I allowed myself a 4-day short vacation in Switzerland this year. While my parents, my younger brother and my sister were already on vacation there I joined them on wednesday last week.
On thursday my brother and I decided to have a ride in his Prius this day. First we tried a road close to the village were we stayed (Albinen). We drove as high as possible and finished just ahead of a melking station at 2330m. The car of my brother was dirty as hell after that because of all that cow doo around After that we drove to the Mattmark reservoir to have a hike around it. One tunnel around that lake gives one a near-death experience because one only sees the end of the tunnel ahead while the tunnel itself isn’t lighted. I had the feeling walking throuhg a giant dark hall. Amazing!
On friday I wanted to hike to the Geisspfadsee area in the Binn valley. My brother decided to join me. The climb is really heavy at the beginning but gets flatter in the middle section. The last 400 height meters are quite hard again but the view is amazing from up there. At the height of 2550m we were climbing and hopping from one block to the next each of them several meters in diameter. Heavy work when you’re not born at the top of the Kilimanjaro But it was fun.
Although the hike on friday was really strenuous I couldn’t lie around on Saturday and started to a pass tour. My sister decided to accompany me. We drove above the Nufenenpass, the Gotthardpass and with a detour to the Göscheneralp lake over the Furkapass later that day. Although the distances in Switzerland are not that big one needs hours for several kilometers.
On my last day in Switzerland almost the whole family (my brother met his girl friend at the station in Freiburg/Breisgau on saturday) without my sister started for the Aare chasm. The micro climate in this amazing geological formation is great. Wet and cool. I could live there if there wouldn’t be so many tourists

Last week I went for four days to Switzerland to visit my family who had a three week holiday there. Because I wanted to not use the autobahn, I decided to buy a navigation system which had to lead me through Switzerland. At first I wanted to buy a Navigon but they are quite expensive and so I took a Falk M6. I wanted to have one where I could put in geographic coordinates and with most of the maps in Europe.
The operation of the navi is pretty easy. All steps are simple and logical. At least for me it is The route is calculated very fast and if you miss a turn the navi has calculated a detour instantly. The announcements are easily understandable and spoken enough in advance.
But there is not only light. The navi crashed two times and only a hard reset (switching a slider on the back of the navi) would do the trick. Of course the route had to be set up again after the reset but that’s not that hard
Especially in areas with lots of streets the navi gets confused and in serpentines it sometimes thinks you are on the back. And like all navis it has it’s suicidal tendencies. Announcing to turn left or right on mountain passes or suggest to turn around at the center of a bridge. Not always are the suggestion useful. And the driver has to think carefully when guided.
Nevertheless it is a good navigation system. It is fast, the touch display is very good and the three dimensional view gives a good idea of the route to come.

Time flies… this is horrible! My daily procedure looks almost like an hourly procedure. I remember coming home from the fantastic vacation Norway like it was yesterday.
Nevertheless we are making progress. Yesterday we (4) were consulting a lawyer to be sure what kind of company we have to found. It looks like a GmbH is the right business form for us due to the fact that we are covering very different parts of the business we are trying to do. In addition in a GmbH one has not to take responsibility with its own capital. Nevertheless the foundation of a GmbH is a very expensive process. We hope to get at least a credit for the start. Some kind of funding is very welcome

To produce better pictures especially in twilight when the sun is already down or not risen I need a blue filter to reduce the annoying blue cast. When there is snow the blue cast is extreme as can be seen on this picture. And to reduce reflections on water surfaces I’ll need an polarization filter. And to prevent the lenses from being damaged by (salt) water I’ll use a UV-Filter in front of them. A better set of lenses would be great but I’ve to say that the set I have is ok. A telephoto lens is hard to hold still in darker surroundings. Using a telephoto would result in using a tripod as well. That’s for the camera/picture part.

What I missed most was some kind of fitness. Although it is quite difficult to camp in a tent in fall it is great fun in the snow. But to do this and to visit far-off sites a better fitness is required. I already started jogging and bought a Zen Stone. Listening to Amorphis, Arcturus, Keep of Kalessin, Moonsorrow etc while jogging proves to be more fun than without it

The last whole day of our vacation begun just brilliantly. The weather was splendid and so we decided to stay one night longer and to drive to the Hardangervidda. It prooved to be right that we drove through the mist the day before to Gol. This day reminded me on the first day of the vacation when we landed in Bamble.

But first we visited the local tourist center. We tried to get some kind of hiking map of the Hardangervidda. We not only got a very good hiking map, but also a hiking guide of the DNT.

Before we hitted the road, we visited the Gol stave church. This one is a replica because the original one was demolished and transported to the open air museum of king Oscar II. near Oslo. They demolished the old church because they wanted to build a new one (this one). No wonder it looked so well preserved

After meeting some nice Swabians we drove in the direction to Hardangervidda. The closer we got the cloudier it was there. On the Hardangervidda there blew a strong wind. Also there was plenty of fresh snow. Hiking under these circumstances and this “fit” that I am is not such a good idea.

