Trip to Kempten(Allgäu) (19-22.7.2007)

Its been a long time since I posted for the last time but I was not in the mood to do anything on my blog. Well....its time to write something new at last...Last Thursday I went with a special ;-) friend for a longer weekend to Kempten to visit a dear friend of mine. It was very good and we had a great time. I was my first time in Bavaria and I was very impressed and I am very eager to explore more. Next meeting, I hope, will be during the Octoberfest in September in Munich....

So...the city of Kempten is nice and small (about 60.000 inhabitants) lying in a more rural area with a lot of agriculture. In the picture below you can see the town hall, which is very impressive.
The good thing is that this friend of mine is very involved in communal stuff in the town so he knows a lot of insider tipps and we were able to see some things more easily...;-)

On Thursday we arrived late so we could not see much...but on Friday we began to exlore the town center but it was very hot so we had to stop for an ice cream...Latter, due to the hot weather, it was swimming time in a lake near Kempten...It was very good and the tempterature of the water was great...

Saturday was a big moment...we went off to Schloss Neuschwanstein, which is not very far from Kempten (about 1 hour driving). The view from up there is breathtaking and despite the fakt that there are a lot of tourists (we waited for 3 hours to go through our tour) it is a very concerved place, which i recommend to everybody.

Well....Sunday afternoon it was time to come back....For me as a Railway fan travelling by train is always a highlight...this time it was a special hightlight as the railway line from Kempten to Ulm is single track, without electrification and using semaphore...it is the stronghold of the class 218 and definitely a place to visit for every railfan...I want to go again down there but not for sightseeing....

The picture shows a Class 218 with a regional train towards Kempten in the station of Memmingen.


Cheers,
Andreas

Back to Greece for Holidays (2.2-17.2)

After 7 months abroad, at last came the time to go back for a short visit to Greece to see friends and family. I couldn't wait for that and I was very eager to go. I had a great time and I could change the sceneries that are common to me here in Germany. I had the time also to practice one of my hobbies, which is railway photography!!! Here are some things that I could photograph.

Night photgraphy is one of my favorites. It gives you another feeling. Here I tried to capture the signals at the Station of Livadia looking towards Thessaloniki (3.3.2007).

On the 10th of February we went with some friends walking on the, closed for renewal, section between Chranoi and Desylla. There are some breathtaking views there and here is an image from the inside of one of the tunnels. The exposure time is 10sec.!!!!! (10.2.2007)

Departure of a train from the station of Kalamata. The glory of night photography!!!!

And one of the ALCO beasts on the Peloponnese metre gauge network pulling a freight train over the Alfeios Bridges near Pyrgos. Alfeios bridges is the biggest bridges on the Peloponnese network with 310m.

Thats all for now...

I hope you enjoy the picture
Andreas

Food for Thought

Just by looking at the pictures from Basel again I had a thought about the past. A few years ago the BVB (Basler Verkehrs Betribe = Bus and Tram company of Basel) changed their logo on its vehicles to the one pictured below.

Source: Basler Verkehrs Betriebe (www.bvb.ch)

On the last night of my stay in Basel I encountered to my great surprise a vehicle still carrying the old logo...well we can see the difference in aesthetics.

I don't say that the new logo does not suit or fit the modern image and it is attractive but the old one was history with an air of tradition...it's a pity I think.

Cheers
Andreas

Basel-Christmass 2006

It's been a long time since I published my last post...but I didin't feel like writing...Well now it is time to write something about things that happed in the past 1 1/2 month. The main topic is of course Christmass time because that is also the only important thing that has happed.

During Christmass I went to my family in Switzerland for one week and more specifically to Basel...it was very nice, without snow and I could relax a little bit. New year was here in Germany. I all I can say that It was a quite time but also a good time...now in a few days I go back to Greece for 2 weeks....

Here are some pictures.
There are 4 small wooden ferries in Basel. This one is the "Leu", which means lion in Swiss. These little boats have a long tradition in the city that goes back a few hundred years.

The main train station of Basel...a really beatiful building. I can stare it for hours.

Inside the main station and exactly above the ticket counters there is a really impressive painting. It gives you the flair from another era.


The middle Rhine Bridge (Mittlere Bruecke) in Basel. Two Combino Trams cross each other on the bridge. These combinos are the longest ones built up to now with a total length of 42m per vehicle.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.
Cheers
Andreas

First day with the new camera

Hi Everybody....today I went out to test my new camera that I got just a few days ago. It is a Canon Powershot S3 IS and I wanted to tackle with her a little bit in order to get to know the functions. I have to say that I was impressed but there is many many thing to know still.

The weather wasn't optimum today for Railway photography but that is the good thing....test a product to its limit...I publish here the best photograph of the day. It is BR185 043 with a block coal train in MZ-Bischofsheim. It is head towards the north probably to the steel works in the Ruhrgebiet.

Cheers
Andreas

With this post I start my blog. Although there is nothing to post about right now I will put some stuff in the next few days. I hope you will find my blog interesting and I await for comments.

Although I come from Greece the language of the posts will be in english so that almost everybody can read it.

Cheers
Andreas