landscapes from your country

[Elvina]

In Greece snows quite a lot, I had no idea. Actually, it was the first time that I saw/fell snowing. So, as you can guess, we have very few snow in Portugal.

i had no idea either that it even snows in Greece at all I've been living here in NL for 9 years now and i remember it used to get a few degrees below 0 and it snowed a few times the first years, but really not much. They tell me -20 deg C used to be normal in the winter like 20 years ago, people used to skate on the frozen channels, but i can't believe it. Last year we got the whole 2 days of snow! And it all melted the next day, and that's it! I see the effects of the global warming here every year! Last year i believe it didn't even freeze here for one day!

I miss snow so much, i miss crosscountry skiing in the forest

 

[Defiance]

oh how lovely, you're being sarcastic but seriously, if you watch National Geographic often enough, this is what they tell you but i was right about the rain! anyway, the friend's parents i mentioned, they wouldn't move there to live in a crowded city, right now they live in the middle of nowhere in France and own quite a chunk of the forested ground. They would love to live in the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica, and i bet there're more insects and snakes there than in the forest they live in right now! So i'm glad we talked them out of the adventure.

@Ond: you have 2 homes in Greece and you live in Portugal? Cool! never been in neither of the countries yet... But they do seem to have more snow there than we get here in NL these days! :zombie:

Hahaha yeah . It does rain a lot here, we have two seasons: Dry season and rainy season. . But it hasn't rained a lot this year, so the dry parts of the country are having a lot of problems because the farmer's cows and crops are dying/died. e.g. in Guanacaste, a very dry part of the country, most of the water goes to the private hotels and stuff, and barely anything to the farmers.

Why does this happen? Well, just look at Mr Nobel Peace Prize, he's our president.

wow, never been to greece, but it looks fantastic!!!

I find that almost incredible considering you live in Italia .

 

[lefay82]

I find that almost incredible considering you live in Italia .

it's not just around the corner if you don't fly

i've been to many european countries (germany, austria, france, danemark, hungary, nederland, poland, czech republic) but always by train or car.
i went nowhere i could not reach travelling attached to the ground

 

[Defiance]

it's not just around the corner if you don't fly

i've been to many european countries (germany, austria, france, danemark, hungary, nederland, poland, czech republic) but always by train or car.
i went nowhere i could not reach travelling attached to the ground

Ah well it's still pretty near I say. So are you scared of planes or what?

 

[Elvina]

it's not just around the corner if you don't fly

i've been to many european countries (germany, austria, france, danemark, hungary, nederland, poland, czech republic) but always by train or car.
i went nowhere i could not reach travelling attached to the ground

oh no please don't tell me you have this fear of flights too? because if you do i'll have to check by my mom if i have a long lost twin or something? :zombie: 2 years ago i have sworn to never ever fly anymore...

 

[Allfader]

Some pics taken with by my gf and me at Valparaíso's bay past monday - not the best quality:

Always posing for pics

 

[George]

Very cool thread!

Here's a few pictures of when I visited a friend in Montana (a North Western state in the US):

Sun setting. There were some serious forest fires going on around the area which explains all the haze.

These other two are from a hiking trip in Glacier National Park which is very close to the Canadian border. Lovely place.

This one has myself hiking in it to show the overall scale of the place.

 

[Ond]

Wow George amazing pictures. Glacier National Park must be an incredible sight.

