Slovakia and Austria

Been to Austria loads of times before, but never Slovakia. Since there was yet another long weekend in Germany this May, I thought I'd pay a flying visit to Bratislava. Stayed in Vienna, since there's a direct train there, and then there is an hourly train service between there and Bratislava.

Bratislava Castle


"UFO" Bridge (Novy Most)


St. Stephens

Unfortunately of the few days, only one day was nice weather. The rest was dreadful rain, enough to cause massive flooding of the Danube and Vltava rivers and various tributories of them. I was lucky though, with the return train journey not affected by floods at all, even though we saw plenty of rather destructive floods very close by.

The complete set of photos can be found here... https://picasaweb.google.com/104347553800437592244/SlovakiaAndAustria

Ireland

May is one of those months where we get lots and lots of public holidays in Germany (4, plus 2 extra days off where the holiday is a Thursday), so I made good use of it by catching a plane to Dublin.
Weather was forecast to be rather naff, but in the end it was generally sunny and windy, but with lots of short squally showers every so often. All in all, not too bad, but was glad I'd packed the Goretex jacket.

Day 1
Instead of doing the usual touristy things in the city, I took a couple of days out to do some walking in the hills. The first day was a walk from Shankhill through a few small forests to the Scalp, a remnant of glacial action. The walk was basically along the Dublin Mountain Way, with a few diversions on other waymarked trails. I found this walk on Everytrail.

Great Sugar Loaf

Barnaslingan Forest

The Scalp

Corrickgollogan Lead Mine

Day 2
The second day was forecast to be a bit sunnier, so I took a trip to the seaside, and did a longer walk round Howth. This started of easy, with lots of German tourists about, but the path gets a bit rockier further round. Then after most paths take a shortcut back to Howth village, the "purple" route I took carries on round further and gets a bit more technical still. Eventually it turns in land, over a golf course fairway and back to Howth.

Howth Harbour


Howth Cliffs


Nearly a Beach


Aideen's Dolmen

Day 3
On the last day I had a good nose around Dublin city centre and some of the parks. Weather was more squally showers so was handy to be able to go inside in a hurry. Plus the WiFi let me check in online for the return flight, and blag a decent seat :)

The Spire


Famine Memorial


Another Famine Memorial


James Joyce

The comlete set of photos can be seen here... https://picasaweb.google.com/104347553800437592244/Ireland

Skiing in the Dolomites (again)

Once more it was off to Arabba for the annual snowHeads Birthday Bash pilgrimage to the Dolomites. My 5th time there, and similar to previous years, I drove down and stayed in Innsbruck, before driving the last 2 hours on arrival day and managing to get in a few hours on the slopes before most of the others turned up.

Day 1 was just a few lifts and runs over to Corvara on arrival day.

Day 2 was the first of 3 trips over to Santa Croce. Went down the Red to La Villa, instead of the Alta Badia Gran Risa WC GS course this time. As usual, the scenery was stunning.

Day 3 was the first of a few long hard days. Skied with Ronald et al mostly on Race Slalom skis over to Pozza di Fassa. Every time I'd been the Alba, the link over to Pozza had been closed due to weather, so this was new Dolomites territory for me. GPS stats said about 97km all in (52km skied) - would have been nice to hit the 100km.

See the route on endomondo.

Day 4 was a nice easy relaxed Sella Ronda orange (clockwise) loop.

Day 5 again ended up as a nice easy relaxed day out to Santa Croce again.

Day 6 was another long fast day with the guys on Race Slalom skis again, also venturing in to new territory for me. This time was rush round the Sella Ronda orange, down the Saslong Val Gardena WC DH in to Santa Cristina, then up to Seceda, speed down the long (10km?) run to Ortisei. There we grabbed a quick taxi ride across town to the Seiseralm lifts, then did the Seiseralm / Alpe di Siusi loop before grabbing the bus to Monte Pana. This then links back in to the Sella Ronda. A couple of black runs on Portovescovo before being chased off the mountain by piste patrol finished the day off nicely. Oh and checked off the 100km in a day too :) (just over 60km skied, total GPS distance of 106km, and 29 lifts).

See the route on endomondo.

Day 7 skied mostly with Ronald, basically playing in the Edelweiss Valley practising 1 foot skiing on the wrong (ie little toe) edge of the skis, then headed over to Selva to play on the Val Gardena WC DH run again.

Day 8 was the last day, again with Ronald and Degage we headed over to Santa Croce one last time before heading back to Innsbruck in the afternoon.

All the photos can be found here.

Skiing Zillertal

Just a quick 2 day trip, since it was a long wait from the sH Pre-Season bash in early December until the Birthday Bash in February.  Plus I wanted to practice a few of the things we'd covered in Tignes (bumps mainly), and I'd wanted to re-visit Zell am Ziller and ski over to Gerlos.

Day 1: Zell am Ziller and Gerlos

See the route on endomondo.

Day 2: Kaltenbach

See the route on endomondo.


All of the photos from Obertauern, Tignes, and Zillertal are in one album.

Photo Every Week 2012

After managing a full 365 photos in the One Photo Every Day challenge in 2010, and an aborted 365 in 2011 that turned in to a One Photo Every Week, I decided to stick with a One Photo Every Week again in 2012.

My favourite photos each month are those below:

Jan: Burg Frankenstein


Feb: Ice Sculpture


Mar: Mushroom


Apr: Sunny Sunday


May: Wasp


Jun: Liechtenstein


Jul: Nutter


Aug: Lapwing Lodge


Sep: Meadow


Oct: Red


Nov: Art?


Dec: Oooh, Powder!

There is also a full slideshow of all 52 photos.