Windows.1
Lake Living.60
These are all from my first evening ‘living’ if only briefly in the village of Bissone on the southeastern shore of Lake Lugano. Curious about the Italian exclave, and noting that it was a short walk past the nearest grocery store where I’d be buying my dinner fixins and breakfast supplies, I walked on up the narrow road without decent sidewalk and caught these views, some of Campione d’Italia and others looking more south. In the gallery below is another image similar to the one above, which I’m sharing b/c it lets you better see the causeway that made overland travel possible between Melide and Bissone, early in the last century. John (and possibly others equally curious), you’ll be interested in the Wikipedia article on Campione and how it came to exist, and this arch, and the the boundary marker I showed in my last post from Campione.
Mountains.70
All these shots come from the viewing platform at the top of the building into which the gondolas arrive, and from which skiers ski down year ’round, because indeed up here there’s year-round skiing, though when I was there only as far as the middle station. In the right-hand shot with me just above, I’m pointing at a mountain I sort of thought might be Mont Blanc because of how big it is both in height and mass. I couldn’t get anyone to solidly confirm or deny my idea. And yes, that pyramidal mountain on my other side is the Matterhorn seen from the southeast and not too far below its peak. On the left, notice the sign showing which mountains are which. As I recollect, the similar sign on the other side was weather-worn enough that one could not definitively confirm or deny my hypothesis.
From the Air.70
Village Views.100
Mountains.69
You’ll have noticed how much I loved everything I saw in Switzerland. These are just about all the remaining shots from my first day there, at least 🙂
Urban Canals.189
We’ve shown you the Rheinfall, or Rhine Falls, and also the city of Schaffhausen just upstream from it, before. These are most of my remaining shots of the Rhine and the Rhine Falls. I’m saving a few for a new series I expect to launch in the new year :-), for which I haven’t quite decided on a name yet & might even try to do something snazzy like include a poll in the first iteration to seek reader advice… Stay tuned, and may these last days of 2024 be full of people, place and activities that bring your joy and presence.
Small Wonders.258
Lake Living.58
This is the closest I got to the actual mountain; as you see, it’s actually starting just across this lake. The last “From the Air” claimed I was posting all the remaining gondola-ride photos from the trip up to the “Little Matterhorn,” which may be technically true, but then there was also the ride back down, from which you’ll see one shot below and likely more in future iterations of “From the Air.” In any case: during that ride up, I stood just next to a rather strikingly red-headed chap with whom I struck up a conversation and turned out he lives in San Diego, a city I know fairly well. Since we were both solo travelers, he and I then shared our explorations up top, and then decided we’d jointly wander over to this lake just downhill from the bottom of the first transfer station going down. He’d packed beer and snacks with the hope of having his photo taken drinking beer in the snow, but up top there weren’t good spots so we found a suitable spot with just enough snow here, lower down. You’ll see the pics he took of me enjoying one of his beers lower down, as well as a gallery of air bubbles trapped in ice around the lake as well.
Mountains.68
With some apologies, I’m going to throw a large post with a ton of photos at you. These are all the remaining photos that I took during my trip on the very expensive but quite remarkable Gornergrat Bahn, which connects from Zermatt in the valley below, to Gornergrat where (one of?) the highest hotels in the alps sits on a rocky ridge with views to the Gorner Glacier and more. Truly, I edited the photos down but felt each of the many I’m still sharing with you explores a different aspect of this particular journey and afternoon. Or maybe I just want to show lots of photos to make myself feel I got a lot out of the trip, given that the ticket was more expensive than what I’d pay to go from A’dam to Brussels…
From the Air.68
Last of the photos taken while dangling in a gondola on my way up to the Little Matterhorn and Glacier Paradise on November 1st :-). Definitely not yet the last of our Zermatt photos, which I am in fact still paring down for quality and duplication-reduction reasons. But you gotta admit, it’s a pretty spectacular region, eh?
(so much world, so little time....) 