 

[lefay82]

Ah well it's still pretty near I say. So are you scared of planes or what?

pretty near, you say???
only 2176 km from here to Athens (i used a program that calculates time and km, using faster streets like motorways)

sweden is nearer , " only" 2139 km

oh no please don't tell me you have this fear of flights too? because if you do i'll have to check by my mom if i have a long lost twin or something? :zombie: 2 years ago i have sworn to never ever fly anymore...

yeah, i fear flights
my deaaaaar sister!!!!! finally we meet again
i've never flied, it's not the aereoplate itself that i fear, or the idea of being so high in the sky, i fear that the airplane crashes. i mean, i know that it is one of the safest means of transport, but i still have a black fear. if someone can forsee the future and tells me "this plane will not crash on this flight" then i'm gonna take it with no problems, this is the point

 

[Elvina]

sweden is nearer , " only" 2139 km

good that you posted pictures, otherwise i wouldn't have believed you
in that case, you should better go to Sweden

yeah, i fear flights
my deaaaaar sister!!!!! finally we meet again
i've never flied, it's not the aereoplate itself that i fear, or the idea of being so high in the sky, i fear that the airplane crashes. i mean, i know that it is one of the safest means of transport, but i still have a black fear. if someone can forsee the future and tells me "this plane will not crash on this flight" then i'm gonna take it with no problems, this is the point

i used to fly in the past, and even liked it! Once i sat in the plane with only 2 other passengers!! it was arriving in the middle of the night and had to land in the middle of the lightning storm. I remember me and other 2 passengers walking around in the plane to pick the best seat where you could see lightnings from. At some point you could see them all around the plane and it was pretty damn exciting, and i wasn't even scared!

i don't know when exactly it happened and why that i developed this fear, but 2 years ago when i flew for the last time i had such a terrible panic attacks in the plane that i've sworn to never fly again. Exactly by the same reason you described! It is some kind of irrational fear that it all will go terribly wrong exactly now and then, while you're in that plane...

@George: that place looks magnificent!! i wish i could visit it too one day, but it looks like i never will...

 

[lefay82]

good that you posted pictures, otherwise i wouldn't have believed you
in that case, you should better go to Sweden

if i lived near Taranto (see the map) i would probably take some hours to get there by ship, but from where i live it's a long way, both by car and ship, and also by train.
anyway i feel more attracted by northern countries, i like mostly cities from north europe, for both architecture and churches. i really love gothic churches, when i went to Nurnberg i stayed about 30 minutes in front of the cathedral with this face
just to have an idea

same happens with castles, above all medieval castles
i'm quite fortunate about this 'cause there are a lot of medieval castles and towns here in my region

 

[lefay82]

because i entered this argument, some photos of castles situated near my town.

Malaspina's stronghold

castle of Fosdinovo

Lucca, the tower of hours, with some trees which are grown on its top

San Gimignano (not so near here, but one of the most famous medieval towns), the town of the 7 towers

 

[Elvina]

wow nice! i love to visit castles every time i go to France or Germany. But as far as i know they don't have castles in Scandinavia... or wait, maybe there are some in Denmark?

 

[lefay82]

wow nice! i love to visit castles every time i go to France or Germany. But as far as i know they don't have castles in Scandinavia... or wait, maybe there are some in Denmark?

i don't remember to have seen castles when i went to denmark, but it was 10 years ago so i may be wrong.
i visited two big cities, Aalborg and Aarhus, but i mostly stayed in the little town where the family that gave me hospitality lived, which was Aars, a little town of 4000 inhabitants

 

[Thidrek]

Oh, Lucca! I've been there a few years ago. It's a beautiful town. Quite funny, though, that in the middle ages Italian families showed their power building towers

wow nice! i love to visit castles every time i go to France or Germany. But as far as i know they don't have castles in Scandinavia... or wait, maybe there are some in Denmark?

There are some. One quite popular is Gripsholm Castle in Mariefred near Stockholm. It's not entirely medieval, though.

