All posts in Holiday

21Feb

impressions of Friuli

In europe, Fuji X-E1, Fuji X-Pro 1, General, Holiday by admin / 20160221 / Comments are closed

friuli neither is the most impressive nor the most visted part of italy, but definitely has it’s own character, secrets to be uncovered, plenty of history and culture and offers beautiness for those, who are willing to take a second look.

most people don’t pay any attention to the beautiful lake of cavazzo, they just rush along the motorway to reach the adriatic beaches. they miss a piece of jewellery called venzone – hit hard by earthquakes in the past (1976) and rebuilt originally brick by brick. cozy village with a lovely shop for lavender based-products and frightful, curious mummies to visit in the crypta of san michele.

we made a short side trip to the fortezza di osoppo, after all world war one had it’s centenary recently and the historic fight places between the austrian hungary and the italian military are still very present as well as he fortification used in these days. he fortezza turned out to be a lovely green and restful place to stay with a nice cafe. offering a great view to the surroundings.

next stop san daniele del friuli, well known for the famous prosciutto. interesting to see how how professional & touristic the big companies act along the sr463 in terms of marketing & selling their products. we turned away from those crowdy places towards the magnificent frescos inside the chapel sant antonio abate and enjoyed silence and wonderfully lit, intense colors of the frescos.

following the river tagliamento downstream we reach villa manin (gallery) near codroipo, the residence of the last doge of venice – lodovico manin. this historic building even hosted napolean bonaparte, who commented on the palace the following sentence bon mot: to big for an earl, but too small for a king :)

a few kilometres to the east lies palmanova, a unique star-shaped city designed at the drawing-board, once built as a supporting base for venice and fortress against the turk. nowadays more known for a huge shopping center in front of city.

as we head on to direction “mare” (the sea) we pass aquilea, once the biggest city in italy and today well known for its art treasures like the mosaic in the cathedral. we also enjoyed the sweets served in the cafe near the cathedral as well as a truly recommendable museum dedicated to the story of pinocchio.

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on the way to trieste it’s mandatory to stop gradisca d’isonzo, a really pretty village well suited as a base for visiting all the historic places of world war one, which are located along the river isonzo. this includes a trip up the monte san michele, a small hill, from which one can enjoy a wonderful clear view of the surroundings up o the alps in the north. it’s so quiet an peacful up there that all the cruelties of the famous isonzo-battles are hardly to imagine. in a short footwalk around the top of the “monte” those deaf witnesses of the grimly fights 100 years ago – the emplacements and caves of the austrian and italian military – can be visited.

Sacrario Militare di Redipuglia
the fascistic monument in redpipuglia – errected during mussolini’s dictatorship – for the italien soldiers, plays in class of it’s own compared to the austrian-hungarian graveyard, which is located one km to the north of redipuglia. the sunset in the evening during my visit gave it an almost unreal though peaceful paint, covering the monument’s hard and bombastic character.

heading direction trieste on the magnificent coastal road ss14, along the carso, miramare palace, faro della vittorio, grotta gigante, …, so much to visit, so less time…

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of course we stopped in udine on our way home, a strange place, which felt like a relict of medevial times – dark and threatening.

enjoy my friuli-selection in the gallery :)

02Jul

graffiti of Interneppo, Bordano & Gemona

In graffiti, Holiday by admin / 20150702 / Comments are closed

Von kärnten kommend brausen die urlaubsmassen auf der friulanischen autostrada A23 durch das majestätische kanaltal der karnisch-julischen alpen richtung flachland – sonne, sand & meer respektive lignano, caorle und jesolo heißen die heißbegehrten ziele aller sonnenhungrigen, dass es schnellmöglichst zu erreichen gilt – ungeachtet der schönheit des oberen friauls.

coming from carinthia most sun hungry austrian rush along the autostrada A23 to quickly reach the upper adriatic beaches named ligniano, jesolo and caorle, leaving beside the wild beautiness of the upper friuli.

