awareness seminar in neustift monastery, south tirol, italy

what a nice trip to south tirol / italy. for my wife it was work as she has led a three days awareness seminar for south tirol's teachers. for me it was primarily hiking holidays in the dolomite alps (dolomiti, dolomiten).

i liked especially our accommodation in the beautiful training center in the medieval neustift monastery (koster neustift, südtirol) in vahrn (= italian varna) close to brixen (= italian bresassone). it was nice to walk inside the old corridors, eat in the arched chambers, to stroll in the beautiful yards between thick monastery walls, to walk at the river eisack ... and yes, the view from our hotel room was also colossal :-)

the seminar was a great success, thus next summer there will be two seminars led by my wife: an intuition strengthening seminar and awareness 2.0, so i'm looking forward to visit our friends and this beautiful place on earth again.

my wife anna gruber, the best and most emphatic hypnosis therapist ever, if you asked me :-)
~ seminar "lehren und lernen im hier und jetzt"

neustift monastery from 1140

two of us

basilica

in the hotel section of the monastery

 engelsburg, today an art gallery

justitia, she is soooo often blind :-)

my hiking tour #1 from schalders to lake schrüttensee:

i went down barefoot, my dears :-)

großer schrüttensee, 1950 m, ice cold

kleiner schrüttensee, 1970 m, ice cold too 

hiking tour #2 from bad altprags to alp putzalm:

altprags

putzalm

on the right is the peak peitlerkofel (2,875 m) in pragser dolomite alps

i have experienced an awful thunderstorm on the way back. it was not easy to reach my car as there was often open terrain i had to go over ...

back to engelsburg, neustift monastery

art by holger theunert

good-bye, river eisack. good-bye, south tirol

innsbruck, capital of tirol, austria

sadhguru once again

more pictures are here.

insights from our last south tirol trip are here.

eof

grubers at grubsee (+ at lake barmsee, too)

what a nice break on our way to south tirol at the south bavarian lakes grubsee + barmsee near krün and mittenwald at the german-austrian border (bayern - tirol).

especially the lake grubsee (unfortunately not grubersee 😂) was a real adventure for us. well, we have originally planned to stay only for a short swimming break and decided NOT to buy a ticket for the lake resort swimming area. it was really not easy to access the lake free of charge, especially because i walked almost all summer barefoot. of course, we have enjoyed also the walk around the lake after swimming naked in the 'backyard' of this beautiful and quite warm lake :-)

lake grubsee, the opposite site of its beach & kiosk area.

it is not easy to reach the lake without a ticket 😄

my sweet paparazzi at our lunch break in the nearby village of krün

the adjacent lake barmsee (view from the south) was our stop at the way back from south tirol

lake barmsee as seen fro the north side, the karwendel massif behind the lake

good-bye, karwendel

more pictures here.

more bavarian lakes here.

eof

trakai island castle + rural lithuania

after eastern germany and northern poland led our journey to lithuania. first we visited the capital vilnius, the next day the trakai water castle on an island in the lake galve.

as we were used to get up early, we have been at the castle before all other tourists and in a time when it was open just for staff and suppliers who prepared for the coming tourist invasion. so we walked over two bridges and two islands in castle's inner yard for some time, took a coffee from a vending machine, walked around the castle and swam in the lake galve to one of its 21 islands close to the castle. and yes, at 10 o'clock were all the buses and people here. we were really shocked by the masses of people in the otherwise almost uninhabited lituania (except vilnius, of course). as we have taken a guided tour in a similar castle (marienburg in malbork / poland) few days ago, we decided just to buy some lithuanian foodstuff in a supermarket in trakai's living area and to take ourselves to the almost empty roads through rural lithuania back to poland.

trakai island castle

still in trakai

rural lithuania

entering an (almost empty) highway restaurant. we have been the only clients for most of the time out there.

good-bye, lithuania

more pictures are here.

the diary of our whole holiday journey is here.

eof