When I am traveling I always regret that I don’t own a wide-angle lense. Taking landscape photos with a normal lense is just not the same. Lanzarote has some amazing landscapes. The whole island is covered in smaller and larger volcanos of different colours. Luckily, I am traveling with Mr. K who let’s me use his superduper lense if I ask very nicely.
Some shot’s from the centre of the island.
Yesterday, we drove to the centre of the island and were surprised by wineyards and grapes. The climate is not ideal but with a couple of tricks they make delicous wines. They use a layer of lava gravel to prevent evaporation and build walls to protect the grapes from strong winds. And all tasks are carried out by hand.
We visited the Bodegas el Grifo, which has become our favourite wine. In the backyard they have a lovely cactus garden.
I will soon be on my way back to Switzerland. 6 weeks with family and friends. Hopefully a little skiing. I need to find out if my ski’s can manage the Alps or is it the other way round (?), probably. Then we go and catch the sun on an sandy, dusty island in the Atlantic. More of this later…
For now, god bye Bergen. Why do you always have to make it so difficult to leave you! Sunshine and snowy mountains!
Kayaköy is a ghost town of 4000 abandoned stone houses. The city was abandoned in 1923 after the Turkish War of Independence.
We are traveling through Turkey. It’s warm, the sun is shining and we are swimming every day. Yesterday, we found a small national park with a lovely canyon. Today, we drove to the south and are now enjoying the Turquoise Coast.
When we traveled to Pacific Northwest some years ago, I kept a travel diary. I did not write everyday, but I took the time to write a couple of pages every now and then. I wrote and made drawings (e.g. our travel route), lists and put pictures in the diary. I love to take the diary out of the shelf and browse through it from time to time.
I am in Kusadasi in Turkey attending a conference on phenology. It’s the strangest conference that I have attended, because we are in a holiday resort and it does not feel like working. The temperature is very nice and I go swimming whenever I can squeeze it in between the talks. I had my talk on the first day and have talked to many people doing interesting things.
I have digged out an old analog camera (Zeiss Contaflex super), which I have never really used. Surprisingly, everything (even the light sensor) still works. I brought the camera to tenerife. The funny thing with this camera is, that all the pictures look like they were taken 50 year ago, which is a nice side effect. The best thing about analog photographing is still, waiting for the pictures to be developed. It takes ages and when they come, you have totally forgotten, what pictures you have taken. And so every picture is a surprise!
Today I got mail, real mail!
On our trip to the Pacific Northwest over a year ago, I found a little book about the painted hills by illustrator Matt Sundstrom. I liked it very much and used it as a guide when we visited the place. Matt Sundstrom has a few other books including illustrations from Portland (PDX) and a boat trip on Crater Lake. I ordered something else, which I will tell you about later (it’s a birthday gift…) and got 3 little books in addition, thanks!
Looking forward to our next Oregon trip to Crater Lake!