So ist es auch nicht verwunderlich, dass niemand von der wilden romantik des türkisblauen lago di cavazzo wahrnimmt und noch weniger von den leidvollen geschichte dieser region im ersten weltkrieg sowie des furchtbaren erdbebens am 6. mai 1976, dessen epizentrum vom direkt am see angrenzenden berg san simeone ausging und die dörfer interneppo, bordano sowie venzone vollständig zerstörte. als symbol der erneuerung und als hoffnung an eine erneute metamorhose der region wählten künstler die in dieser region heimischen farfalle (schmetterlinge) als ziermotiv für häuserwände. zudem findet sich in einer kehre der verbindungsstrasse bordano- interneppo eine hommage an italienische radsportgrößen.

so they don’t take any notice of the magic of the turqoise lake lago di cavazzo and the woebegone history of this region in first world war as well as the terrible earthquake, which happened on 6th may 1976 and destroyed the nearby villages interneppo, bordone and venzone, in which you can find beautiful butterflies painted on the houses as well as a painting of the all-time-stars of italien cycling.

das nur ein paar kilometer weiter südlich gelegene gemona besuchten wir kurz wegen des doms und des neuen, wiedererrichteten campanile, der ebenfalls ein ofer des erdbebens wurde. bei der weiterfahrt entdeckte ich in der nähe des bahnhofs ein paar tolle graffiti, bei denen ich nicht umhin kam, sie fotografisch festzuhalten. viel spaß beim betrachten dieser kunstwerke in meiner gallerie.

a few kilometres south we had a short break in gemona for visiting the cathedral and the newly errected campanile (tower), which has been destroyed during the quake, and discovered som really nice paintings / graffiti nearby the railway station. enjoy the artistic ideas behind them watching the pictures in my gallery.

16Jun

lokwelt freilassing

In Fuji X-E1, Fuji X-Pro 1, Holiday, Shooting by admin / 20150616 / Comments are closed

vistiting the lokwelt in freilassing happened a little bit per accident – during a short visit of my wife in salzburg i picked up a parcel at LogoiX (which offers very useful postal services eg. a german mail address for austrian citizens) and fell across a sign pointing me to the lokwelt. having had enough time and showing a passion for old trains i was curious enough to give them a short stop and haven’t been disappointed.
once a very important railway station during the past century – even for the railway station of salzburg – freilassing’s station lost function year by year and finally was closed in 1998 through the DB (deutsche bahn = german railway). luckily the beautiful engine shed was put under monument protection and got refurbished by the local railway association, now hosting a museum with several lovely (steam) trains. you can find a short list of all exhibits at the homepage of the lokwelt.

the stop of an old steam train during my visit in the museum was a nice extra bonus and i could watch the 360°-turning platform in action :)

although i never felt “being out of light” inside the engine shed, my x-pro 1 & e-1 really had to struggle in terms of iso-sensitivity. having had “auto-iso” enabled resulted in many pictures with iso 3200 and 6400 – still with more than usable output once more showing what capable high-iso performers these two x-trans-cams are, respect!

so it’s time to take a virtual walk through the engine shed in my gallery and enjoy these fine technical pieces of human inventive genius.

31Dec

scotland

In Fuji X-Pro 1, Holiday by admin / 20141231 / No Comments

well I know – this draft didn’t get posted for the last year, for whatever reasons (lack of time of course). but now it’s time to press the “publish-button”, alone for the sake of keeping the order of pictures an posts in a sequence – although with a big time gap – but who cares? better now than never!

-*-*-*-

ever felt of knowing a country although you’ve never been there? well, this was the case with scotland.
of course i have been there for several times – virtually ;-)
through films and with the help of books i established quite a good estimation of how it would feel – and well, what can i say – it even felt better :)

mostly nice weather (central europe sweating near the 40° border), friendly people, plenty of history history, tremendous landscapes, suprisingly really good food in cosy and wee restaurants and some unexpected, country specific peculiarties accompanied our trip – what more could you expect?

from a photographer’s perspective i remember being scotland a canon dslr dominated place, only a hand-few nikons, vastly no mirrorless. why? and most tourists were scots themselves, so no excuses here.
secondly i had to lough about the signs indicating speed cams, this memorable picture of an old fashioned camera model really made me smile.

