Peace is the path!

There is no path to peace

peace is the path.

[Gandhi]

#Pray for Paris: The world comes together for terror victims

 

 

November trees

November 1, 2013, All Saints' Day.

Between Le Markstein (photo), a winter sports resort in the Vosges mountains, and Le Grand Ballon, the apex of the Vosges Mountains, in the French region of Alsace.

In a hight of approx.1200 m above mean sea level, the autunm was much more advanced compared to the surrounding lowlands - the Rhine valley.

In this height, the growth and thriving of the mountain trees is quite different from what we are used to have in lowlands.

On our hike in Grand Ballon direction we cut across a small forrest with wonderful knobby trees, most of them were beeches. Depending on their location, some of them already lost all of the leaves whereas some of them still had their foliage.

"The Black Beech"...

  

...and its sister!

"The Dark Flame"

"The Green Arrow"

Finally: outlook to the Vosges mountains.

Enjoy your November!

The Provence is everywhere!?

Lavandula / lavender is native to the Old World and is found from Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, southern Europe across to northern and eastern Africa, the Mediterranean, southwest Asia to southeast India.

One of the most famous and popular regions for cultivating lavender and having huge fields of lavender is the Provence, a landscape in the southeast of France.

Digne-les-Bains, a town in the department Alpes-de-Haute-Provence,
has been noted for being a primary center of the lavender trade.

The lavender species I took several photos from last weekend is one  of the species you can find throughout the Provence - among others.

But of course I didn't take my photos there, I captured the scene in the spa gardens of my hometown Bad Mergentheim.

Digne-les-Bains is one of the three twin towns of Bad Mergentheim, the other two are Borgomanero in the north of Italy and Fuefuki-shi in Japan.

So the (little) field of lavender in Bad Mergentheim's spa gardens is a gift from our friends at Digne-les-Bains.

Whereas the two Japanese cherry trees two hundert meters away from the lavender was a gift from our friends from Fuefuki-shi. (--> Sakura, cherry blossom).

Although Germany is not known for fields of lavender, you can see that this beautiful little flower feels comfortable in our region, too.

Have a great summertime whereever you live, dear blog friends from all over the world!

I'm going to take a short summer break to collect new impressions & ideas (hopefully)!

Take care on you and your loved ones!

Uwe.

 

Strasbourg impressions

Let's go for a stroll through Strasbourg, the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in north-eastern France.

Don't be sad that we do not visit the main places of interest; there's so much more to detect in the old part of town, the historic city center known as the Grande Île ("Grand Island").

Des anciens bistros...

...et des jeunes mademoiselles...

...et des clochards fatigués...

...et autres curiosités!

;-)