Tag: Nature

Discovering France and Switzerland

In the past weeks we went for a couple of walks around the neighborhood, so here’s a collective post with the most beautiful photos from these events.

First on: vineyards in Challex:

Plateau de Solaison:

 Ornex and view on Mont Blanc:

Vesegnin and sunset over fields (and Mont Blanc again):

Somewhere up Montreux:

Saint Jean de Gonville:

Quarry near Pugny and Radek in water:

View point (on Geneva and Mont Blanc) near Gex:
Chevry:
Now it seems like summer is over, making way to autumn, so the next post of this kind will be less green, more pastel.

Birdies, birdies, birdies…

When visiting Dombes region, Parc des Oiseaux (Bird’s Park) is an unquestionable must! I really can’t express how much I liked this place. We spent almost 4 hours there and I know it could have been even longer if we had had more time. The place is pretty big and it’s being expanded by new areas and new bird species. When we arrived, we headed straight to lories’ aviary because it was their feeding time and we could actively participate in this. Boy, it was fun… Apart from just marvelous, colourful birds, the real amusement was to actually give them food and to be able to touch them. Radek was lucky enough to experience close encounter of a third kind with some of the birds 🙂

When feeding was over, we still had some time before the big event – a bird’s performance organised by the park – so we just strolled around and watched different breeds.

Then, the show… We didn’t know what to expect so we were quite excited before. In principle, the main idea of the show was: birds flying just centimeters from the spectators’ heads. Me during the show: -Look at that! -Look at this! -WOW, look at that! – Oh, look  at this!… It was also educational because the lady was describing the birds, their habitats and habits.

 

When the show finished, we still had like 3/4 of the park to see. Fortunately, visiting all the aviaries was not tiring. There were few people and the path were made in such a way to make people feel being emerged in nature, rather than visiting a zoo. And so, we went past: parrots, flamings, chicks (these ones were pretty ugly, yet very cute), toucans, owls, ostriches, condors, penguins, ducks and many others I’m unable to quote… We even saw a kangaroo in an Australia-theme area of the park. Although I don’t like revisiting the same places – this time I hope I will have the chance to see those marvels again.

Exploring Dombes region

Today, because of Swiss holiday, we had a day off to use. Although it is September, the weather was like in July, so we decided to make a trip outside the city. Destination: Dombes region, France. The area is well known for its ponds and water-soaked grounds. Our plan for the day: les jardins aquatiques (water gardens), Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne village, Le Parc des Oiseaux (bird park), a medieval village of Pérouges. Looks like an action-paked day for us.

We started from a small but beautiful water garden, nurtured by a company selling water-garden stuff (like fish, pumps and plants). They really know their ropes – the garden was marvelous. It’s best known for koi carps – very colourful little fellows swiming in their ponds. I really enjoyed this short walk – it was a nice start of our day.

Next, we headed to a lovely village – Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne. There was nothing special to see or do there, so we just walked around narrow allays, visited the hill with a castle, sat down in a cafe and enjoyed the sunny day and the charm and idleness of the place.

Then, we drove to Le Parc des Oiseaux – but this is a place that deserves a separate post, so I will skip it here. A visit in the park took us almost four hours, so when we were actually free it was already late afternoon. Last in our plan: a medieval village of Pérouges. It’s listed among 'les plus beaux villages de France’ (the most beautiful villages of France). I would personally compare it to Yvoire, although I liked Yvoire more. When we arrived, the village looked… deserted. There were few people, restaurants were closed… It felt a bit strange. We had a fast stroll through the cobblestoned streets, tasted la galette de Pérouges – a local delicacy and went back to car.


’Moulin de vert’ walk

First day of September might foreshadow autumn, not this year though… With a truly summer-like weather, we went for a 'Moulin de vert’ walk by the Swiss side of the border, along the river.
We set off from the dame (pretty cool, I’ve never seen a dame from this close) and went down the turquoise river on our right and ponds on our left. We passed by many families doing barbecue, crossed a field, had a short climb up the cliff and sat down on a bench by a view point. Then, we went down to a small Swiss village – Cartigny (they are all so nice and neat!) and then back to the car through the fields and barbecue site. Très agréable!

European Dog Show

Today we went to a European Dog Show that was advertised to have witnessed over 3500 dogs. O boy, I was excited to see and pet all of them. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed by the venue. First of all, at the time we were there the contests going on featured only… small strange dogs. I was hoping more for wolf-like creatures 🙂 Second of all, it was not easy to pet the dogs… I only sneaked a couple of strolls (felt like a criminal). Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience to see such venue and get the gist how it looks like.

Medieval town of Yvoire

With the weather pampering us for the past weeks, we do trips every weekend. This time we went to Yvoire, small town at the south shore of Geneva Lake, well-known for  its medieval town and Garden of Five Senses. Having entered inner area encircled by an old wall, we headed straight to the Jardin des Cinq Sens (the garden). We haven’t seen it yet so I was pretty curious what will await us inside.
In principle, the garden is design in a labyrinth-like manner with different „garden chambers”. There are: alpine garden, undergrowth, maze, meditation place, garden of taste, garden of smell, garden of touch, garden of sight, garden of hearing. The last ones are the most interesting. In garden of taste you can find edible plants, in garden of smell one should rub the leaves of the plants to sense different smells, in garden of touch one will find funny texture plants (like with spikes, silky smooth, sticky etc.), garden of sight is a treat for our eyes, since it’s all colored in blue, velvet and rose and the garden of hearing is basically a fountain. All in all, I enjoyed all of them.

