Tulip colour explosion - Italian style

Although it's already two months ago I took these tulip photos in the Parco Giardino Sigurta at Valeggio sul Mincio, Italy, south of Lake Garda, I don't want to withhold them from you.

I guess that you might still find many flourishing tupils in the north of Europe, while the last beautiful tulip already withered in Germany one month ago.

End of April 2013 Parco Giardano Sigurta, one of the biggest and most beautiful landscape gardens in Italy, dedicated its springtime theme to the colour variations of the tulip.

They really displayed a fireworks of colours by  having dozens of different fields of tulips, each field riddled with one species of tulips. Or - as a contrast - with many different tulip species.

This colourful explosion was one of my favourite motifs. Once I pressed down the shutter release of my camera, it was hard to come to an end and to turn towards another motif.

I could have posted another 30 different tulip species in different colour and shape...

...but I want to come to an end for today with my white-pink combination of tulips.

Did you know? The tulips's center of diversity is in the Pamir, Hindu Kush and Tien Shan Mountains, so far away from Europe. Nowadays approx. 80% of the worldwide "tulip production" comes from the Netherlands.

Only a stone's throw away from this botanical garden, along the river Mincio, you find the small village of Borghetto, a picturesque fishermen's village and a popular, much frequented tourist site.

Sigmundskron Castle / Messner Mountain Museum Firmian

Welcome to a very special location.
Welcome to Sigundskron Castle close to Bolzano, South Tyrolia, Italia.

There you find the MMM Firmian, one out of five museums of the MMM - the Messner Mountain Museum, a museum project by Italian mountaineer and extreme climber, Reinhold Messner.

Firmian is the centrepiece of the Messner Mountain Museum, based in Sigmundskron Castle.
The castle dates to the Late Middle Ages and houses the museum's headquarters, administration and event facilities. The museum was opened on 11 June 2006 after three years of restoration to the virtually ruined castle.

MMM Firmian addresses the subject of man's encounter with the mountains.
The theme of the museum is the history and art of mountaineering.

Messner wants to show "what effect the mountain has on people" as well as giving an understanding of mountains and mountain peoples.

So a large part of the museum is dedicated to main theme, Messner demonstrates this by means of pictures, sculptures, symbolic objects and memorabilia of various expeditions, which are portrayed as part of a tour through the castle.

Messner also displays the history of alpinism and the impact of alpinism and tourism on nature and the environment.

But the museum is more: it really defies its visitors.

You have to travel more than 400 meters in height up and down the stairs if you walk the way as given in the museum's plan to explore the whole exhibition.

But my favourite part of the museum was the great exhibition of the founders of religions from the mountains and their disciples.

Messner dispays a great collection of buddhas and other sculptures from Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and other mountainous regions.

In this part of the exhibition you find a unique mixture of the medieval European architecture and a meditative atmosphere from the Himalaya region.

Sounds of Tibetan monks chanting prayers and mantras reinforced the spiritual mood of this place.

MMM - insights and prospects.