The stream above gets channeled into the pond below, and I believe becomes part of the water source for surrounding villages including Zermatt. But not sure.
These are all from walks during my first afternoon & evening in Bissone, the lovely mountain & lakeside village in which I spent four days and and nights on the east shore of Lake Lugano, across a causeway and bridge from Melide, which has the train station. Pretty sure we’ve shown you the snake emblem (above) of the town before; if not, you’ll see it again in future for sure b/c these aren’t the last of my photos from that eye-opening visit more than a month ago already.
The blessing and curse of train travel through Switzerland is that you see so many beautiful things out your train windows, and you think to yourself “I’m sure I’ll remember which of the lakes and goregeous lakeside towns that our train passed through en route from Locarno to Zurich this one was.” And it turns out you’re wrong, because I’m not sure if these were taken along the eastern shores of Lake Lucerne, or the Zugersee. I’ll need to get back there some time to identify it properly :-).
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 :-).
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.
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.
Goodness, these are the first images I’m showing you from my lovely out-and-back train ride from Locarno down to the remote, mountainous little village of Camedo, on the border between Italy & Switzerland and a bit west of Lago Maggiore. The area is called Centovalli because of all the steep, narrow valleys created by the side-streams that feed into the main valley-bottom river, the Melezza. This is a special line that runs between Domodossola and Locarno, serving quite a few tiny villages perched on the steep slopes along the way, and with (my guide book tells me) 17 impressive ironwork bridges along the way. I wish I’d had more time to explore it – but maybe next visit!
Above, your last shot of those Hajar Mountains over UAE on the Dhaka to Dubai run in September. Below, another of my new form of “in the air”-ness, taken from a gondola high above the valley of the Ticino river on my way to a mid-mountain stop that gave me access to a Tibetan hanging bridge that connected two villages without having to go up or down and around, not too long ago. You can see the shadow of my gondola on the mountainside, plus some of the city of Bellinzona in the center – left. Much more on both the Tibetan Bridge, and Bellinzona and its pivotal role in history, later… 🙂
(so much world, so little time....) 