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...

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...

finalmente, la pioggia. i see some grins over the line. not that everybody was really waiting for it, except the farmers, however nobody complained as sprinkle started early this week. seriously: after a winter without snow and only barely rain, march and april have been very dry too. and right after easter, the weather changed course, bringing days of polar air and a strong freezing north wind which upset everyone. and mother nature as well. it hasn’t been so cold since mid february! at the same time, the public authority announced a water shortage , asking everybody to take care about their own consumption. in our area, obermais, water supply has been switched from source to deep-well which, obviously, isn’t as good as the spring water we normally enjoy from tap. then, the north wind stopped blowing, letting the clouds take place over south tyrol, so relief came last monday as first raindrops fell, turning to continuous rainfall in the late evening. it...

a first for me last saturday: since the day we arrived in merano almost four months ago, i finally left my nearest environment by another mode of transportation than my own feet. till then actually, i went once by bus to the hardware shop a couple of stations away, and otherwise only walked in town and on pathways, and hiked on mountain trails – as for the furthest to something like 12 km outside the city limits. so, it finally happened on saturday that we took the train in the afternoon for a short trip to bolzano . bolzano the capital city of south tyrol, and with a population of nearly 107,000 it’s also far the largest city of the province. there, we went to say hello to ötzi , the 5,300 years old iceman, at the south tyrol museum of archeology. cool thing. and to get back on our feet again after such a memorable moment, we choose the "stadt café città" for a delicious apfelstrudel , and a millefeuille as well because italian/south tyrolea...

hooray! after almost two broadband-access-less months, me setting on tenterhooks (try to imagine!), our home is finally connected to the internet. that was like pulling teeth. so here they are, some photos of our new environment , enjoy. that aside, south tyrol is the very antithesis of hamburg: here you count the cloudy days, no the sunny ones. it's winter, and it's cold, however with nearly blue sky and sunshine non-stop. we made the right decision. i remember a friend native of the region saying once south tyrol is a land of plenty… he is so right.

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 ...

our followers already noticed it. we love hiking. european alps, colorado's rockies, utah's desert, australian outback… so far, however, it's (only) been about some-hours or one-day hikes. this summer brought us to a new experience. let's say, it was on armin's mind for ages and at the end i got myself into it – a multi-day trekking tour on the merano high mountain trail (aka " meraner höhenweg " in german and "alta via di merano" in italian) in south tyrol, italy. my sine qua non condition: we wouldn't do it on our own. and here we are . the trek took our group of 11 hikers plus 2 mountain guides on a six-day, almost 100 km long journey around the majestic mountains of the texel group nature park range. we looked up to breathtaking views, enjoyed clean and scented air, met mountains farmers, slept in shared rooms with up to there unknown people, and learned how delightful simple life can be, far away from mass-consumption and urban ma...

haven't spent much words here lately. after 2014 started cold in colorado's winter and beautiful heights, the two first weeks of march at sea level on siesta key, florida have been a feast for our organisms. and back in hamburg hasn't been that bad so far -- all in all it's been a sunny year here, with lots of good times too. we've made a spring trip to merano, south tyrol, as well as a summer one to the provence. breathing there in the mountains was a breeze, and hiking like a walk in park, after the colorado experience some months before – watch the photos here . and that's how time goes by… it's now mid december with its short days and cold temperatures (hooray still no snow!), but we don't care much about that. next to come: swapping the shortest day of the year for the longest one down under, kangaroo island, x-mas in adelaide, new year start in a plane across the continent to western australia, australian summer in perth AND the concert of t...

cows in the pasture, healthy air, tons of apple strudel (me) and sausage in different styles (not me!), great regional wines and outdoor activities – a 62 cycling km tour in the  venosta valley , hikes to  dorf tirol 's tiroler kreuz and hochmuth, and to the mountain cinema  knottnkino  too… that was last week in south tyrol. we were expecting sunshine and heat in  merano , but this spring is either on cloudy-lowly-temperatures mode. same story elsewhere. summer-jamming. anyway the weather was not as bad as in cloudy-grey hamburg and slowly getting used to this miserable conditions, we made the best of our time. here in pictures .