More from the first morning’s exploration of the slopes between the town of Zermatt and the Matterhorn. Only the bottom image here shows the Matterhorn itself b/c the other four photos were looking north, back down-valley, as I climbed up towards the hanging bridge over the creek that created the valley.
This is Uetliberg, 870 meters (2500 feet) or so above Zurich. Spent the last night of my Switzerland say, and then this last day (before the overnight train back to Amsterdam), exploring the city with a local friend who was also my host. We hoped the clouds- mist – would clear so that from the viewing tower, we’d see Zurich. But as this gallery demonstrates, from the viewing platform a long climb above the top of the mountain proper, the mountain itself and everything below it was still shrouded in clouds and mist. But the alps rose above the clouds :-). In the bottom photo, you see just a bit of a tree ghosting into the bottom left corner, while the southern alps rise above the clouds in the distance. It was an interesting and somewhat surreal experience.
Schaffhausen, back in northern Switzerland, at dusk. Zermatt, a stream whose mountainsides featured in that last post, is the southernmost German-speaking town in Italy; Schaffhausen is pretty much the northernmost canton in Switzerland…and is both German-speaking and largely surrounded by Germany. And also hosts Switzerland’s other exclave (remember the Italian Campione?), a German town just upstream from Schaffhausen which has no direct connection to the rest of Germany. No, I didn’t have time to make it there: was too busy enjoying the mulled wine and hillsides, plus Schaffhausen’s most famous feature, which we’ll show you in the next post :-).
Trying to avoid overloading you all in January, by giving you a range of Amsterdam canal images early, with the classic tourist style above, on my way home from work a while back. The middle, below, if you’re curious, is a launch dock for kayaks, canoes, and other small boats — and connects, once you go through that claustrophobic tunnel, to Sloterplas, the lake I’ve been showing you regularly since I moved next to it last year.
An exclave of Italy within Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Lugano. Below is the dock as our boat pulled in – tap or click the photo to see it better, b/c the gallery auto-crops it a bit to fit. Probably the top of the mountain in that photo is already Italy again, but in between is a steep Swiss mountainside :-). My first four nights in Ticino were spent a 15-minute walk to the right of that marker below.
Amsterdam’s annual winter light festival along the canals opened last week, so I’ve begun seeing them on my evening and morning bike commutes. We’ve shared many festival sculptures with you in the past. (If you view full version, select the label “winter lights” which you ‘ll see below in this post itself, and many will be from this lights festival.) I’ll be interested if any of the light sculptures this year will surpass what my favorite from the three years I’ve so far been enjoying this festival :-).
Taken as the Gondola swung towards its doc up at the top of what they call, I believe, the “Little Matterhorn” which is the highest gondola station or in the alps, or maybe the only year-round skiing option in the alps, or something of that sort. (I could verify it all in guidebooks or online, but will leave readers to do so if you choose.) Suffice for now to say these three photos were all taken while swinging in a different kind of metal enclosure in mid-air 🙂 en route to another high point looking at the alps – and yes, that’s the real Matterhorn again to the left of the left line of cables.
(so much world, so little time....) 