Around Nanjing

As spring turns to summer in Nanjing the trees are really looking great. The red maples in particular seem to be planted all over the city and make a spectacular splash of colour.

An earlier blog on Spring in Nanjing can be found here.

Going out recently we saw the light shining through this maple in our compound. It brought the tree to life! I pass it everyday and it doesn't look anywhere near as nice as it did when I took this photo. (Magic light is what photographers look for.)

I have put togther some collections of photos taken over the last 3 weekends around Nanjing. These can be found on my photo blog using the links below.

Our first early summer visit was to Mochouhu in the middle of the city.



The Lady of Mochouhu Lake



Dragon boat on Mochouhu lake

A collection of photos taken on this day at Mochouhu Lake can be found by clicking here.

Another warm sunny day was spent down at Xuanwu Lake. We have been there a number of times and always find something new that we hadn't seen before. Even though it was a warm sunny day, the sky was not blue - apology for the washed out skies.

City skyline from Xuanwu Lake

A quiet backwater on Xuanwu Lake

Click here to see more photos taken on this day at Xuanwu Lake.

Another weekend focussed on the Nanjing City Wall. Xuanwu Lake being outside the protection of the wall.

Purple Mountain from the city wall

Purple Mountain on the other side of Xuanwu Lake

More photos taken on this day can be found by clicking here.

The last in my series of around Nanjing photos were taken around the Fuzi Miao area late one Saturday afternoon and evening.

Canal boats by the Sculpting in Time cafe.

The Dragon Wall at Fuzi Miao

 More photos taken in and around the Fuzi Miao area can be found here.

Summer 2011 Switzerland 3

After a fantastic stay in Zermatt, our next stop was Montreux at the head of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) and a night in Glion before heading to Geneva itself.

Lake Geneva at Montreux

The head of Lake Geneva from Glion.

Moving on to Geneva after a short train ride from Montreux saw us with plenty of time to explore the waterfront. The Summer Festival was in full swing with several kilometres along the lake side set up with numerous rides, food stalls and entertainment.

What we didn't know was that the festival ended the next day with a fireworks display. There  were around 24 barges ready to be deployed on the lake.

Fireworks ready to go

The water jet is gravity fed from up in the nearby mountains.

Late afternoon.

Next day dawned brilliantly fine. A great opportunity to on the steamer Simplon for a hop on hop off day.

Fire works barges set out

SS Simplon departing Geneva

The immaculate steam engines look brand new.

Everything about the Simplon was in perfect condition
as shown by the ship's bell.

Many expensive residences line both sides of the lake in both
Switzerland and France.

The ship stopped at number of town along the way. Our main destination was the lovely medieval town of Yvoire in France. This can be seen in my blog on France from an earlier posting.

After a great visit to Yvoire it was time to board the ferry and head off back to Geneva, slowly though.

Versoix, one of the stops on the way back down the lake.

We didn't get off at Versoix but chose to stop off at Nyon further down the lake. It looked promising on the way up in the morning.

Nyon

Nyon with the canton flag flying over the castle.

Nyon

Just sailing in to Geneva one was fortunate that the clouds had parted enough so we could see Mont Blanc.

Mont Blanc from Lake Geneva

After getting off the Simplon we had time to get back to the hotel for an hour before finding a restaurant before heading back to the lake front for the fireworks to end the Summer festival. We have seen fire works shows before but this was something different! Set to 5 different Italian Opera themes this was spell binding. At one point the program was stopped at the end of one scene to let the smoke clear. Words can not adequately describe this spectacle.

The final part of the finale consisted of the full length of the waterfront (about 1.5 km long) exploding into a continuous show of light and deafening sound for a full 5 minutes. You haven't seen a decent fireworks display until you have been the end of the Summer Festival in Geneva!

Geneva is the headquarters for the Red Cross and also has United Nations offices here as well.

The big chair

Red Cross HQ and museum.



Meeting room at the United Nations, Geneva.

