some weeks ago, we visited the stanserhorn, taking up the “cabrio” cable car. up there, the weather was quite bearable compared to in zürich, where it was way above 30 degrees, though it was not as nice – it even rained a little. later, we took the ship form hergiswil back to lucerne.
last week, we visited the säntis, one of the highest landmarks in northeastern switzerland. despite being quite crowded – after all, it was on a sunday with good weather – it didn’t feel too crowded on the top, and we caught some great views onto germany, lake constance, liechtenstein and austria. (i’m not sure whether we also saw france or italy due to haze. but in theory, we could have.) enjoy some of the views and panoramas:
today, we were on muottas muragl. luckily, this morning, the weather was much better than predicted by the weather report yesterday: it was sunny! during the late morning, it once again became cloudy, but before, we had some really great views while strolling a bit on the philosopher’s trail:
last weekend, we were in brand, austria. the weather was great, despite the mixed forecast.
on the first day, we visited the lünersee, a water reservoir for the lünerseewerk power plant. it is a beautiful mountain lake which can be accessed by a cable car. here are some photos:
during summer, there are two cable cars in brand itself, namely the dorfbahn and the panoramabahn. the dorfbahn starts directly in the town, while the panoramabahn starts at the end of the dorfbahn and crosses a valley. the view is really magnificent! there is a nice and easy walking trail from the top of the panoramabahn back to the top of the dorfbahn, which we took. here are some impressions:
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…
here’s my project 52 shot for the twentythird week. the topic was
i took this photo of a peaceful idyll at the furka pass in central switzerland. silence, fresh air, a wonderful view, a few fluffy clouds here and there – just so beautiful, so perfect. please click the photo to get a larger version:
technical details: 1/1000s, f/8, 18mm, iso 200.
yesterday, i again used my ga to explore a bit of switzerland (and italy). i decided to use an offer by the sbb to drive up the cimetta, a mountain next to locarno at the lago maggiore. the weather report for most of switzerland wasn’t very good yesterday, except for the ticino, whence i ended up there. at ground level it was rather foggy, but when climbing up the mountain by cable car i eventually got out of the sea of fog. around the cardada station, the final destination of said cable car, wasn’t too much snow, but still enough left to take a lot of snow photos! later i took the chair lift up to the top and had lunch there, as well as took out my laptop (which i carried with me all the time… i really need to get a netbook!) and worked a bit. that was a funny moment, sitting over 1600 meters over sea level, surrounded by snow, while programming. i guess i have to do that more often :-)
later, i took the cable car back down to locarno and explored the city a bit. here are some impressions, including the madonna del sasso and the castello visconteo:
finally, i took the train to domodossola, operated by fart (ferrovie autolinee regionali ticinesi). the train ride is really beautiful. unfortunately, i had to shoot all photos through the window, which resulted in not so great ones… anyway, there are a few i really like:
i didn’t stay in domodossola, due to being tired and its getting dark outside, so i hopped onto the next train to brig, going through the simplon tunnel (about whose construction i read a novel called simplon some years ago). eventually, 14 hours after my departure, i arrived back in zürich.
last weekend, i visited jasper a second time; this time with a couple of coworkers, to have a few days of vacation. last thursday, we drove up the icefields parkway to jasper. here are some impressions from the drive:
yesterday, i did a snow hike in engadine. first, i walked from guarda to lavin, and after that, i continued by train to saint moritz, and afterwards i returned home. the weather was awesome in the beginning, but after some time the sun hid behind some clouds, making it impossible to make good photos of the snow. too bad. the sight was still great, though.
sunday, i decided to visit the pilatus, a 2100 m mountain next to lucerne. the weather was pretty foggy, and so was the trip up, at least in the beginning:
after traveling some time in such a gondola, i managed to escape the fog, and got a fantastic view on the sea of fog:
some panoramas:
some more impressions:
and some more panoramas:
finally, i left the mountain using the steepest cogwheel train:
