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Food trip to Italy, part 1
PARMA. We went on a 3 days food trip to the Parma/Modena area in Italy. One of the days we visited the dairy San Pier Damiani where great parmesan cheese is made. The family has been making parmesan cheese, the real Parmigiano Reggiano, since 1964 – every day, every month, every year…. Believe us, this is hard, very hard work. Our guide, Mattia, explained us…
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Hiking to Bäregg
BÄREGG, with the mountain hut of the same name, in 1773 meters height, was our target for a Sunday hike. From Grindelwald we took the easy way (cable car) up to the Pfingstegg mountain station featuring a nice restaurant with a big panorama terrace. From there a well signed route, only 2,8 kilometres long, but also 444 meters altitude difference, with a changing character, leads…
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Mürren
MÜRREN, a car-free, relaxing, peaceful and yet lively village, not far from Interlaken and on the way to Schilthorn. It’s situated at about 1650 meters a.s.l., with tremendous views to the impressive mountains Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. We reached Mürren by two steps of cable cars from Stechelberg in the Lauterbrunnen Valley. While only about 450 people live here the long list of hotels offers…
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The Salginatobel Bridge
IF CONCRETE is your thing, this is a must see! The SALGINATOBEL BRIDGE, a few minutes’ drive from Schiers, is the only Swiss World Monument. Being on the list together with, perhaps better known by most people, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Statue of Liberty in New York! The bridge, completed and opened in August 1930, was declared a World Monument in 1991…
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PAXMAL
The PAXMAL monument; if you cherish nature and peace; this is the right place. A peace monument in the Churfirsten mountains, outside Walenstadtberg, high over (1290 meters a.s.l.) the Walensee (Lake Walen) is an impressive work of art. It was built, single-handedly!, by Karl Bickel, a Swiss stamps graphic designer. It took him 25 years, from 1924 to 1949, to complete this astonishing place of…
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SICILY – Part 5
Castelmola, perhaps the most beautiful village on Sicily, is situated on a mountaintop, 450 meters over the sea, offering great 360° views for example over Taormina and to Etna. Taormina is also set on a cliff, overviewing the sea. It is a cosy, yet touristic city. Lots of souvenir shops and many nice restaurants. We also walked through the peaceful Lady Trevelyan Park. Taormina…
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SICILY – Part 4
Despite our short holiday, we still managed to visit some very interesting places where we could taste a lot of important Sicilian food and beverages, including arancini, salsiccia, cannoli, granite en brioche, vino alla mandorla, wine from Etna, beer… – see some examples on our pictures. Castelmola is where we first tasted vino alla mandorla, a fairly sweet local almond wine, and salsiccia, a delicious…
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Sicily – Part 3
Gole Alcantara, the Alcantara Gorges, is an absolutely natural gem of a botanical and geological park. We had read about it in a Danish tourist book about Sicily! 🙂 Initially it was formed by the Alcantara River, thousands of years ago. At some time the river was blocked by lava streams from Etna. The cold water cooled down the lava which then made the impressive patterns in…
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Sicily – Part 2
The Godfather road trip – visiting some of the Sicilian film locations from the Godfather trilogy. Savoca, in the films known as Corleone, is a beautiful mountain village and where we found the church where Apollonia and Michael Corleone were married, the Church of Santa Lucia. After the wedding they walked the few hundred meters to Bar Vitelli together with the wedding guests. So did…
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Sicily – Part 1
Yes!, we went to Sicily for a short Easter holiday with our son and daughter-in-law, to celebrate the upcoming 50 years birthday of Lene 🙂. The first days we stayed at the wine resort Barone di Villagrande on the eastern slopes of Mount Etna, the most active volcano of the world. What a pick; the service from the very late evening arrival to departure was perfect,…
