some weeks ago, we went to see ohne rolf in engelberg. unfortunately for us, the weather sucked during our short stay. that’s why there are essentially on photos excep this one taken outside the schaukäserei:

on our way back, we hopped on a boat in lucerne and crossed lake lucerne until we finally arrived in flüelen. from there, we returned home via train. here are some snapshots from the nice boat trip, which was mostly uneventful except the last hop, where a group of drunken turnverein members entered the boat…

(the city you can see is brunnen.)

two weeks ago, i was in bergen, attending the international workshop on coding and cryptography (the last one was in paris, which i also attended). unfortunately, bergen presented itself from its well-known rainy side. when i arrived (by train from oslo), it was raining. most of the days it was raining, and if not, it was cloudy. the only two exceptions where wednesday afternoon, when the sun almost came out (one could see it through the clouds). on that afternoon, we had a boat tour scheduled. the boat went four three hours, and one could observe how beautiful everything would look like with sun:

like half an hour after arriving back in bergen, it continued to rain… on thursday evening, the conference dinner was planned. it was happening on the fløyen, where we drove up with the bløibanen. a usually beautiful place, but on that thursday, the sight was not so splendid, as the following panorama picture of bergen shows:

well, finally, on friday, the weather became really beautiful. while it didn’t stay dry during the whole day – there were some short showers now and then – it was sunny with a few clouds most of the day. and it was possible to run around with just a t-shirt and trousers. finally! :) i explored the city, the famous bryggen, the bergenhus fortress, went up the fløyen another time – again with the funicular –, walked down on foot, and enjoyed a nice evening before flying back on saturday. enjoy some of the photos i took on friday:

after being in tromsø, we continued to oslo. one of the first surprises met us close to our hotel. we already stayed there last year, but didn’t notice anything. this time, we noticed something greenish on the ground, which on a closer look turned out to be many tiny statues:

this piece of art is called the grass root square by do ho suh.

similar to last year, we had great weather. not on every day, though. here are some impressions from the rådhusplassen and the adjacent pier:

we also wanted to see oslo from the sea as well as more closely inspect the oslo fjord. unfortunately, the oslo fjord boats were not really running yet, and many of the boats around oslo itself were not running due to ice. nonetheless, two boats were operating (route #92 to nakholmen as well as the ferry to nesoddtangen). the following photos are from route #92:

after that, we explored oslo by bus, and then continued to tjuvholmen, which is almost finished by now. last year, i took one photo over there, which is not showing a lot since most things you could see were construction stuff. this time, there’s a lot more to see, for example the new buildings for the astrup fearnley museum of modern art:

(the snowman was on the boat to nakholmen. i just put it here because it fits better with the other portrait pictures.)

afterwards, we continued by ferry to nesoddtangen and back:

yesterday we were on an excursion, which led us from our home to some nice places between lake constance and schaffhausen with a final stop in baden before we returned home.

we first traveled to tägerwilen to look at a small design settlement with eight houses, where different materials were used. unfortunately, the weather wasn’t very great at that point, and it was not very easy to take good pictures there anyway… afterwards, we walked over to gottlieben and waited for our boat.

we traveled by boat on lake constance and the rhine to schaffhausen. the weather was still not great, it was cloudy, but at least it wasn’t raining. when approaching schaffhausen, the clouds started to rip apart.

in schaffhausen, the clouds began to clear up. we explored the old town a bit.

finally, we walked up to the munot, a fortification built during the 16th century. from there we had a great view – some of the above photos were taken from there or from the way up/down.

finally, we proceeded by train to waldshut to drink coffee, and continued by train to baden to eat dinner. at least, that was what we planned to do in baden. turns out that the city center is essentially dead from 6 pm on, except fast food “restaurants” or pubs. we had to walk quite some distance outside of the city center to find something to eat; we ended up in an italian restaurant chain near the kantonsschule. on the way back, two of us who had to travel westwards wanted to take bus 3, which would have allowed them to arrive home earlier than if they would take the later bus which would be perfect for us. bus 3 is supposed to leave at the same stop. unfortunately, unknown to us and also to google maps, apple maps, map.search.ch etc., there are two stops called “kantonsschule”. at the time we located the second stop on a map, their bus was already gone… really great. anyway, we eventually got back to the main station, and were able to depart in direction of our beds after this long day…

after visiting tierpark goldau, we hiked to the boat landing in goldau (which is 3 km away from the park) and went on a boat trip to zug.

if you love chocolate, then order a “eisschokolade”. it is not exactly what i would call a “eisschokolade”, but definitely the best chocolate sundae i ever had.

yesterday, as i already mentioned here, i did a boat trip on lake zürich. this time, part of the long round trip, leading me to rapperswil. there, i explored the area of the monestry and the castle a bit, and returned to zürich and took the train up the üetliberg to catch sunset. unfortunately, already during the boat trip the weather got worse, i.e. it got cloudy, and so there wasn’t much left from the sunset…

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

alles rot!

since i don’t have a red filter, i had to think of something. something i could do without investing too much time and money. (i had a great idea which violates at least one of these two points.) while doing another boat trip on lake zürich today, i noticed that some walls inside the boat were red and reflecting: the perfect setting for a photo in red! the result shows me, a bit of lake zürich’s water and parts of the zürich gold coast. please click the photo to get a larger version:

technical details: 1/20s, f/10, 50mm, iso 200.

the trip also resulted in another “reddish” photo collection, which i like but which fits less well than the above photo. here it is:

this time, we also did a trip to maligne lake. last time, we arrived in the early evening, with not much sun left, and shortly after we arrived a storm began to brew up, so we didn’t stay long. this time, i decided to take a boat trip to spirit island; spirit island is one of the most famous views from the canadian rocky mountains. shortly after the boat trip started, the weather began to turn bad, it started raining. but near the island it stopped again, and the sun came out. there were still some dark clouds at the sky, but besides that it was georgous. on the way back, it eventually started to rain again. well, at least here are some rain-free impressions; note that the first two shots are from medicine lake.

today was a sunny, beautiful day, even though pretty hot. it resulted in another trip on the zürisee:

after that, it resulted in a photo featuring me and two soccer players:

simply beautiful, filling me with happiness.

another thing making me happy are two small presents, one being already a few weeks old, the other being new:

thank you, i really like them a lot!

today i did another boat trip on the zürich lake, after getting up pretty early. it was really nice, as the weather was great (the sun was burning, but not too bad), and it was pretty empty. i got one of the seats in the very front of the boat. listening to great music (unholy‘s really great for that, as is vintersorg’s a cosmic genesis). here are some impressions: