"Christian's Page" gubbi1's Profile

Hello everybody! Greetings from the beautiful Allgäu!

Last year was a great year with several travels into the North of Europe to visit several of my friends there and to experience the overwhelming nature. I spent a good time in Norway during June and in August to September I made a roadtrip through Southern Finland for a little more than two weeks.
This year turns out to have some special surprises for me regarding travels. Soon there is my 'usual' spring short trip to Oulu for a cottage weekend. For later this year a wedding will bring me into an airplane again, which I am looking forward to very much. It is not sure yet, but also some interesting business trip seems to be ahead of me. A surprising year...

Interesting links for travellers:
+ Weatherwarnings in Europe
+ Country profiles on BBC News Webpage
+ Youth hostels in Germany
+Interactive Bikemap Unterallgaeu (Kaufbeuren, Memmingen, Mindelheim) german only, just play you'll manage
+Interactive Bikemap Oberallgaeu (Füssen, Neuschwanstein, Kaufbeuren) german only, just play you'll manage
+Check the emergency numbers for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
+In case you are interested in how it looks like in places around Europe, check out this page with european or worldwide webcams.
+Maps (city maps) of Europe and US.
+Have a look at Wikipedia, it is an Online-Encyclopedia and contains beside general knowledge also infos on all different countries. It is available in a lot of languages...
+Here you can find tour files for GPS-devices. The files are sorted by country. It is also available in English.
+Listen to Radiostations from all over the world via the web.

Found them on the web and thought they might be interesting for you. Of course I have no responsibility for the contents of the linked pages, which I haven't created... :)
If it is against any law to place screen shots of Google Earth, please let me know. I will take them away then!

Have fun on my pages!!!

Oytal, Oberstdorf

Hiking

Hiking is a big passion of mine, even in the times that I am not really trained. But when being on a hike it gives me the feeling to be very close to a place. For several hikes I have placed information and pictures on my VT pages. Up to now all those found their place here on my profile page, but with the increasing number of links the space started to run out now. Instead I have opened a personal album dedicated to my smaller and larger hikes. I hope you will still continue to have a look there as you did up to now.
-----> Have fun to hike with me here on my personal album...

Biking

Here are my first featured bike tours:

German biking:
+The 'baehnle'-tour outside Kempten, Germany

International biking:
+Biking to Paese, Italy
+Biking to Acciaroli, Italy

Falun Copper Mine, SE

My Travel Themes:

In the last months I realized that there are some themes that influence my travels repeatedly from time to time like a red line. These are for example mining and open air museums. So I have decided to link them from here...

Mining:
+German Mining Museum, Bochum, DE
+Falun Copper Mine, Falun, SE
+Orkla Industry Museum, Løkken Verk, NO
+Iron Works, Möhkö, FI
+Næs Ironworks Museum, Næs, FI
+Røros Mining Town (World Heritage), Røros, NO
+Wieliczka Salt Mine (World Heritage), Wieliczka, PL
+Armador City, California, US
+Bisbee - A copper town, Arizona, US
+Bodie SHP, California, US
+Columbia SHP, California, US
+New Almaden Quicksilver Mine Museum, California, US
+Sutter Creek - A Goldrush Town, California, US

Open Air Museum:
+Agatunet, Aga, NO
+Ancient settlement, Bad Buchau, DE
+Stoneage Village Landa, Jørpeland, NO
+Vra Stoneage Village, Katrineholm, SE
+Larsmo Hembygdsgård, Larsmo, SE
+Maihaugen, Lillehammer, NO
+Vanha Liminka, Liminka, FI
+Lviv Open Air Museum, Lviv, UA
+Hessenpark, Neu-Anspach, DE
+Turkansaari, Oulu, FI
+Stundars - Finnish history, Sulva, FI
+Amori Quarter, Tampere, FI
+Tveitetunet, Valle, NO
+Stoneage Center, Yli-Ii, FI
+Historic Å, Å, NO
+Jalomäen Umpipiha, Ulvila, FI

Vulcano Stromboli (Italy)

Sicilia
The holiday on Sicilia gave me the possiblility to experience the most impressive event of all my travels... a night hike to the top of Stromboli.Stromboli is really busy vulcano on the island with the same name. It is located north east of Sicilia. You HAVE to take a guided tour, otherwise it is too dangerous. I don't
know if it is possible anymore, after a large eruption quarter a year after my visit there ( It is not my fault... :) ).
Main part of my stay I have been to Cefalu, a nice town, from where it is good to go hiking in the close mountains of Madonie.
See more nightpics of the vulcano on the Stromboli pages.

La Gomera
Beside a trip to Toronto in '93 this trip was the most farest I did until now. (EDIT: Not true anymore. Things are changing...) The spanish La Gomera is part of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic close to the coast of Africa. I really enjoyed the great nature there. Influenced by African weather and its vulcanic origin a nice landscape has developed there. There are plants and animals which are just living on this island and nowhere else.

Porto Central Station

Porto '03 & Cascais '09
Visiting a friend from my time in Sweden I got the chance to have a look at Porto and its surrounding. Porto is a great town with an interesting architecture. In the protected part (Unesco) the houses are really narrow standing side by side. Lots of houses are covered with ceramics, especially check out Porto's Central Station. The inside is amazing, see the photo which only shows a very small part of the walls.
I am really fond of the Port wine... ;)
The great VT meeting was a perfect opportunity to return to beautiful Portugal with its nice people. Before the come-together in Cascais I did a two weeks roadtrip through the south. Especially the border region to Spain with the small castle villages are very nice, but also the west coast with its landscape is a great destination! Hope to be back soon!

