golegrand

beautiful south tyrol. it's time to bid farewell – to the places we became attached to, to the companions on life's journey, and to those majestic mountains which gave me time, peace, and quietude. i’ll miss them so much. as well as apfelstrudel . we have been living in this beautiful area for over 4 years now... and we had enough time to get to know the other side – that one of the pesticide-farmers (may-the-apples-grow-big-and-abundantly), of the construction sites, piste extensions, and ever-increasing hotel complexes, yes that face of environmental damage and sad mise-en-scène of the alps. it's really heartbreaking. south tyrol suffers from overtourism (call it human pollution ) including stupidity and tourism-related greed for money, as well as from a plague of hypocrisy and lobbying. because one thing really counts: the so-called (german) guests (term in use to avoid calling them tourists) and their pocketbook. during the corona-spring and over this lousy year ruled b...

and here we are, another year flashed by, we already set off for our 4th year on the south side of the alps, and i should do like marmots do – oversleep the gloomy and cold winter days, i wouldn't miss a single bit of them. so for now, here a quick recollection of the year – entirely in line with the current taste that climate change knocks on every door… how it began is here , and as mentioned, march has been a beautiful spring month. though, april and may have been unstable and uncomfortable – unexpectedly dull, rainy, and windy, with temps under 20 ° in the valley and still snowfall in altitude. brr. south tyrol was caught in the clouds. early summer was right on time on the first day of june, bringing to (sun)light a rich and colourful nature – the late snow melt let abundant river waters sparkle and alpine meadows grow thick of wild flowers and grass. at the turn of the j-months a north european tour took us away from the mountains for 6 sunny family days in...

we put an end to  2018 on a mountain. to get 2019 off to a flying start, we walked, half against strong wind, on a mountain (monte catino, aka mittager) up to the mittager alpine hut (2260 m). happy new year ✴︎ bonne année ✴︎ frohes neues jahr ✴︎ felice anno nuovo !

just for the records, here our hiking highlights of spring-summer 2018.  . one nice warm-up early june with 24 km from avelengo to the omini di pietra (stoanerne mandln, 2000 m) and back. . two weeks later, things got more serious with 17 km from falzeben to the piccolo ivigna (kleiner ifinger, 2552 m) and back. a steep and tough climb that brought me to the limits, getting the feeling that my legs would no longer have the strength to bring me up the last 100 meters and i really was about to give up. but i'm resolute, and it's lucky – at the top it's like on an island surrounded by a stunning scenery, just as a mountain movie and you're the actor in it. . first week-end of july we packed our backpacks for 3 days out in the alta val passiria (hinterpasseiertal) where we walked a total of 50 km. as usual we chose zeppichl near plan  as our base camp. first day we went from merano to moso  by bus and hiked from there to zeppichl (11,5 km). on day two w...

mission foo fighters in hamburg accomplished. since i got the ticket on november 2nd 2017, i was looking forward for the show and it's hard to find the right word to describe what happened on june 10th. awesome would be an understatement. foo fighters delivered big time, an unforgettable night, a stunning gig for 60,000 motherf** crazy german people , loved every second of the concert, the 5th for me til now and surely not the last one! the other few days we were lucky to meet friends as well – thanks a million for all the good time guys, thank you andi for the beautiful and delicious dinner at your  location  :) the weather wasn't too bad that time but the noise and air pollution of the big city wore us out. passing the italian border on our way home two nights ago, we couldn't keep a high five and are infinitely happy to be back in the little town in the mountains.

one of the good things of the winter in merano is the tourist-free period starting in january right after the epiphany holiday when the crowd leaves the town and the christmas market  finally disappears. time then for merano to turn on hibernation mode. suddenly it's all quiet, the atmosphere feels cosy, intimate and friendly, paths are deserted, a delight.  this winter was the pure opposite of the dry and sunny one before , starting sooner and bringing record snowfalls, windstorms, high danger of avalanche through the season, and obviously avalanches too – january weather has been a turbulent one. in the evening of the 22nd, snow reached 2.5 m in the mountains. on some days, we were overwhelmed by the feeling of being living in the clouds (yes, much like in hamburg), though each day with a different landscape. on the sunny days however we enjoyed gorgeous mountain scenery. what's more, with the new year we got the chance to catch another good thing of a snowy winter ...

follow us with the  2018 photo album !

