yumyum's VirtualTourist Home Page

Sechselaeuten - a local customs in Zurich to say goodbye to winter :)

Latest finished pages: (finishing date of page)
Goerlitz (Germany) (20.04.08)
Zgorzelec (Poland) (11.04.08)
Schwelm (Germany) (09.04.08)
Zittau (Germany) (29.03.08)

Latest major updates(country) (date of update):
Imatra (Finland) (09.04.08)

I'm not mentioning my frequent Swiss and German trips.

Trips 2008:
February: Fleet, Guildford, London (England)
March: Dresden, Goerlitz, Zittau (Germany), Zgorzelec (Poland)

Trips 2007:
January: Vaduz, Schaan (Liechtenstein), Feldkirch (Austria)
April: Luxemburg, Zagreb (Croatia)
May/June: Slovakia, Ukraine
August: Wallis (Switzerland)
October: Brasov, Bran, Rasnov, Poiana Brasov, Bucharest (Romania)

Trips 2006:
I visited these following places once or more during 2006:
Moscow 21.1.-18.4.
Luumaeki, Finnland in February
Velikyi Novgorod
St. Petersburgin April
Living in Greater London April-July with trips to Belfast, Dublin, North Devon
Vienna, Malbork, Kaliningrad, Zelenogradsk (Russia), Kaunas, Nida, Klaipeda, Palanga, Siauliai, Krekenava, Vilnius
Nizhni Novgorod,
Lüdenscheid
Ponte Tresa (Italy)
Lugano (Switzerland)
Bonn Altenahr, Ahrweiler, Mayschoss, Dortmund, Karlsruhe, Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Ettlingen (Germany)
To Tirano (Italy) by Bernina Express, Poschiavo, Morteratsch, Pontresina (Switzerland)

Trips 2005:
St. Petersburg (several months), Moscow, Irkutsk, Lake Baikal
Tallinn
Latvia: Riga Daugavpils
Finland: Porvoo
Sweden: Stockholm
Germany: Mannheim
Mongolia
China: Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macao
Japan

I only bought a digital camera sometime during 2002. For this reason I have not been able to put older photos and make pages of destinations where I have been earlier. I'm currently on my second digi camera as the first got dropped but still somehow works. My first is very slow but takes clearer pictures. I finally bought myself a printer/scanner in January 07, so in future you may see some of my scanned photos etc too. But it is still not possible to scan slides. Even when I travel with my little digi camera on big trips I still take my little Minox with ordinary films with me. The reason is that if one breaks down I still have a backup and also it's simply much faster to take a snap with the Minox especially for moving things.

All pictures are taken by me unless otherwise stated!

While travelling taking picture is definitely my hobby. Earlier I took a lot of slides but since I have my digital camera I stopped taking slides. I must say that I'm not always happy with the results of my digi camera. But I'm happy that I don't have to log around a heavy camera anymore and can just snap away.

My first trip abroad was when I was 5 years old to Vienna. With my parents I did a lot of trips to Germany and Austria, Holland and Belgium. We always went there where my dad could enjoy this hobby: tramways, trolleybuses and private small track railways.
Then I remember a trip to Mallorca. In about 1983 I travelled for the first time to England. Many trips to the UK followed and I'm still very fond of going there.

My first big and faraway trip was not to the Disneyland in the US like every other Swiss teenager's dream was but instead I went to Central Asia; places like Baku, Tashkent, Samarkand, Urgentch, Chiwa and Buchara in 1984.
In 1985 I did my first trip with Encounter Overland from London to Kathmandu which took about 3 months. In those days we crossed Iran and also visited Kashmir. I then continued to Calcutta, Burma and Bangkok before returning home.
In 1986 I was in London Golders Green for 6 months as an au-pair. In 1987 followed another trip to the USSR to Yerevan, Usbekistan again, Almaty and Irkutsk.
In 1988 I did a 6 months trip around the world which took me to Bangkok, Burma, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Noumea and the US.
In December 88 I went on another Encounter overland trip this time for 7 months. London to Africa to Asia (Kathmandu). From there I continued to Singapore, Australia (4 months) before returning. By that time I was a total fan of Australia. So I returned twice for 6 months each. From 92 I did only shorter trips on average 3 weeks to Australia again twice, Japan, USA, Southern Africa, India, Mali. I went twice on a cruise. One from Rio to Valparaiso around the south of South America and another one in the Baltic Sea. There were shorter trips in Europe as well and a visit to New York.
I may have forgotten some destinations.
Anyway, the travel bug still hasn't left me :-)