Wednesday – The Last Leaves
After an excellent lunch with my older brother and my parents in Switzerland I took a few Autumn images on the way to Germany. This tree is loosing its leaves fast as Autumn turns into Winter. And I will be leaving Europe in a few hours. See you next year!
I have only published one iPhone image per day on my travel blog. Some of you have asked me if these are all the pictures I took. Well, here are some of the EXTRAS.
Today, I will be flying back to South Africa. I am a bit sad of leaving Europe and my Family already, but I am also looking forward to getting back to South Africa and home to Thanda. I am planning to return in May 2016.
I hope you enjoyed this short travel blog, which turned a bit into a ‘great eating in Europe’ blog :-). It was interesting to work exclusively with my iPhone 6 Plus. It gives one a lot of freedom (not carrying a lot of equipment and having great editing tools instantly available), but it also showed me the limitations. A good experience.
I will post the last pictures of this trip this afternoon!
Friday – Sunset over Lake Sempach in Switzerland
Today I met with some of my friends from Switzerland in an Italian Restaurant in Zofingen for lunch before I did a photo shoot of the five month old son of very good friends of mine. In the evening I was invited to a delicious dinner at one of the most beautiful homes I have ever seen. Before the dinner I took this images of a few ducks swimming on Lake Sempach just after the sun had set.
More to come…
Thursday – Driving trough the Black Forest
Today was a relaxing day. Sleeping in – again – and then to town for a bit of shopping. After another great lunch at my parents’ place and a very quiet afternoon I am having dinner tonight with friends at a Greek restaurant in Bad Saeckingen, Germany. This picture was taken on my way home from town. I took a bit of a detour through the forest with all its autumn colors.
More to come …
I thought for a change I will create a short travel journal of my trip to Europe using one image per day, taken on my iPhone 6 Plus.
Day 1 – Tuesday – A view from a city tram in Basel, Switzerland.
My dad picked me up from Zurich airport in the early morning. After a bit of extra rest from the long flight and a delicious lunch at my parents’ home in Germany I traveled by train to Basel – one of the largest cities in Switzerland – where I meet with friends for dinner. This picture was taken from a city tram on the way from the train station to their house.
Day 2 – The Monastery of St.Urban
I slept in this morning – a novel experience after the last few weeks. This trip will turn into a gourmet eating festival :-). After another delicious lunch with friends in Lotzwil, Switzerland I drove to Zofingen, Switzerland, where I lived for eight years. This picture shows the Monastery of St.Urban, which is located on the road from Lotzwil to Zofingen. And for dinner my older brother invited me to a fabulous meal in one of my favorite restaurants in Zofingen – The Federal!
More to come …
I spent two days in the Swiss alps. A former colleague and good friend invited me to stay with him and his family in Innertkirchen, Kanton Berne. And he took time off work to show me around.
We had great fun taking very scenic tours. This picture was taken on the Grimsel pass where the last snow of the season was battling with the sun 🙂
Wolfgang took the picture above – me throwing a snowball in June!
The picture below shows Swiss alps “wild”life – cows in the mountains 🙂
Pictures by Wolfgang Sutter and Christian Sperka
I will be leaving for South Africa tomorrow evening, so I thought I post a few of the animal images I took at the Zurich Zoo. I have also included a picture of a stag which I took in a small local deer park.
I enjoyed my vacation in Europe – even if it was very cold and wet – and now I am looking forward to going back to the African bush 🙂
Oriental Short-clawed Otter
Indian Lion
Red Phanda
Egyptian Vulture
Panther Chameleon
Red Deer Stag
When working in a game reserve in South Africa one has many opportunities to take images of Lions, Leopards, Elephants, Giraffe, Zebra, …….
Going to a Zoo in Switzerland presented me with some – for me – unusual images.
The first image is of a baby Golden Lion Tamarin – my nieces thought that this little one was the cutest creature in the zoo. The second image is of an Elephant Shrew – one of the small five :-). The third is of a Carmine Bee-eater, one of my favorite birds.
I love the African Wild, but I also enjoy well run zoos! They have such an important role in education, research and conservation. They are an important “tool” to ensure that the 99% of mankind – who will never see the animals in their wild habitat – have an appreciation for the need to preserve nature.
The Golden Lion Tamarin is a small New World monkey. Native to the Atlantic coastal forests of Brazil it is an endangered species with an estimated wild population of approximately 1,000 individuals and a captive population maintained at approximately 490 individuals among 150 zoos.
Elephant Shrews are small insectivorous mammals native to Africa whose name comes from a “fancied resemblance” between their long noses and the trunk of an elephant, and an assumed relationship with the shrews in the order Insectivora.
The Carmine Bee-eater occurs across sub-equatorial Africa. This species, like other bee-eaters, is a richly colored,striking bird, predominantly carmine in coloration, but with the crown and under-tail coverts blue.
Well, this is not a blog about wildlife, but quite a few people have asked me what I am doing during my vacation in Germany and Switzerland. So, here is a short update:
Today I went to the premiere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the opera house in Zurich, Switzerland (see picture collage). It was a very modern interpretation. Half of the audience enjoyed the 3.5 hour opera and half of them “buuuhhh-ed” at the end. I was part of the first group 🙂
For more info about the opera go to http://www.opernhaus.ch/en/activity/detail/don-giovanni-26-05-2013/
The singing was superb, no matter how one thought about the staging and acting!
Besides getting a good rest and reading a lot, I am having lots of lunches and dinners with family and friends. I will also visit the Basel Zoo, the Zurich Zoo and the Wildlife Park in Arth Goldau (not to be without animals for too long 🙂
Watch out for more vacation blogs!
PS: I will be back at work on Thanda on 10 June 2013
After a my short visit to Germany and Switzerland I have arrived in South Africa.
The picture above is a first glance at my new home country shortly before the plane landed in Johannesburg. The weather was beautiful at my arrival – a good start!
For a few days I am staying with very good friends in Pretoria, sorting out the necessities of modern live (phone, car, … 🙂 before I will make my way to my new workplace – Thanda Private Game Reserve – in Kwazulu Natal.
The picture below documents my last look at a beautiful sunset in Zürich, Switzerland, before I boarded the plane to South Africa on Saturday evening.
More from South Africa soon ….
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