An area always close to my heart in Switzerland is the canton Ticino, the only Swiss canton situated entirely on the southern side of the Alps, but reaching far into the Alps, and the only canton solely speaking Italian (which is also spoken in a small part of the canton Grison). When I was a teen, I frequently traveled to this canton for paternal visits, sometimes by train, more often by bicycle, which involved a long drive along Lake Lucerne, then a steep ascent up to the village of Göschenen, followed by a train ride (with the bicycle) through the Gotthard tunnel to Airolo, then a steep descent into Ticino. That was the most glorious part: "Flying" down the road at 50-60km per hour, feeling the breeze in your face and hair, and then a final ride across the hillsides to the town of Tenero near Locarno on the Lago Maggiore. The northern, partially uphill section to the entrance of the Gotthard tunnel was about 90 km long, the mainly downhill southern part about 80 km, thus totaling some 170 km (slightly over 100 miles) - not bad for a 14-year old at the start his travel experiences. The entire trip took about 10 hours, including the tunnel train transit. Once I actually did not take the tunnel, but instead crossed the Gotthard Pass, but that took quite a bit longer because of the substantial extra altitude, and I stayed in the hospice on top of the Gotthard Pass overnight. - Please forgive this old man the lengthy detour down memory lane.

In the fall of 2022 we decided to spend a few days in Ticino, sort of reliving the above-mentioned memories of my youth. But since we were driving in our car, this transit went much faster, so we decided to make a substantial detour: instead of taking the fast road tunnel through the Gotthard, we crossed two mountain passes: first the FURKA PASS (2429m/7969ft) from the town of Andermatt to Gletsch, then a short drive in the "Upper Goms" area to Ulrichen, followed by crossing the NUFENEN PASS (2478m/8130ft) to Airolo in Ticino, and finally driving on to the village of INTRAGNA strategically located at the entrance to the Centovalli valley, which leads to Domodossola in Italy, and also in close proximity to the entrance of the Valle Maggia, the largest valley in Ticino.

The photos in this set include a few glorious vistas from the drive over these two mountain passes (# 1-4) and then images from our drive up the MAGGIA VALLEY to the village of FUSIO high up at the top of this long valley (#5-7), and also a short detour to the BAVONA VALLEY with historic hamlets and Ticino's largest waterfall in FOROGLIO (#8-9). The final image shows the view from a mountain road down towards the town of OLIVONE/BLENIO on our return trip from the Ticino.

A few notes to specific pictures below where I do not have sufficient space in the captions for full description:

~ Image #1 - This view from the top of the Furka Pass depicts at right/center the Furkapass road descending towards the town of Gletsch, first in a long swoop, then in a number of switchbacks mainly behind the mountain with a few visible at the center of the picture. At upper left we see the serpentines of another pass road, the Grimselpass road ascending from Gletsch towards the Grimsel Pass, which we did not traverse this time. Very faintly visible at the top of the road is the pass at 2164m/7100ft with the blue water of Lake Grimsel.

~ Image #2 - View from the top of the Nufenen Pass, the highest Swiss mountain pass at 2478m/8130ft to the glorious Finsteraarhorn peak (4274m/14,022ft) in the Valais/Bernese Alps, at right partially in the clouds another prominent peak: the Schreckhorn (4078m/13,379ft), which we saw in the previous set #23 (images 3 & 4) from the other, Bernese side.

~ Image #3 - A spectacular set of peaks surrounding a glacier viewed from the top of the Nufenen Pass, from left to right: Bättelmatthorn/Punta dei Camosci (3044m/9987ft) - Corno Rosso (3289m/10,791ft) - Blinnenhorn/Corno Cieco (3374m/11,070ft) - Fülhorn (2863m/9393ft) - Ritzhörner (3107m/10,194ft)

~ Image #4 - On top of Nufenenpass: Nufenen Lake below the mountains (l to r): Galmihorn at far left (3506m/11,503ft) and adjacent Mittaghorn (3367m/11,047ft) - the white mountain in center: Pizzo Gallina (3061m/10,043ft) and at right the prominent Chilchhorn (2789m/9150ft).

