A Winter Tour of Switzerland - Take Six – Train and bus ride to the Gurnigel Area (Bern-Fribourg Alps)

Guess what? This is the final instalment in a series of posts featuring Swiss scenery at the end of last December/beginning of January. My friend M.B.'s last full day visiting was to take us by train to Schwarzenburg and from there by postbus to Gurnigel via Schwefelbergbad. It was a less than perfect morning, but beautiful enough. And up at Gurnigel the sky streaked with foehn cirrus and contrails actually provided some spectacular views without completely obstructing the peaks nearby and in the distance.
M. and I were kitted out for the weather and the snowy ground: good boots, warm windproof jackets, warm gloves and caps; walking poles; good quality goggles to protect the eyes from the glare (too much exposure and you can get snow blind, even at this rather moderate altitude; too many episodes of snowblindness may lead to cataracts in later life). I'd brought some food and water for a picknick. The plan was to take a leisurely walk in the snow, one of those many "Granny hikes" one can take in the Gurnigel area; have a bite to eat in the sun; and come back down to the Gurnigel restaurant in time for dessert and coffee before catching a postbus down to Thurnen, where we would have a fairly good connection to the train back to Bern. And that's how we did it. Perfect!
Brilliant! We're enjoying a lovely, even almost warm day in the sun, while the Mittelland and Lakes Thun/Brienz languish beneath a thick layer of cloud, the Nebelmeer (sea of fog).The sun produced a bit of a halo or mini-rainbow in the cirrus above the Nuenenen. To the left, the aptly named Krummfadenfluh (the Crag of the Twisted Twine).
The white peak below and in front of the Nuenenen is the Bire, very popular with "skinny skiers", ski hikers out for a quick run up and down that easy mountain.Stierenberg. Time for our lunch break.View from Stierenberg, ca. 1650 m asl. (There's a fantastic photo from the same area, but taken a little over a year earlier, at http://www.fotouristen.de/foto/21162/ist=date&cf=Lw==&bl_save=1 -- well worth a visit!)
It's a very popular area, with tracks prepared for traditional cross-country skiing and ski skating. Kids and dogs don't have a lot of respect for the tracks, though. Not sure I want to go there on a Sunday to do any serious cross-country skiing.The sun is almost gone.
Gantrisch (left), Nuenenen (centre), Ochsen (dark peak, right).
Further west, some of the Fribourg Alps; I'm not very familiar with that range, or with the names of individual peaks.
We're heading back to Gurnigel Berghaus, but take a quick detour into the woodland below, where a surprise awaits us:
It's the teepee set up by Berg-Event, the local snowshoeing guides I featured in my post of December 22, 2007 (see also http://www.berg-event.ch/html/sch-tage_w_gantrisch.html). A few steps ...
... to enjoy one last look at one of my favourite mountain ranges anywhere.
And then it's back to the Berghaus for that dessert:
Ah, yes, that was exactly what we had planned: a huge meringue and coffee. We shared this one...
The sun dips down beyond the Fribourg Alps as we stand waiting for the postbus to take us down into the "normal" world:
It just so happened that on the bus we sat next to a young father with his very young baby. We were deeply impressed by the way he soothed and pacified the infant during a fairly long drive downhill and with many bends in the road. The baby's Mum must have had a good, long break -- good for her!
And on the train back into town, I chanced to meet a friend from college, the leftwing political activist Ron Ganzfried of the Grünes Bündnis Bern, whose example encouraged and inspired me all those years ago to become politically active, albeit in a much more modest way than he. It was good to chat and catch up, Ron!

The next day, M. bought her last bus ticket at the stop near my house.
Farewell, my friend, travel safely. Here's hoping we'll meet again very soon!
And may you, dear Reader of this blog, come back soon to enjoy some more photo souvenirs of Switzerland, Bern, and Scotland. :)

A Winter Tour of Switzerland, Take Five – A visit around Bern and a trip to Münsingen

Hello again!
Sorry, it's been a while. I was maxed out with work before taking myself off for a quick visit to Oban in Scotland (photos of that trip later). I went to see a friend before she takes herself off on a six-week voluntary stint at an orphanage in Malawi, Africa. How cool and committed is that?! Travel safely, M.C., and have a great time. I look forward to swapping notes once you're back.
But now, a look back at the first day of this year, which saw me and my English friend M.B. -- yes, I do have a lot of friends and family members who share the same initial M. for our first names -- taking a bus out to Zentrum Paul Klee.
We got off the bus one stop early, which is where the Alps and the three parabolas of ZPK can be seen to their best advantage. Here is M. taking a photo of the view. The weather was quite misty, pretty cold, too.
An old barn "decorated" with graffitti; the first "hill" of ZPK rises bottom right. In the background, left, the Bantiger with its communications tower.
A pretty dismal day, the Alps not very visible on the horizon, and the sun struggling to penetrate the cloud layer.
Later, M. and I took the train up the the Aare valley to Münsingen. That's where one of my brothers lives with his family. My lovely sister-in-law, M.A., is Colombian by birth, and she had some of her family visiting. Absolutely wonderful people, whom it was great to see after quite a long time.
Here are some photos of the sky at sunset on January 1st, 2008, above the floodplain between the railway line and the Aare river at Münsingen. Stunning, or what?
Impressions of an exquisite spread laid on for us. Fantastic finger food "a la Colombia-Suiza", presented by the hostess and her daughter, my lovely niece. My friend is speechless ... ;)

Dessert:

Experimental pix, sky pix, electric storm pix

(Oct. 04)

Hi there

You've found your way to a series of experimental photographs. I have pocket-size cameras -- manual, hybrid, digital (details at the end, and maybe later) -- but no tripod, which makes for some interesting effects, especially at night.

Let's start at dawn:

(Oct. 13, 04)

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The full moon causes sleeplessness -- I'm an inveterate insomniac and enjoy those nights full of light.
Here are some pix taken in 2003/2004/2006:

(It was a very cold December night in 2003. My camera lens clouded over when
I took the above two pix through an open window.)

(Dec. 03)

(Mar. 04)

One July night in 2004, I gladly went without sleep as the sky was just too spectacular:
(all of the above: July 04)
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On another night in July 04 (it may have been the same night as the above) an electric storm in clouds high above the ground in the northern sky held me spellbound. The storm must have been quite a long way off because I could hear no thunder, just see the lightning tumbling about inside the cloud, occasionally shooting a bolt downwards or sideways. Never seen anything like it. Of course, my poor little manual camera was woefully inadequate for the occasion, but some images may still catch your fancy (I took about thirty over a fifteen-minute period or even longer):

******

(no comment, except July 04)

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See how the full moon rose one night in December 05:
At about 4AM on June 22, 06, there was just the thinnest sliver of moon in the black south-eastern sky (going out on a limb here -- click on the image for an enlarged view and you might, just might see the moon):
Moments later, I took this photo of the nearby teaching hospital and a construction crane -- lit up like a squashed Xmas tree for visibility -- sending out their rays of light to the south-west:

***

Cameras/film:
• Digital fist-size camera: Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC50, Leica DC vario lens, 35mm equiv., 9x Digital Zoom, 35-105, 3x optical, 3.2 Mega Pixels
• Autofocus/autolight pocket-size camera: Canon IXUS II; Canon zoom lens f=23-46 mm 1:4.2–5.6; APS colour film, 200 ASA
• Manual pocket-size camera: Olympus XA with back light function, no flash; Olympus F•Zuiko lens f=35mm 1:2.8; traditional colour film, usually 400 ASA