Geneva from a church tower.

After a few busy days in Geneva our next stop was back to Abu Dhabi for 2 days before the move to China. Today I have asked my travel agent to book us out of here to Kuala Lumpur then on to Brisbane before heading back to New Zealand. Our overseas adventures are fast fast drawing to a close. By the time we finally get back home, it will be nearly seven years since we left on our second OE!

Summer 2011 Switzerland 2

It is now 18 months since we were in Switzerland and the first blog has long since been posted. I promised then to complete an account of the rest of our trip to this marvellous mountain country.

The first blog in Switzerland saw us going up to Gornegrat from Zermatt to catch some magnificent views of The Alps and The Matterhorn of course on 9 August 2011. We now pick up from the next day when went all the way to the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise. Several express cable cars with convenient stop offs on the way back made for a memorable day to say the least.

The Matterhorn from Zermatt

This is an early morning shot taken in Zermatt. We were to get much closer to this iconic mountain and also see it from different angles which most people would not recognise. Several cable cars to you up to the permanent snowfields higher than the top of Mount Cook in New Zealand.

Farmhouse from the cable car just out of Zermatt.

The buildings where you step out onto the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise.

Stepping out of the cable car you go into the terminal building and then climb the stairs up to the top on Klein Matterhorn for the most amazing views and the obligatory photo!

As high as you can go without climbing! The Matterhorn is to the right.

There was quite a stiff breeze blowing so the hoods on the parkas were a necessity. Gloves would have been useful too.

There is an all year round ski field up the top here where several international ski teams were in summer training.

Off to the right in the above photo were ski runs leading down to Italy.

In the winter you can ski down to a village in Italy here.

As well as summer skiing, ice climbing over the glaciers and up the mountains is popular. Straight out of the car car and a few metres later it's time to put on the crampons. The Breithorn has some well worn trails for a day's climbing.

The Breithorn

There would have been around 200 climbers roped up and digging their crampons in and swinging their ice axes here.

The Breithorn

Many more climbers were out on the ice fields below as we passed over in the cable car. Lots of snow caves were seen too. Not sure how many would walk form Zermatt though.

The Matterhorn

Seen from Klein Matterhorn, the Matterhorn itself presents a different angle to the one traditionally seen like the first one in this blog.

Away in the distance is another very distinctive peak. Lugging my long lens with me yielded this shot of Mont Blanc which we had got up closer to earlier in this trip.

Mont Blanc

Having spent a few hours as far as we could go, it was down to where we could stop off for a while and take in some more scenery. First stop on the way back was Trockener Steg.

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The Matterhorn from Trockener Steg

This cable car station caters for a winter ski field. It is around 1,200m lower than Klein Matterhorn and shows evidence of recently retreating glaciers in that there is just bare rock exposed here. There is a rough road all the way up here which brings in building supplies. The helicopter here was taking buckets of concrete further up into the mountains way past Klein Matterhorn and The Breithorn.

Next stop down was Furgg at the base of The Matterhorn. This is below the glacier line and so we were able to enjoy several hours here in the high alpine meadows.

The Matterhorn Express gondola at Furgg

We stopped here for around 3 hours for lunch and to explore the base of the Matterhorn.

Alpine tarn

The track here leads to one hut which can be clearly seen. Beyond and just visible on a rocky knob is another hut which climbers use for their climb up the centre ridge of the Matterhorn.

Further down we alighted at Furi to join a path leading back to Zermatt.

Furi



Furi



Hay making between Furi and Zermatt

I couldn't resist one last look at The Matterhorn on the way back to Zermatt after a fantastic day out!

All good things come to and end so it was with some regret that we packed up the next day and headed off to the station for the train down the valley to Visp then another around to Montreux on the shores of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva).

Alphorn players to entertain us whilst waiting the for the train to Visp

Next stop was Montreux and then onto Geneva. I have too many photos and much to write about to include this here so will write another blog soon called Switzerland 3.