77. Ganymede on Lake Zurich

This has been done many, many times, but it still captures me.

62. Boats on Lake Zurich

Boats on the lake, with the alps in the background.

61. Red tram, blue tram

The alps in the distance over Lake Zurich. 
The Quaibrücke with two trams on it.
Boats docked in the foreground.

It's a pity I didn't get a better exposure.

34. Boats on Zürichsee

Just a few steps from Sechseläutenplatz is the Zurich lake. This is another photo from last year.

A view on the lake

*Sigh*

20070108

Lake birds of Zug

20091228

Lake of Zug

The canton of Zug is popular for its low tax rate. It also happens to have a beautiful lake and a charming old town.

Best wishes to you, my gentle readers for a peaceful and fulfilling new year! Thank you for your visits and comments.

20091228

Lugano last December

In the Italian speaking canton called Ticino. This is a view of the town of Lugano.

20081218

Totensee

Translates to "sea of the dead". Elevation at the surface: 2160m above sea level.

20090816

View from Waid

A rainbow on the Zürich lake as seen from the restaurant Dir Waid yesterday. Other views from this location are here:
20090311 View of Zürich from Die Waid
20080315 Zürichsee

20090602 Nikon Coolpix 990

A boat named Säntis

I also walked along the Quaibrücke and looked out over the lake of Zürich.

20090530

View across the Hallwilersee

I took this photo from Birrwil (about 31 km —20 miles— from Villigen) looking out across Lake Hallwil. That's possibly the town of Meisterschwanden.

20090510

Excursion: near Hellela in Valais II

There are few natural lakes in Valais that I know of. The region we've been exploring over the last week (around Visp) has one of the lowest levels of rainfall in the country and that necessitated a complex network of canals connecting sources of water such as natural springs and glacier run-off to the meadows where the cattle grazed. Shown here is one of the artificial reservoirs made as part of this system.

20080710

Excursion: Romanshorn

Actually, the photo was taken in Romanshorn in Kanton Thurgau in eastern Switzerland (Wiki entry here), but the view is of the Bodensee (known as Lake Constance in English) with the Austrian Vorarlberg Alps in the background. The car ferry seen here connects Romanshorn to Friedrichshafen in Germany.

20080503

Excursion: Hergiswil

The Vierwaldstättersee (lake-of-the-four-forest-cantons aka Lake Lucerne) is a favorite destination on beautiful days. This is at Hergiswil, a little town that is home to Glasi Hergiswil, a prominent Swiss glass manufacturer. This glass seagull is one of their products and I took this photo from a small exhibition area at the factory.

Previous posts from around the lake:
Brunnen, Vierwaldstättersee, Weggis

20080426

Lake Geneva from a speeding train

I had to make a short trip to Geneva today and my photo ops were at high speed, through the plastic of the windows. I couldn't get rid of a white balance problem, so I decided to just go to greyscale.

20080416

Zürichsee

More Richard's territory, this is (or can be, depending on the weather conditions) the view from Die Waid restaurant. See the 1920 pixel by 1440 pixel version by clicking on the photo. I hesitate to say it for fear of drawing attention to the poor quality of my photos, but in the foreground, just below and to the left of the smokestack, is the Bluewin building that some of you might have seen on the Zürich blog.

20080315

Excursion: Brunnen

A gorgeous day, finally! A short trip (4 hours, all told) to Brunnen in Kanton Schwyz on the Vierwaldstättersee, aka Lake Lucerne. A rather poor photographic memento of the day.

20080110

Excursion: Blausee in the Bernese Oberland

The small Blausee (the English version of the website is a bit dodgy at the time I write this) is an interesting and quite beautiful place in the Bernese Oberland. This photo doesn't do justice to what it really looks like and I couldn't get the color of the water right, at least as far as it appears on my screen (Google map, notice the color of the lake in the hybrid, that's not right either).

There's a nature park incorporating the pond, with a restaurant, a hotel and an information center. We stopped there for lunch just as they were opening for the season earlier this year. It might interest some of you to know that the restaurant carries 14 Gault Millau points. I can't speak to that, but I can say that our dishes were very good. If you look near the bottom of the photo, you'll see fish in the water. They raise "organic" (Bio is the term used in Switzerland) trout for distribution all over the country.

Addendum: For a photo of the interior of the restaurant, go to the appendix to this blog that I'm going to try to maintain for the extras. Villigen overflow. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

20070325

Excursion: Lago Lugano

I've been inspired by yesterday's theme day to show you some places that I've visited in Switzerland. Ticino (Tessin auf Deutsch) is the Italian-speaking canton in the south east (old post briefly touching on the languages of Switzerland: 20070127). There are two large lakes there, Maggiore and Lugano. I've been to the town of Lugano twice (it takes 4 hours to get there from Villigen with public transportation). Once in the winter (top photo) and once in early summer (second photo). Simply gorgeous both times!

The first photo was not actually taken in Lugano, but in one of the smaller towns around the lake. If memory serves it was Morcote (map), on the way to Montagnola (map) where Hermann Hesse lived from 1919 until his death in 1962. It was in Montagnola that he wrote Der Steppenwolf and Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game), among others. The Hermann Hesse museum (website has an English version) is located there.

The photo below is from Lugano, taken at the Parco Civico on the waterfront (map).


20061103 and 20060602 Canon Powershot S410