After a visit in the garden we did a tour – by the medieval castle, to the lake side and through the quaint village. Surprisingly, there were no so awfully lots of tourists, so we enjoyed strolling down the little lanes covered with flowers.

Dendrological Garden in Przelewice

This is going to be a long post…
We set out for a walk in dendrological garden in Przelewice, very close to Szczecin. I always wanted to go there but never have had a chance so far – it’s a shame not to see places like that when they are only a few kilometers away from your city. Since I’m having some back aches and need to recover after surgery, walks are expedient and so – off we went.
What can I say about the place? 45 ha of terrain with a prominent garden and a newly restored residence, surrounded by ~1200 species of plants.
We started our stroll from a less populated route by turning into polish trees alley which led us to Three Ponds area. The walk was very relaxing since we were walking in a soothing shade of the trees and we were the only visitors on that path. The view was not spectacular (in the end – we are all used to the image of the polish trees) until we reached the ponds.

The ponds were lovely, with all the shades of green one could imagine. I particularly liked a zigzag footbridge that wobbled riskily under our steps. Well, no risk, no fun – if it hadn’t been for the footbridge Radek wouldn’t have made a fantastic frog shot (yet more shades of green to experience). After spending a while next to the water we moved along and followed the path that led us to a central meadow and pond. And that was really awesome. I don’t know if the garden is designed in such a way that the flowers are in full bloom all the time, but they all were that day. Lovely.

 

We remembered not to feed the swan although it acted like it hadn’t known the rule, leaning out towards us, counting for a piece of bread. When I thought it would be the end of a representative part of the garden, we went round the pond and it turned out it was even prettier at the other side of the water.

By that time we ran out of water and got pretty tired, so we went by the residence to have some juice and ice cream. I enjoyed the time, resting after a longer walk, so in the end they needed to rush me a bit to get up. As I did, we moved to an orangery but we hurried up a bit when inside… The temperature that day was somewhere around 33 dg. Celsius and it was way hotter and stuffier than that in the greenhouse. Imagine yourself… We finished our tour passing by the remnants of a former folwark (agricultural enterprise) with an old creamery, barns, distillery, granary and a couple of more – now shabby but still showing a spark of its former magnitude – buildings.

Roses are red…

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
And so are you.

I dedicate this poem to Radek, it pictures our today’s activity pretty accurately, as we went to see a rose garden very close to our apartment in Szczecin. The weather was perfect and the sun falling on the petals made the colours vivid and beautiful. It feels like first days of summer in Poland.

The garden seemed not yet in its full bloom, nevertheless, it was very pretty. Roses are indeed royal species, it’s no wonder that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry chose this particular flower to be the love of le Petit Prince. 
We strolled around the garden (it’s not particularly big), sat down on the bench, enjoyed the sun, smell and colours and had a look on a small posters’ display arranged in the park. There will be a French music concert here later this week, perhaps we will come again if time permits.



Vineyards on the border

Finally, clouds that had been covering the Geneva sky decided to give us a break and unveil the sun. Therefore we took the occasion and went out for a walk down the neighbouring vineyards. We started off from Challex, a quaint village on the French side. There is really something charming about those lovely little dots on a map, life seems so peaceful there, everything is neat and tidy and there are tiny offerings at every corner. What do I mean by offerings? Things that you watch with pleasure, that sometimes trigger your thoughts on different subjects like history, human mankind, even our lives. Such things make you stop for a while and absorb the beauty of being. Ok, maybe that description is a bit flamboyant, I admit, but if you once see those petits villages you will understand what I mean.

We found ourselves almost immediately on the vineyard trail and we made our way to Dardagny – a Suiss village of wine makers. The grapevine we passed by were not yet in full gloom, well, not even in partial gloom, I would say – they were just waking up from winter. I guess these hills must look spectacular in summer, we will definitely visit the place again when they start to flourish.

From Dardagny we followed the trail back to Challex. It was even more spectacular and, as the sun went higher, hotter than our first part of the trip. First we passed by the village, watching the wine-vaults, stopping by a chateau and admiring the flowery mansions scattered all over the place. Then we turned right, off the beaten track, through yellow fields and vineyards again. When we reached Challex I was already pretty tired, not used to the sun and a bit rusty in joints after winter, so we went back to Saint Genis for lunch.

Circus in our backyard

The weather was awful today, so when in the evening the sun pushed its way through the clouds, we went for a short walk in Saint Genis. You can’t imagine our astonishment when it turned out that just a few meters away from our doorway we had camels, donkey, horses, lamas and various other creatures that came here with the circus. We could actually touch them, though they didn’t reciprocate our interest and were utterly involved in nibbling at grass. Anyway, for me – a city dude, as well as animal fan – such proximity of oriental creatures was awesome.