Swiss and Switzerland

If you’ve ever been to the Berner Oberland in Switzerland then you know how it is. The Swiss built a tremendous number of fortifications deep within the country of Switzerland, far from any borders, so that if the Germans attacked from the north, they could retreat to the center and – in a sort of scorched earth policy – destroy bridges and roads to prevent German egress into the center.

Here is an incredible sight for anyone driving into Interlaken:

Including a close-up of one of the bunkers, including the picnic bench which I think adds a nice, homey touch:

As artistic a photo as I thought I could take of the Stadtkirche Winterthur, dating back to the thirteenth century (the church, not my photo),

Just for the sake of transparency, I squared up the image a bit using the SKRWT app on my iPad.

It reminds me of Ansel Adams in two ways: not only is it a black and white snap of a church, but I captured it while just waiting around outside before my dentist’s appointment (my dentist asked his patients not to arrive early for their appointments, due to Covid). Ansel Adams was known to take a little point-and-shoot Polaroid camera everywhere he went – and although I don’t put myself in his category, just about all the snaps he took on that little Polaroid are now hanging in museums.

I think this is my snap. I hope this is my snap. But I am not really sure. Reason? I use Google Photos – and Google Photos has a very nasty habit of sucking up all photos that it finds on my device, including what other people post in apps like WhatsApp. But if it is not my photo it is surely a scene I’ve seen dozens of times since moving to Switzerland

I really like the way this panoramic snap of a train wagon turned out,

I took this snap of a red-roofed church in the medieval Swiss village of Bremgarten,

Continuing the series, here is a foot bridge across the Aare River in Bern, underneath the magnificent Kornhausbrücke

Looking up from below at the magnificent Kornhausbrücke in Bern

What caught my eye about this icicle in Interlaken was the very different directions that the points were pointing. I am assuming this effect is some combination of wind and sunlight, because usually gravity makes them all point in the same direction:

As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of an excavator in front of a sheer cliff in Interlaken,

As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of the early morning winter haze

Doesn’t really matter which time of year it is, Swiss villages are universally picturesque!

Since I’ve been spending more time at home due to the Covid pandemic, I’ve been experimenting with feeding my neighborhood crows.

I’ve tried everything.

They have almost no interest in foods that are pure carbohydrates, such as unsalted peanuts.  But they like salted peanuts and scarf them up. It amazes me how they can somehow sense or smell the salt.

They will eat meat, cooked or raw, as well as chicken and fish, cooked or raw.

But there is nothing – NOTHING – that they prefer than their favorite snack: CHEESE.

 

I’m not quite sure why they like cheese so much, since milk products are not typical bird fare (birds have very small breasts so I assume their own milk is negligible).

I assume it is probably the combination of protein and fat, particular in the colder weather as it is now.

Long story short, I put out a bit of cheese, and crows come for miles to fight over it.

Didn’t really try for an artistic snap here, I was mainly interested in spending more time looking at the nodules on the tree,

OK, not exactly the Bridge over the River Kwai, which I captured in this snap here, but nevertheless I thought this made a nice shot. It was taken just outside of the historical medieval village of Bremgarten in Switzerland,

Continuing the series, here is an historical weather station I spotted just outside of the Altstadt in the medieval Swiss village of Bremgarten,

And here’s a closeup of the plaque,

As artistic a snap as I thought I could take of a dead standing tree, in the hills just southwest of Winterthur:

Here’s a snap of a tanker wagon that I took at a railroad siding in Interlaken.  I was amazed at how much writing was on the wagon – old symbols like stars that were probably innovations in their day, and modern messages like an email address.  I am quite sure all this information is documented, but I am guessing it would be a Herculean effort in Google to find it all out.

I took this snap of an interesting Christmas tree at the new outdoor shopping center in the Swiss canton of Zürich, known as The Circle,

I thought this snap of gulls on Lake Zug was pretty impressive. That’s the famous Mt. Rigi (1’798 m) in the background.

I caught this wonderful snap just across from Lake Zug, in Switzerland. I thought it was something wonderful: if you are going to chop down a tree, why not leave a bit of art behind?

I took this snap looking west over Lake Zug. I then processed it with the Google Apalca setting:

I spotted this above a fountain in Zug – I have no idea what it is trying to portray!