12 days just gave us an overview about this beautiful country and more than once my heart was bleeding because we had to move further from a region touching me emotionally, just to fulfill our preplanned tour.
on the other side individual tourism is hard to practise in scotland, since it is nearly impossible to occupy a room during high season spontanously – everywhere we dared to ask in the tourist office the clerks stared at us faithlessly.. if we didn’t know that.. and why we haven’t made any reservation.. well, too many people for too less beds.

we enjoyed the already crowdy edinburgh a few days before the fringe festival, an exciting city built on different topgraphic levels with far the highest density of buses in kingston road ever seen so far. we were overwhelmed by the spectacular firth of forth bridge, spent a lovely day in cairngorn national park, took a trip with the ancient strathspey steam train, walked along the river ness in inverness watching the sunset, passed the dark and windy loch ness (don’t miss the entertaining loch ness visitor center), felt the pouring rain at the eilean donan castle and set over to sky with direction portree.

the isle of skye really was a magical place to be visiting the beautiful landscape with the old man of storr, passin the quiraing, hikibk in the black cuillins, taking pictures of the fairy pools, etc. – only the crowdy tour at the tallisker whisky destillery was disappointing – demystifying one of my favourite single malt. well, next time, let’s visit islay :-)

the area between mallaig, fort william and glen cloe was nothing less than stunning. a wonderful coast, glennfinnan and the jacobite train, the mountains, these intense colours due to the changing light every minute, calm lochs in an untoched and healthy environement acting as mirrors for kitschy sunsets and clouds passing. magic moments in a magic landscape with hospitable scots – more than enough energie to refill one’s batteries.

reaching loch lomond an everthing changed again (a little bit back to normality). the landscape gets smoother, the people less understandable due to this nice dialect spoken araound glasgow. the owner of our b&b was a very communicative person, but i needed a day to get used to the different pronounciation to understand a bit of the content of his stories.

the scottish independence poll passed and time moves on! we’ll meet again scotland, soon.

now it’s time to invite you to watch my scotland pictures in the gallery

part one – the city of edinburgh
part two – aviemore & inverness
part three – the isle of skye
part four – mallaig & glencoe
last part – loch lomond & the falkirk wheel

enjoy!

28Oct

views of berlin

In Fuji X-Pro 1, Holiday by admin / 20131028 / No Comments

berlin really is a fascination of it’s own.

I first fell in love with this city during a 5-day-stay back in 2010, when I visited microsoft’s tech ed conference. sadly I had little time during daylight to explore this city, so I promised myself to return soon. during our ski holidays in 2011 we got to know a couple from berlin and stayed in contact since then, which opened up the window for a 3 day visit of my wife after easter in the year after – an opportunity I missed due to a scheduling conflict :(

so we had to come back this year in early summer and enjoyed rain and sun both together. returning to already known places (alex, main station, government district, ..) went along with exploring new sites (tempelhof airfield, pergamon museum, kreuzberg-district, “oberbaum”-bridge, boat trip on the river spree, berlin wall).

it’s the unique combination of new urban life and architecture with the monuments of history, this cultural mixture of it’s inhabitants and crowdy tourists, a neverending, permanent reinvention of districts and areas, which condenses to an incomparable location and generates this unique feeling of having seen not only one sole, but many different cities at once. I never missed the mountains & hills of my home town for a second, although berlin really is embedded in a flat countryside.

berlin – a photographer’s dream! it doesn’t matter if you’re more attracted by humans or patterns and geometry – as I am – if you like it more historic or if you admire avant-garde, you can have it all – no need to decide!
so let me take you through a journey of expressive pictures here – all taken with my fuji x-pro 1 with the xf18-55 zoom. I really like the image quality of the x-trans-sensor. pictures were taken with filmsimulation set to astia and developed in corel aftershot with the help of Sean Pucketts fabulous plugin nostalgia. ironically I really prefer the fuji films settings (astia, provia, sensia and some times velvia :-)

06Oct

impressions from würzburg

In Holiday by admin / 20131006 / No Comments

I attended a conference in würzburg this spring and decided to last for two days longer to explore all the sightseeings this nice city has to offer.
personally I really enjoy staying in cities surrounded by wine, since (quality!)drinking mostly goes hand in hand with good food. in addition people seem to be more relaxed and culture in general seems to be more important to the inhabitants.
würzburg has a long and rich history witnessed by the fortress marienberg and würzbzrg residence along some highly valued wineyards like the famous würzburger stein for wines made from the grape sylvaner – all in all perfect conditions for a nice stay.

