slovakia 2017

i have been many times in slovakia this year, you know? well, my mother is ill and this time i took care of her for one week. why? because my youngest brother and his wife, who take care of her all year, were 2 weeks on holidays in turkey ...

liptovska tepla

we have had many stops this time:

• bratislava ~ my brothers place. the funny stuff was that when i came the 
• dubnica ~ we met my cousin vierka for a lunch
• ruzomberok (rosenberg)
• lucky / kalemeny / liptovska tepla ~ i took a bath and filled up all bottles i had in the local thermal and healing spring in kalameny. let's hope it helped a lot ...
• einsiedel (mnisek nad hnilcom) - my mothers birth place and her sister's house was our 'base camp'. yes, we have met relatives, walked a lot in the village, cemetery, i met all my friends in the village pub (and wifi hotspot) each night ...
• spitzenberg mountain (703 m) ~ i've managed to climb up the spiky landmark for the very first time. i went alone as my mother have been up there in august during the yearly spitzenberg tour with music and goulash and she prefered to stay with her elder sister ....  i have seen many, many mushrooms and a deer in the forest. the mushrooms were much more photogenic than mr. deer
• schmöllnitz (smolnik) ~ my cousin renate lives here and we have visited the orthodox catholic church built by the victims of the chernobyl nuclear catastrophy (ukraine) who were moved to eastern slovakia
• lake uhorna ~ the ice cold artificial lake built by the mining industry some 200 - 300 years ago. anyway, i swum three times there. my dears, we have had end of september ... and water temperature about 13-14 degrees celsius. of course, we have also walked with my mother around the lake + drunk some tee / coffee or had lunch in the nearby restaurant.
• göllnitz (gelnica) ~ in the center of the göllnitz valley we have visited the eldest sister of my mother and an aunt of mine
• kaschau (kassa, cassovia, kosice) ~ my birth city and a place where we visited a doctor with my mother this time and of course my father, who still lives in kosice 
• bratislava again
• melk abbey in austria ~ we enjoyed to take a break from driving in this beautiful benedictine monastery 
• anger (bavaria) ~ small but nice

bridge SNP over the river danube in bratislava

my mother loves to go out in order to drink a coffee and to eat some cake - an easy to provide joy :o)

bratislava castle

ruzomberok (rosenberg)

thermal and healing spring in kalameny

countryside in liptov area of north slovakia

einsiedel (mnisek nad hnilcom) below the spitzenberg mountain was our final destination

inside the catholic church

watch out, spitzenberg - i'm coming up :-)

einsiedel as seen from the cross at the top of the spitzenberg mountain

deer goulash with family 

orthodox church built by ukrainian tschernobyl victims in schmöllnitz (smolnik)

lake uhorna

the block where i spent my childhood in kaschau (kosice). 

good-bye, dear mother ... i think i see you again soon

kosice / kassa /  cassovia / kaschau

R.I.P dear grandparents, uncle, aunts

more pictures here

eof 

schwabach, franconia

on our way back from a great, great birthday party in nuremberg (nürnberg), we have visited the medieval franconian (fränkisch, franken) city of schwabach. did you know that schwabach is also the (czeck + slovak) name of the old german 'gothic' scripture (schrift) from 15th century also called schwabacher / schwabacher scripture.

enjoy few pictures + insights, but first please reward our under brute pressure enforced trial to paint the expression of our souls :-)

my masterpiece

my sweeties workmanship

schwabach (i love these timber framework houses (fakwerkhäuser)):

there was the yearly schwabacher funfair, too

(modern) virgin mary in front of the main church in schwabach?

of course we did not miss the chance to swim in the beautiful lake pfraundorfer see near beilngries 

more pictures here.

eof

ramadama

activist is a person which not only complains about the dirty river but also cleans up that river, you know?

well, we have been about 25 people (young and old) organized by rehab republic and cleaned up a huge part of isar river in the southern part of munich called flaucher. it was not too dirty or differently expressed: the yangon river in myanmar was in a much much worse condition before the trash heroes arrived, if you asked me :-)

 isar river

this is a household, not a trash heap ...

well, as i still had a trash bag with me i've also collected the trash in our neighborhood on my way home.

more pictures here

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