Chur Kunstlicht 0

While rooting through my folders I found this older shot of the same shop as in yesterday's post. I thought it might be interesting to compare.

20081009 Canon PowerShot something or the other

Chur Kunstlicht

A shop that sells designer lamps in Chur. Notice the wall ornamentation.

20081115

Chur wall decoration

Have I told you about Chur? One of the oldest settlements in Switzerland (dating back to 3900 BC, apparently). How about I let the contributers to Wikipedia do the job?

Link to Wikipedia article.

20081116

Excursion: Arosa VI

One last look before we leave Arosa.

The white flowers are Ranunculus aconitifolius. Eisenhutblättriger hahnenfuss. Same family as those flowers known as buttercup and fair-maids-of-France. While the flowers are poisonous to cattle and taste bitter and cause blistering of the mouth so that they're generally left alone, they become safe to consume when they're dry (source).

The yellow flowers are probably from the same family but I didn't get any close up photos of them and am thus unable to identify them with any confidence.

20080623

Excursion: Arosa V

Weisshorn at 2653 m above sea level.

This is the destination for the cable car seen in yesterday's post. I didn't realize that the lifts were running until it was too late (it was a day trip that we made). I'm rather sorry that I didn't get to see the views from up there.

20080623

Excursion: Arosa IV

Arosa Luftseilbahn.

A couple of days ago I had pointed out the pylons or support towers behind the chapel. Here's one of the cabins gliding along to the top.

20080623

Excursion: Arosa III

I think this is a small blue (how original!) aka Cupido minimus (source). Any input on the identification is appreciated.

Anyway, there were lots of butterflies flying about in Arosa but due to some technical difficulties I wasn't able to get many photographs. In case anyone is curious: my camera's display and even the EVF are almost useless in high illumination situations and a tiny moving target is nigh impossible to capture.

Incidentally, Pfiffoltra is the word for butterfly in the Swiss German dialect that's used in Wallis (the German-speaking Oberwallis, not the French-speaking 60% source) and I have to mention it because I've always found it such a lyrical word in a language that generally sounds very hard to me. As for in Graubünden, here are some of the words for butterfly (and/or moth) in the dialects of Romansch spoken there (source):

- spler (Grischun, Puter and Valader)
- tgiralla (Grischun)
- tschitta (Grischun, Sursilvan and Surmiran)
- bella (Sursilvan)
- bula (Sursikvan and Sutsilvan)
- pula (Surmiran)
- chüralla (Puter)

20080623

Excursion: Arosa in Graubünden II

The little chapel up on a knoll.

Pylons for ski lifts are visible in the background. The lifts are in operation during the summer and people can ride them up to the peak, then hike down as they please.

20080623

Excursion: Arosa in Graubünden I

Two huts in an early summer green landscape in Arosa.

Long summer days are great for day trips. This week I'll show you some photos from Arosa, a village (town?) at 1800 meters above sea level in Canton Graubünden to the east of us. The summer season just started out there (takes longer at those elevations). There are some lovely hiking trails in the area.

20080623

Excursion: Scuol in Graubünden

Allegra! as they say in Graubünden. Kanton Graubünden is home to some of the best known Swiss ski resorts. St Moritz, Davos and Klosters are all located in this beautiful place, as well as the home of Heidi in the eponymous tale. The canton website (there's a "choose language" with English as an option) does a nice job of talking about all the sites and interesting things to do there so it's worth a look if you're interested. There's just so much to say, but I'll just mention that the local language is Romansh, which is unique to Graubünden. I chose this photo I took in a town called Scuol because it shows lettering on the wall. This type of ornamentation, designs and lettering carved out of the stucco-like facing, is typical of the canton. Based on the online Romansh dictionary available here, I think that the inscription says something like (literally) "we fall over without the will of God" (Google map showing Scuol).

20060810 Canon Powershot S410