the next day, we visited trondheim for the whole morning. in trondheim, we met ms trollfjord’s sister ship, the ms midnatsol:

afterwards, we explored the beautiful city. it was a sunday morning, and whence quite empty, except for all the hurtigruten tourists:

during the afternoon, we went through the stokksund strait:

during the night, there was an announcement that northern lights are visible. well, they weren’t much more visible than the previous night (in fact less), but the light area was much larger, spanning over half of the sky:

we spend the beginning of march in norway, traveling with the hurtigruten ship ms trollfjord from bergen to kirkenes and back.

the ship offers quite some comfort, including two whirlpools in the arctic pool area on top of the ship. it’s quite fun to sit in the warm water while it’s cold and windy outside!

we left bergen on a late evening, when it was quite dark on the outside:

the next morning we landed in torvik, a little town on an island. also, for the first time on our stay in norway, the sun came out:

the view of the sea is gorgeous:

later the day, we had a longer stay in ålesund:

on early evening, we arrived in molde. there, we took a photo of our ship:

on the late evening, we visited kristiansund for a bit longer. there, we walked a bit around in the harbor:

somewhen later, there was an announcement on the ship that northern lights could be seen. when we reached the sun deck, we only saw the leftovers, which were essentially only visible by camera and very high sensitivity settings. here’s a photo of people waiting for the aurora to become stronger (again):

later in the night, while back in our cabin, i looked out of the window before going to bed, when i saw something which looked a bit like northern lights. i put on my clothes again and went outside, and there it was: an aurora! not very intense, but it was there, and for some moments even visible to the plain eye!

while staying in val bregaglia, we also visited the engadine soap box derby from st. moritz down to celerina. unfortuntely, on that day, the weather was quite crappy – it was quite wet. (apparently it was dry before we arrived… hope it wasn’t us who brought bad weather :) )
anyway, we watched one of the rounds, and i took some photos. here’s a small selection:

last week, we were in vacation in val bregaglia, a valley half belonging to graubünden, switzerland and sondrio, italy. we were staying in vicosoprano on the swiss side.

most of the time, we had fabulous weather, except two rainy days and one pretty cloudy day.

via bregaglia.

the first hike we did was going by postauto up the maloja pass to maloja village, walking from there to the giant’s kettles nearby and from there to the belvedere tower, and then down the pass towards the san gaudenzio ruin and finally until casaccia, from where we continued by postauto.

this is the first leg of the via bregaglia route. this leg is really nice, with some glimpses over the valley (for example, at belvedere tower, and above casaccia, where you have a good view on the albignia lake dam), a lot of forests and shade, and nice rivers. parts of it go quite steep downhill, but even for untrained beginners as us, it was quite manageable.

via panoramica.

the second bigger hike we did was the via panoramica (the yellow path there) from the power plant löbbia towards northwest of vicosoprano, from where we descended back down to vicosoprano. near the power plant, we saw a sign forbidding arnie to walk on the water:

whyever they put up that sign… crossing the bridge from the löbbia stop to the other side of the water basin, one enters the via panoramica and can continue to roticcio and from there on to eventually soglio. we left the path somewhere northwest of vicosoprano. (if you have a map, it’s the leftmost path leaving the via panoramica descending downwards to vicosoprano.) this is a really beautiful hike, with lots of nice overviews over the valley and on the mountains.

albignia.

another day, we took up the cable car to the albignia lake dam. one can also hike all the way up or down, but i think that one is a bit over our capabilities… so instead, we enjoyed the little tiny cable car. on the top, one could still find patches of snow, and one has a beautiful panorama both over the valley and over the lake.

unfortunately, on that day, it was pretty cloudy, so we decided to not hike to the albignia hut (that’s something we’ll do next time…), but take the cable car back down and hike from there back to vicosoprano:

soglio.

one day, we took the postauto up to soglio, a cute mountain town:

afterwards, we returned by postauto to promontogno and had dinner there.

castasegna.

another trip we did was to visit castasegna. they have a beautiful chestnut exploration path, which shows how chestnuts are planted, harvested and dried. also with a chance to buy honey from around there at a self-service stand.

back in town, we bought some drinks and met a nice cat with wonderful blue eyes.

chiavenna.

after being in castasegna, we visited chiavenna, the largest town in val bregaglia, ending the valley at the italian side. we had dinner there, but unfortunately, the restaurant we chose didn’t start serving dinner before 19:00, and the last postauto left short after 20:00…

hotel helvetia.

in vicosoprano, we stayed in hotel helvetia, a former hotel west of the city. while parts of it are used for offices, the other part is rented as holiday flats. it is equiped with a simple kitchen for self-catering, and without much luxury features everything one needs to have a good week there. and in case one is too lazy to cook for oneselves, there are two hotels with restaurants in town, for example hotel corona, where we had three excellent dinners.

last weekend, we revisited obersaxen for a waffle party. (sorry, no photos of the waffles, but they were really tasty!) again, the weather was great, even though it was sometimes pretty cloudy and sometimes even showers came down.

some time ago, we visited oldenburg to visit some friends who build a house. after quite some time of bad weather, we all were quite happy to have a sunny weekend. we first explored the city by bike, visiting the place where i used to live as well as both campuses of the university, before returning downtown and doing some shopping. here are some impressions:

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.)

last weekend, we were in south tyrol. we arrived on thursday via postauto via the ofenpass, and the first thing we did was visiting glurns for a couple of hours. glurns is a small municipality with many medieval remains:

afterwards, we continued to merano, where we stayed until sunday. unfortunately, on friday, the weather began to be pretty bad; it was raining a lot and most of the time, the sky was gray. only on saturday it started to brighten up. on saturday we took the chair lift up to tirol and from there continued up to hochmuth. the sky was still pretty cloudy, but after some time, it started to brighten up. some clouds began to rise past, and after returning back to tirol, suddenly the sky began to really clear up. we walked part of the apfelweg and part of the weinweg, and finally returned to merano via chair lift. this time, with the weather beautiful, the view from the chair lift was just gorgeous. finally, we walked to the passer river and followed it to our hotel. see some photos here:

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:

on the second weekend of april, we returned to oslo for a long weekend. unfortunately, the weather was not as great as in february (and also last february), but at least on saturday afternoon, the weather finally got presentable. thus, all my photos are from that afternoon.

we first visited the holmenkollen ski jump. while it was still quite cloudy, there were at least some holes in the clouds somewhere in the distance. also on that day, there was a zip-line event happening, where you could whizz down the ski jump on a zip-line. (it was already sold out, so we didn’t had any chance to do this, even in case we would have liked to.)

later on we continued to the restaurant frognerseteren, where we wanted to eat something. we found out that the chef is swiss and had a nice chat with him. later on, the clouds finally ripped open above us, and the sun came through:

afterwards, we continued to the vigeland sculpture park, which we enjoyed together with a great sunset:

on the next day, i continued by train to bergen on one of the world’s most beautiful train tracks. unfortunately, the weather was not very appealing, whence i spent most of the time working and reading.