and indeed we had a great time during sightseeing, enjoying most

sitting at the water’s edge along the river main – between the “old crane” and “old main bridge”,
the magnificent viewpoint to the city on half way to the fortress and of course the sturdy fortress marienberg itself,
spending the evening at the cafe “schönborn” in front of the beatiful “falkenhaus” (house of the falcon) enjoying relaxed bar jazz played by students from germany’s oldest music university,
the residence with it’s really incredible self-supporting roof (a guided tour is an absolutely must!) and
the beautiful courtyard and garden of the juliusspital

the clou: everything in this city is within a comfortable walking distance and two days are sufficient to get an first impression of this cosy town. so enjoy a walk with me through the pics found in my gallery.

12Aug

Les Courses Camarguaises

In Event, Holiday, Nikon D80 by admin / 20130812 / Comments are closed

i regard the bloody spanish bullfight as really disgusting since we once watched young torreros crucifiying the bull. besides that it came clear to my mind, that the bull has no chance at all, it is far away from being a fight between men and animal at eye level.

rescue of our hearts and mood came from watching a course camarquaises in a small village named fontvieilles, where the real hero of the unbloody fight is the bull, which always keeps his life:-)

goal of game is, that the fightors – the razeteurs – collect tessels, which are hidden between the bulls horns.

der spanische stierkampf ist nicht jedermanns sache – auch meine nicht. ich denke noch mit schaudern an einen viele jahre zurückliegenden corrida de toros in arles, bei dem nachwuchstorreros ein furchtbares spiel mit mutigen stieren trieben und durch ihre unerfarenheit den tieren unsagbares leid zufügten. zudem wurde mir damals klar, dass es eben kein kampf auf augenhöhe zwischen tier und mensch ist, sondern dass im ersten und zweiten teil der corrida der stier bereits so geschwächt wirde, dass es für die tiere unmöglich wird, dem torrero noch adequat paroli zu bieten.

zum glück kamen wir damals auch in ein kleines provencalisches dorf namens fontvieilles, in der wir eine sternstunde hinsichtlich stierkampf erlebten, indem wir einer course camarquaises beiwohnten, der form des provencalischen stierkampfes, bei dem das tier der eigentliche held der aufführung ist und bei der auch im gegensatz zur spanischen version nicht der torrero angekündigt wird, sondern der stier :-)

die jungen burschen des dorfes gaben sich die ehre, den auserwählten damen ihren mut und ihre fertigkeit gegenüber dem stier zu beweisen. damit keine ernsthaften verletzungen passieren, trägt jeder stier metallkugeln auf seinen hörnern.
je stier haben die razeteur gennanten männer 15 minuten zeit, ihm zwischen den hörnern befestigte quasten – den cocardes – mit haken – den crocettes – zu entwenden. dies geschieht immer durch ein bestimmtes muster, bei dem die tourneurs – wörtlich: (stier um)dreher – versuchen, den stier so zu wenden und in position zu bringen, dass ein razeteur von hinten tangential am stier vorbeiläuft und ihm mit der crochet eine quaste entreissen kann. dabei springen die razeteurs über die bande, um sich vor dem hinterherlaufendem stier in sicherheit zu bringen – dies ermöglicht spektakuläre bilder, denn manchal springen die wilden stiere einfach auch hinterher :-)

winner is the one, who collects the most of the so called cocardes (the tessels) and so wins beside the money also the heart of the local women.the following pictures were taken during our 2012 summer holiday in south france in the magnificent amphiteatre of arles – cultural heritage of the unesco with a capacity for 25000 spectators.

See more pictures here in the gallery..

pro errungene cocard gibt es einen geldpreis, der sich mit fortlaufender zeitdauer erhöht. sieger ist, wer dem stier die meisten quasten entreißt.

die nachfolgenden bilder (hier in der gallerie) entstammen unserem südfrankreich urlaub vom sommer 2012 und entstanden im herrlichen amphitheater von arles – weltkulturerbe der unesco mit einem fassungsvermögen für 25000 zuschauer – mit einer nikon d80.