Taken during another visit in Oslo in September. The original picture from my first visit in Febraury 2013 is here.
Tag Archives: Architecture
A Weekend in Nice
After my recent trip to St. Petersburg I finally was ready for Spring time. It was time for the plants to turn green and for flowers to bloom. While I could get all of that in Mannheim as well, I had another chance to go on a weekend trip. And so we went to Nice.
We got there quite late in the evening, so we just went to bed in our rented apartment to go for a walk the next day. I eagerly loaded color film into my camera to capture all the colors of Spring. And then… it rained. When we came to the famous promenade at the beach, the Promenade des Anglais, it looked quite empty and it actually was quite cold. So we just sought shelter in the next cafe and waited until it stopped raining. We continued out walk through Nice after the rain, but only on the next day we got to see the sunny side of the town.
On the next day I insisted that we get up early so that we could take a stroll over the various markets in Nice. As our apartment was just a few minutes away from the old port in Nice, we could do most of our sightseeing by foot. We visited the fish market (which was not as big as I thought) and continued our walk over the farmers’ and flower market.
During the day, we visited more parts of the city. We went to Place Masséna, one of the central squares in Nice and climbed up the Castle Hill to get a beautiful view over the city. Our walk ended in a bar at the old port not far away from our apartment.
On our last day we took another walk through the old parts of the city with its narrow alleys and colorful buildings before we finished our trip at the place where the sightseeing part started, at the promenade. This time, however, the weather was fantastic, so we could spend our last hours in Nice at the beach.
A Trip to St. Petersburg
As you could already see in the teaser image, I recently went to St. Petersburg for a weekend trip. Actually it was a birthday trip of a friend. He decided not to celebrate his birthday at home but asked a couple of friends to visit St. Petersburg instead. Of course I did not hesitate to go as I had not been there or in Russia at all yet.
Unfortunately, on the day of our flight the personnel at Frankfurt airport announced a big strike day and the majority of flights were canceled for that day. I do not know whether it was a birthday present or just luck, but our flight did not turn up on the list of canceled flights the day before. So we decided to give it a try and started out journey in Mannheim. We got up early, because we expected a major chaos at the airport. However, as soon as we arrived there we found the airport to be quite empty, if not almost deserted. So we had no problems checking in and got through security in no time. Even at the gate there were not too many people. We then entered the plane and just after we all were in it—with us there were about 20 other flight guests—the captain announced that boarding was complete and that we would start shortly. Now that was a pleasant surprise! I guess most of the other passengers just booked another flight, so they did not show up at all. At the end, not only did our flight take place, we also had our (mostly) private jet. Of course we took this opportunity to celebrate the birthday right on the plane and a few hours later we safely landed in St. Petersburg.
In the next two day we took every opportunity to see as most as we could of the city, its churches, and all the palaces. We walked down Nevsky Prospect, the main street in the city, and visited various churches, one more spectacular than the other. We went for meals to taste the local cuisine and even made an excursion to Peterhof that is located right at the sea. In fact, we did so much sightseeing that we were too exhausted to go out in the evening! But I guess that is just a good reason to come back some time. After all, we came at a time were Spring had not started yet, so the city was still quite gray. That may have been one reason why I only used black & white films. If I should go to St. Petersburg another time it probably will be in Summer (and with color films).
Besides, Spring has started and it is time for some color again! The next trip is already planned and then you finally will see color again, I promise.