Lincoln
A result of my stay in Sweden is that I really like taking a ferry. So I didn't say no to the possibility to make a 'One-day-in-Lincoln-Trip'. Going by bus to Rotterdam, taking the ferry to Hull, proceeding to Lincoln and then the same thing back to Neu-Anspach. Sleeping on the ferry makes this an interesting trip. A great thing was, that we visited Amsterdam (I have already been there before) and Bruegge in Belgium. I didn't expect that it is such a nice place!

Tallinn, Estonia, 2008
During the time I lived in Oulu I took the chance on a longer holiday to visit the beautiful town Tallinn in Estonia. It is very beautiful even in rain :)

Liechtenstein, 2009
Curious about this small country around the corner I packed my tent into my car on a weekend and drove over there. The country is small but offers a splendid nature and lots of cultural sites. It has been my first visit to one of Europes small countries.

On oceans ground, Cuxhaven

Cuxhaven
This year, 2005, was the first time ever I was at the Germans Northsea coast. Unfortunately so late in my life, as this place is a very special place on earth. Due to the moons gravitation force the earths water is moved on the surface of our planet. There is a sort of hill of water towards the moon. But on other places this water is missing. Therefore at some places the water level rises and falls twice a day. In many places (France or Canada) this difference of the level is much larger than here at the germans north sea, but due to the fact that the ground is very flat, it happens that the water completely disappears behind the horizont. So you can walk around for kilometers into the emptied ocean. But it has to be warned, cause people get trapped quite frequently and have to be rescued...
Also nice is a trip to Helgoland which is the only german island in international water. Therefore it is possible to buy taxfree there. But this is not the main reason to go there, it is the landscape! See the pages...

Campania
Another trip in 2005 brought me to Campania in bella italia. After my really nice holidays on Sicilia it was time again. Again I travelled with Frosch Sportreisen (sports travels), which offer a mixture of hiking, biking and cultural tours. This time I stayed about 2.5 hours south of Naples, just south of the Amalfi coast. It is a very beautiful area and of course the food didn't disappoint me!

Toronto 1993, Edmonton / Vancouver 2006, Canada
In 1993 I made a trip to visit a school mate from my University in Karlsruhe who stayed in Karlsruhe for an exchange. He, some other students and me shared a flat. After a lot of stories I got curious and made a trip to his hometown to visit him. Toronto and Mississauga offer lots of things to see and I am very thankful to him as this started more or less my 'travel career'... A great experience in 2006 was to visit a class mate from Sweden in Canada after several years. I saw a lot of Edmonton and the surrounding. Also the very famous digging grounds for dinosaurs in the Badlands I could visit. The last week I spent in the beautiful and interesting town of Vancouver which I can highly recommend!

Crans Montana, Switzerland, 2010
Living sooo close to Switzerland for more than 10 years it has been the first time for an overnight stay in this beautiful country. The area around Crans offers so much to do. Plenty of hiking and nature opportunities as well as lots of culture. I had a great stay and enjoyed it very much despite that my car got sacrified in these holidays leaving a little shadow behind! In these two weeks I have been on the highest altitude on ground in my life with 2927 meters above sealevel!

Somewhere in Nevada, NV, US

California & Southwest
In 2007 three business trips with one extension for holidays allowed me to intensly explore the Bay-area as well as the whole Southwest of the States. With a lot of cultural places and scenic landscapes there is plenty to see. I was impressed and hope to be back there for some holidays.

Oulu, Finland
Up to very recently I was working temporarily in Finland and enjoyed the northern culture and landscape. Of course I collected a lot for my VT pages during my year there in Oulu.
Many more visits to meet up my friends here made Finland to become a sort of home to me, kind of addictive. I stayed with them in several cottages for weekends and even came up by car twice, once by ferry via Helsinki and once by land through Sweden. Many more times will follow...

Lofoten 2008, Southern Norway 2011
Living in the 'southern' North of Finland made it possible to visit the stunning landscape of the Lofoten islands. These are among the most beautiful islands in the world. I am currently building up the pages and hope you will find some useful info and have fun visiting them. As I hiked there aswell, you will later find some entries in the hiking section above.
After knowing Finland and Sweden it was time to visit the southern part of Norway with its impressive nature and culture. A road trip via Sweden filled this white area on my map.

Euromeet 2010: Vienna (Austria), Bratislava (Slovakia), Krakow (Poland), Lviv (Ukraine)
To combine the meeting with my worldwide friends with a visit to 4 countries during one Euromeet travel I took the chance for a visit to Vienna, Bratislava, Krakow with its beautiful surrounding and Lviv. Unfortunately I had to miss out Sibiu, but for a great birthday back in Germany. All four places are worth a holiday for their own and I will keep them in my memory very well.

Israel
Thanks to VT-member Martin_S. , who invited me to Israel, I made my first trip ever into this region. I had the chance to visit the area around Arad, which is very beautiful if you like the desert like me and in the second half the north of the country. It is very impressive how much there is to see and how helpful the people are. I am so glad that I had the chance to go there and am very thankful! Many things I had to skip and hope to return soon to 'finish' my endless wish list of places...

Kempten inbetween Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg
Living on the border of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg offers the possibilities to discover Germanies southern west and southern east. To check what there is to see around my hometown, check both sections, as many places on my pages placed in Baden-Württemberg are just a few kilometers away. And believe me, there is much to see in this tourism area!