it was quiet here over the summer while i was busy with the move of golegrand.de on blogger, or with life offline. those who track us on the iCloud shared album or by checking the photo page are already in the picture, for the rest here comes a recap of the last months. the guns n' roses played in munich mid of june and we were there too – the olympic park was crowded by far much more folks than the merano population counts! slash ran the show while axl rose showcased a line of clothing. at the turning of june/july we spent some days in hamburg. fun time back with friends, as well as a 50th birthday on 7-1-17. for the rest however it was... too rainy. too cold. too noisy. too crowded. too rat race style. a scratchy throat got me after two days – something not seen since our move to merano. and there were no mountain around… so at the end, we've been more than happy to get in back home. summer in south tyrol is made of days and days of sun and heat. one day you may...

this one for our geek and nerd readers… sometimes (or probably more often than not) armin likes to play sheldon cooper, but he won't just realize it. like today. first, while having again one of these internal communication difficulties (due to the interaction man-woman, or french mind-german mind, or precisely nerd-average individual) i was told that we need to synchronize. where i thought to myself heavens-i-am-not-an-iPhone. then, later, sitting comfortably at the terrace of the kienegg inn in the middle of the mountains, ready for this apfelstrudel  i was having in mind, or either chasing after, during the 17 km bike ride uphill to a 1,100 altitude, starting a chitchat about the lovely weather, the fantastic panorama, how great it is to be able to escape the city so quickly, and so on, he looked at me and said: 1-0-1 5 (one zero one, five). eh? here the reason, a tiny card on the table: you certainly noticed the error on the cube… (elucidat...

non ci credo. hard to believe, but in the news yesterday:  a "cold front" . after two cloudy days and a temperature drop from 30 to 22 °c, they're wondering on the third day bringing, indeed, lots of rain, what happened to the awaited hot summer. truly. yes, everything is relative, and that's how it is here, everyone gets upset by only one single insignificant cloudy or rainy day. on the other hand, they say that we need more rain… er… or rather the nature needs it, and ideally at night. which, i must confess, would meet my principle too. anyway. today, everybody is happy again: bright blue sky returned, it's getting hot and hotter. seriously. we're spoiled by the weather, the season and the beautiful nature. and with our new e-mtb, we can now switch outdoor activities between hiking and biking, discovering mountains and valleys with a different view. like up to almost 900 m at masulschlucht gorge in the val passiria . or a afternoon roundtrip of ...

now there is no doubt: here on the south side of the alps, in the country under the blue sky, surrounded by mountains, we found our place in the sun. the two first months of the year are now behind, it’s been a very quiet time in merano. the end of february brought some rain, which was a good turn for mother nature, and since the first week-end of march, we see the spirit of the nice season spreading across the region, just like life is returning to normal – blossoming, flourishing, spring has already arrived, it buds and greens and colors everywhere, lovely scents fills the air, it gets warmer with every day, yes temperature reached 20° c this afternoon. along the pathways and tracks cafes, lodges and taverns are reopening or busy with some last improvements, getting fancy for their start into the nice months, and tourists are slowly returning. and so each of these beautiful days amazes you, and still it’s a strange feeling… putting away my winter shoes at this ...

griaß-enk! living in south tyrol, getting up in the morning looking at the mountains soaring up toward the blue sky, breathing the clear air, believe me, it's a big big gift of life. experiencing the beauty of mother nature to that degree is literally intoxicating for us guys-from-the-big-city. first advent, the last sunday of november, was supposed to be sunny again after a whole week with no sunshine – yeah things like that may happen here too. after a couple of days they also become a real talking point in the news. so, anyway, we decided to take that opportunity of nice weather returning for a hike to hochmut , a farmer hamlet at 1,360 m above see level, that we already visited several times during summer over the years (for those who activated the link: i wrote "a hike", not a cable car ride to the upper station). we started our tour up 1,000 m in a strange low sky scenery: low clouds were covering the valleys and mountains around, letting just the merano ba...

omg yeah we did it. we left our life in hamburg and moved to south tirol to live a dream, and there is no single day going by where i’m not thinking that we’re completely insane. in fact south tirol is a multilingual autonomous province in northern italy – german, italian and ladin being the official languages – but it’s still an absolute foreign country to us, a big unknown that we have to discover day by day, step by step… it’s not that i need to learn only italian as a new language, no, there are two, as the german dialect spoken here, called "südtirolerisch", is far far away from the standard german (at least and by chance the one used in authority and media). believe me, when i hear our new fast friends speaking with each other, it's as clear as mud to me. so it’s been almost one month here in merano. the two first weeks were just busy getting the most important admin paper work done, as well as meeting our new environment as new residents, not as tourists ...