven back into the valley, where they are decorated and equipped with nice cowbells, and walked along the main street so the tourists can watch and take pictures ;-) below are some impressions from that day with wonderful weather, opposing the foggy, cool weather i left behind when leaving the zürich area…

in the last photo, you can see the martinsloch. we didn’t knew the sun was shining through that morning (around 9:33 o’clock), otherwise we probably would have been there earlier…