 

[lefay82]

Oh, Lucca! I've been there a few years ago. It's a beautiful town. Quite funny, though, that in the middle ages Italian families showed their power building towers

oh shit, i got confused. that one i linked is the Guinigi's tower, the tower of the hours is the onther one, with a big clock on it. they are the only 2 towers left in the city, i believe.
yes lucca is nice. i love the fact that the centre is still pedestrian. it preserves the old charm of the city. did you notice how many churches are there? lucca is called also "the city of the 100 churches", because it's approximately the number of the churches built inside the city walls, which is a pretty high number considering how small the city is.

edit: i forgot to answer to one point. yes it's quite funny, but it worked that way. and nearly all the castles here still carry the name of the family which built them. another nice thing that can be seen in architecture is that castles has two types of merlons. one is swallow tailed and the other flat topped. from this you can understand if the family that owned the castle was Ghibellina (that means it supported the Imperator) or Guelfa (that means it supported the Pope), only looking to the merlons

 

[Thidrek]

oh shit, i got confused. that one i linked is the Guinigi's tower, the tower of the hours is the onther one, with a big clock on it. they are the only 2 towers left in the city, i believe.
yes lucca is nice. i love the fact that the centre is still pedestrian. it preserves the old charm of the city. did you notice how many churches are there? lucca is called also "the city of the 100 churches", because it's approximately the number of the churches built inside the city walls, which is a pretty high number considering how small the city is.

wtf? 100 churches in THAT town? No, I did not notice that. In Italy there are a lot of churches in general, so perhaps it just seemed normal to me. ^^

 

[lefay82]

wtf? 100 churches in THAT town? No, I did not notice that. In Italy there are a lot of churches in general, so perhaps it just seemed normal to me. ^^

yeah...inside THIS town!!!! (right inside the walls)

quite shocking, isn't it????


taken from a random site:

Lucca is one of the major cities of Italy, famous even beyond national borders for its intact city walls of the XV-XVII century, which describes a perimeter of about 4450 m around the historic core of the city and is one of the 4 provincial capitals Italians to have an intact city walls, along with Ferrara, Grosseto, Bergamo, the same circle, already transformed since the second half of pedestrian promenade in nice, it is still one of best preserved in Europe, as ever used in past centuries, a defensive end.

Consequently, the monumental historical center of the city has remained intact in its original appearance, could therefore include various architectures honor, like many medieval churches of great architectural richness (Lucca was even dubbed the "city of 100 churches", just for the presence of numerous churches in his heart, consecrated or not, in the past and now in the city), and bell towers, Renaissance palaces and monuments of excellent linearity style.
The city also boasts beautiful urban spaces: the most famous is surely to square dell'Anfiteatro, born on the ruins of the Roman amphitheater by the architect Lorenzo pallets and unique architecture.
Main artery of the city is the close historical and medieval street Fillungo, which brings together the biggest business in town.
Other squares are charming Piazza San Michele, the historic heart of the city and Piazza San Martino, where religious centerpiece is the famous Cathedral of San Martino.
Precisely for this immense historical and monumental wealth was recently advanced the proposal to include the historical center of Lucca - which is a historical tradition of theater, the Teatro del Giglio, the list of UNESCO World Heritage site.

did you see Piazza dell' anfiteatro???
i love this square, which obiouvsly isn't squared

 

[Lupskalla]

Yes, we have some castle here in Sweden & my favorite is this one in Örebro

Lefay: your castle-pics are awesome!!!

 

[lefay82]

Yes, we have some castle here in Sweden & my favorite is this one in Örebro


Lefay: your castle-pics are awesome!!!

wow this amazing too!!!!
a different style but equally beautiful
it is, I should say, more elegant than our castles, we are more used to this kind of medieval rough castles
i think this is really beautiful (this is in tuscany too):

this is really near to where i live, a little medieval village called Nozzano, about half an hour from here. they always do a nice medieval feast in settember, with people in old costumes and historical recallings.

this is really beautiful too, it's situated in the city of Sarzana, in the region next to mine, Liguria.

and this is fucking amazing. an old ruined cathedral, only walls are still there, while the roof is no more. the place is called San Galgano, and there's a legend about a sword in the rock.

and this! this is a monastery called La Certosa, from the name of the monks "certosini" (carthusian), near the city of Firenze.
i hate religion, but i love religious architecture soooo much. it's a shame that only monks can rejoyce this beauty.