Christmas market

Schreibe eine Antwort

This weekend we had had the first Advent. That means, that the Christmas market in our city took place again. As usual there were several booths build up on the old market place in front of the protestant church in the old town.
And as usual, many of the booths were operated by local clubs, like sports clubs or social clubs, offering food or drinks. They offered green cabbage with roasted potatoes and Mettwurst (a type of German sausage), bratwurst, French fries and waffles to eat and hot coffee, tea, cacao, punch and spiced wine (Glühwein) as well as cold beer from our local brewery. There were also some stands selling Christmas decoration stuff. At one stand they sold warm pullovers, gloves, wool scarfs and wool toques. For small kids there were three different merry-go-rounds. For older kids a mobile smith offered to forge an artistic object. There also was a stage for different music bands playing Christmas songs.

You can find a Christmas market in nearly every German city during the Advent. In most cities th Christmas markets lasts 4 weeks and in some big cities you can even found more than one. On the other hand, in smaller cities the Christmas markets are only run on a few days, like in city where I live. Here the Christmas market lasts only one weekend. (Beside, they started this year already on Thursday than on Friday as before).

no images were found

Breitach Klamm

Schreibe eine Antwort

The Breitach is here a young, small river and a Klam is a narrow and deep valley, the river goes through, a flume. This flume is very deep and the water has formed the stone in an interesting and impressive way.

We visited the Breitach Klam during our trip to the Alpes. It lasts haf a day. Even it was a nice and sunny day, it was cold in the Klamm because of the moisture in the air and on all stones. Water falls from above the Klamm and the river goes very fast.

Don’t wonder about the fancy colors at the walls. All the colors are real. I guess they come from reflecting the sky.

What a funny coincident

Schreibe eine Antwort

This morning my wife found an Alpine newt in the water in our guests toilet. We’re not living in the countryside, but in a small city. Thus it’s quite a surprise to find such an animal in the garden. Though the surprise was even bigger to find it in the house. We also don’t have a pond.

Never the less, we fetched it out of the toilet.

Here are some pictures I’ve taken before we set him free at the pond of our neighbors.

remembrance to beautiful birds

Schreibe eine Antwort

Have you ever seen paradise birds flying free in the sky? I have, and it was so wonderful to look at them. It seemed to me that they had so much fun in flying. It seemed to me that they were playing tag with each other and flying one loop after another just for fun.

This is the White-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus ). I saw them several times and it was a pleasure to observe them. Their flights impressed me very much.

I also saw the black Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher, a very rare black paradise bird. I only saw one bird twice. When I it first I didn’t have a camera with me, because I came back from snorkeling. At the second time I saw one I was unable to place a good shot because the bird only flew short distances from one tree to another hiding itself in the leaves. According to Wikipedia  there are only about 200  black Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher couples living on La Digue. So I’m happy for have seen one.

There were also some other birds. But until now I’m unable to identify them all. I’ll post them later.

no images were found

Seychelles Paradise Flycatcher

I’m back … from the Alpes

Schreibe eine Antwort

4 days ago I went with my wife to Oberjoch in the Allgäu, a part of the Germany Alpes, to get my daughter back home. She was there for a 6 weeks cure at a special health resort because of her neurodermatitis. We drove about 660 km each direction to get her home.
I certainly took my camera with me. Here you can see a few picture. I took them when we arrieved. The sunset let the mountains glow.

During the next days I’ll publish some other photos I’ve taken at the trips in Allgäu. When finished with that, I’ll publish some further pictures from the Seychelles.

I’m back … from the paradies

2 Antworten

Unfortunately I’m really back: out of the sun in to the cold.

Even my car didn’t want me to go to work this morning. Frozen windows and an empty battery greeted me when I came to my car.

I’m well, I’m healthy and I’ve hundreds of photographs to watch over, edit and publish. Much work and much to remember.

It was a nice trip with nice people to a beautiful island.

I got up at 5:30 a.m on Saturday (that’s 3:30 in Germany because the time is 2 hours ahead during daylight savings time in Germany). At 4 p.m. we drove to the harbor to get the shuttle boat back to Praslin island to get the last shuttle catamaran back to Mahé island where the airport is located. At Sunday morning 1:50 a.m. our plane stated to Dubai. It was completely booked out. We arrived at 6:20 a.m. in Dubai and started at 8:40 a.m. back to Duesseldorf where we arrived at 1:50 p.a.

I’m still alive …

Schreibe eine Antwort

… and I’m still in paradise. This island is so beautiful and has so many aspects to see, that you are busy to visit all the nice spots. I guess, you could stay for month until you have seen everything. Beautiful beaches, exotic birds, unknown voices, interesting insects and geckos beside the well known animals like cats, dogs, goats, hen or cows. Here I only consider the island itself and not considering the life under water.
One member of our group was out for some diving trips and he brought some very nice photos back.

In Asia it’s still monsoon time. So the waves are are hitting the rocks very hard and the water sprays very high.

Standing on a higher ground

Schreibe eine Antwort

This night we had some rain. Thus the sky was overcasted this morning and we used the opportunity to climb up to Belle Venue. Belle Venue is located at the top of the highest hill of La Digue. On 1.2 km distance you have to climb up more than 300 m height. That means, the uphill draft is very big. Surprisingly there were many houses beside the steeply street anyway. It was extremely hard to climb up. But the sight was impressingly.

At noon the sun was back at the sky and nearly all clouds were vanished.

I wonder that people are living at that steeply hill. They have to carry all goods, food, water, building material and other things up that hill to their houses without a car or so. I was told, that people used to live in that houses long before cars came to the island.

I’m still in paradise

Schreibe eine Antwort

I’m really in paradise. It’s warm – OK, it’s hot, but I like it. 2 to 3 times a day I’m having a shower. Sweat, salt water and sand are covering my skin. Using sun lotion at the beach gives me a natural peeling, so I don’t need to go to a beauty salon – luckily I never need to go to a beauty salon, ‚cause I’m male.
Every day we visit another beach at this island. We’re using rented bikes for getting to the beaches. The distances are short – maybe 3 or 4 km. But, nevertheless, my back hurts much. It’s not only because of I’m a bit out of shape and not fit – I don’t use a bike regular, so I’m quickly exhausted. The other reason for my hurts is, the bike, I got, was too small for me. On the second day the renter put another seat on my bike, so the seat was higher. With the higher seat it was easier for me to get up the hills. The highest hill is about 333m over the sea. If you think about the size of the island (3 km long and 2 km wide) you can imagine of the gradient of the streets. Also the bad condition of the streets with many road holes is a reason for my hurts and on many positions the roads are not affixed, but only trails or beat tracks – biking is not easy under such conditions, even if you got a tracking bike.
Another important fact is, here they don’t have street lights and also the bikes don’t have lights. The natives don’t care about this, they drive very quick and  risky. So be extremely careful when riding your bike after sunset.
If you love spiders, come on here: you can find spiders easily that are of the same size as your palm.
You can also find many geckos. Funny sounds are in the air. I don’t know if that are birds or other animals. Even it sounds like monkeys, I guess they are from birds or the flying dogs, a kind of bats. The flying dogs or flying foxes are flying even during the day. They are eating fruits. Unfortunately my shots are not the very best.