The Hardangervidda is a strange place. No trees, shrubs etc. No wonder because this plateau is the largest one whole Europe with it’s own alpine climate through the year.

The next stop after this plateau was a water fall called Vøringfossen. It is the most visited waterfall in Norway, according to Wikipedia. The platform above the waterfall is impressive. One can just jump down the valley if one desires. Also a false step would do the same to you. Nothing for acrophobic people. We than wanted to hike to the small plateau on the foot of the waterfall. One has to cross a huge rock fall deposit. On this deposit there lays a truck wreck. This is truly not unexpected because the common Norwegian truck driver drives like insane.

The bridge over the Bjoreia river was closed due to some damage. That was too sad because I really wanted to stay below the waterfalls

On the way back to the hytta we stopped at another stave church. This time in Torpo. This church has a roof made of rock (mica schist as it looked).

This concludes the story of my too short vacation in Norway in September/October 2008. It was a very pleasant and refreshing vacation with every kind of weather except heat The time flew like on the run. It was a very intense vacation with so much to see that one has to take pictures to reprocess the impressions. There were plenty of opportunities left. Especially hikings and camping in the tent. This was definitely not my last vacation in Norway. Or as Schwarzenegger said: Aill bii back

This morning I had a mind to take an ice cold shower. This way I recovered in seconds

The weather looked awful. It rained cats and dogs. We decided to make for home. But before we did that we drove from Gaupne to the Urnes Stavkirke. This stave church dates back from the 12th century. Actually the church is not so pretty but on one wall the church has a very impressive wood carving. The Urnes Stavkirke is a World Heritage Site listed by the UNESCO.

From Urnes there is a ferry by which one can save much time when using it instead of driving along the Lustrafjord back. The road from Skjolden to Urnes is about 30km long and most times very small. I wonder how much traffic there is in summer. Nevertheless we wanted to cross over the Lustrafjord with the ferry but we had to wait almost 3 hours. So we had to drive back to Gaupne and from there going back home.

Occasionally I really love rainy days but when struggling almost every day with rain it gets boring. On the way home we stopped at the Borgund Stavkirke. The most famous stavkirke in Norway because of its high detail and sound condition. In fall the church looks very pretty with all the yellow leaved birches in the background. I wonder how it looks in winter

On the way we halted on a parking lot which was close to the Øye Stavkirke. That church prooved that not every stave church has to have a bell tower.

Soon we recognized that we wouldn’t make it home that day and kept our eyes open for a camping ground. Because of the unfavourable weather we didn’t choose the option of using the tent. Although it would be great to sleep outside with fresh air around ones nose. The first two camping grounds we had a look at weren’t very convincing. In Fagernes we decided to travel to the Plus Camping ground in Gol. After announcing our coming by cell phone we went to Gol. But not without poking about in a fog with a range of vision of about 10m and less. Although it’s only 50km from Fagernes to Gol we needed almost one and a half hour. Now I know why they call it heavy fog.

The Plus Camping ground in Gol is big. Big means huge. I guess from the most northerly to the most southerly point it’s more than 500m. The hytta we got was also big. There were place for at least three times as much space as we needed.

After a decent breakfast with pancakes and a pleasant night before we decided to drive to Jotunheimen. The weather looked pretty positive. That doesn’t mean the sun came out. It means it didn’t rain

The way from the Nore Fjordsenter Plus Camping in Bryggja to the Sandvik Plus Camping in Gaupne is pretty long. Especially when one gets on the way pretty late due to sleeping in late. We tried to get to Sogndal before 1600 to get some information from the local tourist center. But the tourist center prooved to be a map on a chart. Nothing more and nothing less.

On the way to Sogndal we had to pass two tunnels which were a toll road. This was the most expensive toll road we had to use on the whole vacation. Something about 40€.

One can imagine that our mood was not pretty well after the expensive toll road and the “tourist center” in Sogndal. But for luck everything with the hytta succeeded very well.

Though we had some time we drove to the Nigardsbreen, one of the famous glacier in Jotunheimen national park. Julia played a good prank on me that day. She said because she was already at this glacier in May this year I had to go to the glacier alone. In my simplicity I accepted that as true and went to the glacier. I almost ran because I didn’t wanted her to wait to long. I got lost on the way because I went on an old way flag which ended somewhere.

Later on right in front of the glacier I heard some rustling and saw Julia. Very funny The glacier is great. Very blue glacier ice. But it was melting even in fall. It was getting darker by the minute and we had to hurry to get back to the car and to the camping ground because we made an appointment with the operator to check in at 2000.

The couch in the hytta we rented was hillariuos. It squeeked everytime I laughed. Which caused to make July laugh, which caused to make me laugh, which caused to make the couch squeek…