A few links to further information, if so desired:
FURKA PASS - Info from Swiss Tourism - https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/experiences/furka-pass/
NUFENEN PASS - Info from Colcorsa - https://www.colcorsa.com/tour/nufenen-pass/
INTRAGNA - Info from Swiss Tourism - https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/destinations/intragna-capital-of-the-centovalli/
MAGGIA VALLEY - Info from Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valle_Maggia
FUSIO - info from Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusio
BAVONA VALLEY & FOROGLIO WATERFALL - info from Swiss Tourism - https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/destinations/val-bavona/


Notes
TRIP INFO: Set # 1 provides a brief introduction to this series. Please use the link below if you would like to review this intro:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-797460-1.html

2022 TRIP INFO: Set # 19 provides more information on the two trips of the year to Europe
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-798237-1.html

EARLIER POSTS of this series: Access my topic list at UHH, the new posts are listed in reverse chronological order:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/user-topic-list?usernum=45105

Thanks for visiting, I recommend viewing the downloads and look forward to your comments and questions.

.

This set brings you two quite special locations in Switzerland.

The first one is the RHINE FALLS at the border of the cantons Zurich and Schaffhausen in the very northern part of the country close to Germany, this is a location very well known in the Swiss and International tourist circle. It is Europe's largest waterfall by volume, where the waters of the river Rhine drop 23 m / 75 ft over a width of 150 m / 490 ft. To the left, northern side of the falls are the buildings of the town of Neuhausen in the canton Schaffhausen. At the right side of the falls stands the Castle Laufen in the canton Zurich, dating back to the year 858. This castle has experienced turbulent times over its close to 1200 years of history: in 1449, the besieged inhabitants were even forced to flee by swimming across the river. The island at the center of the falls, called the "Rheinfallfelsen" in German, can be accessed by boat and steps lead to a lookout at the top. Five images below provide impressions from this site, following a leading image from the nearby town of HALLAU, an old market town that is now a premier winemaking village, with its red wine production almost entirely made from Pinot Noir (Blauburgunder in German).

The second location is the CREUX DU VAN, again on cantonal borders, this time of the cantons Neuchâtel and Vaud at the very western edge of Switzerland, close to France, in the gentle southern Jura mountain area. While the Rhine Falls described above garner international attention, this interesting feature in Jura hills is rather unknown. While I have been aware of this scenic location for quite some time, it took us until the year 2022 to finally visit it. It basically is a natural amphitheater-shaped rock formation created starting 140,000 years ago by glacial transformation and surprises the viewers with its sudden drop from the flat, slightly undulating hilly surrounding area. The images 7 - 10 below bring you this interesting area.

A few links to further information, if so desired:
RHINE FALLS - Info from Swiss Tourism - https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/experiences/the-rhine-falls/
CREUX DU VAN - Info from Swiss Tourism - https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/experiences/creux-du-van-natural-spectacle/


Notes
TRIP INFO: Set # 1 provides a brief introduction to this series. Please use the link below if you would like to review this intro:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-797460-1.html

2022 TRIP INFO: Set # 19 provides more information on the two trips of the year to Europe
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-798237-1.html

EARLIER POSTS of this series: Access my topic list at UHH, the new posts are listed in reverse chronological order:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/user-topic-list?usernum=45105

Thanks for visiting, I recommend viewing the downloads and look forward to your comments and questions.

.

These Bald Eagles are not happy to see the Red Tail Hawk encroaching into their space. The photo is not super sharp as the eagles were quite a distance away (175-200 yards), but you can still see that they are quite upset. This is a mating pair that nests along the York River and occasionally visits the town dock where they are in the first photo. The other photos are of the same eagles but they are closer as they are in their nesting tree. Hope you enjoy. In case you’re wondering, the photos were taken with a Nikon D850 and a Tamron G2 150-600 lens.
Doug

The first is a female Osprey who keeps sitting around the nest waiting/looking for the male - he does show up every once-in-awhile - never with a fish tho ! ? So, he is not scoring any points with the female - the nest is fully made and she should be sitting on eggs now ......in fact I have yet to see either the male or female with a fish !

The second is a Eastern Palm Warbler - I believe - which seems pretty common in my area ...

Thanks to ALL for stopping by and for comment ! ..... Larry
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