We travel pretty exclusively with Tauck. This tour was “Switzerland, Europe’s Crown Jewel” https://www.tauck.com/tours/switzerland-escorted-tour?tcd=sw2021. It’s a bit pricy but if you calculated all of the costs separately, the totals would be fairly close. All of the hotels are 5 star and most meals are included as well as entry fees train tickets etc. The guides are also top notch and they visit places when they are less impacted. At this point in my life I’d rather not drive and some of the vistas I captured from the bus would have been impossible to get from a car unless your wife or a professional was driving. I’m sure you’ll love it no matter how you go. The Tauck link has a detailed itinerary.

We continued our trip to Northern Italy through the beautiful Simplon Pass.

The Simplon Pass links Brig (Valais) with Domodossola in Northern Italy. Now generally open in winter, it was used as early as the Stone Age, though until the 17th century it was mainly traversed by smugglers and mercenaries as the narrow Gondo Gorge was considered impassable, even by Roman Era architects. It was the Brig merchant prince Kaspar Jodok von Stockalper, who began to use the Simplon Pass in the middle of the 17th century for bringing salt on the backs of mules from the Mediterranean. It goes without saying that the trade made him immensely rich. The monumental baroque Stockalper Palace in Brig bears witness to his epoch.

The first pass road suitable for vehicular traffic dates back to the time of Napoleon, who wanted to travel southward with his cannons. Over a hundred years later, in 1906, the railway tunnel through the Simplon was opened. At a length of 19 kilometers it was until recently the longest tunnel in the world. Thanks to the railway, cars can be loaded onto trains running between Brig and Iselle even in winter. The Simplon Pass road can be traveled practically all year round, but in spite of many protective terraces, it is possible for the pass road link to become temporarily interrupted.

From Brig, the road takes you over lengthy curves up the mountain. Halfway up, the Ganter Bridge crosses the Ganter Valley. The bold design of this modern bridge fits harmoniously into the countryside. At 2005 meters, on the summit of the pass, stands the Hospiz of the Bernardine monks. An eight-meter-high stone eagle reminds visitors of World War II. Looking toward the back, one sees the magnificent panorama of the Bernese Alps with the Bietschhorn and the glacier flanks of the four-thousand-meter giants Fletschhorn and Weissmies.

On the southern side of the pass, the road towards Italy passes Simplon Village. The style of the buildings with their typical stone plate roofs reminds visitors of the proximity of Italy. The village square is similar to an Italian piazza. The road continues via galleries and tunnels through the narrow Gondo Gorge that is hemmed in by granite walls. In the village of Gondo, gold mines can be visited. Here one of Switzerland’s most remote valleys, the Zwischbergental, branches off to the west. In Gondo one crosses the border to Italy.

Today the Stockalper Trail (Stockalperweg), the 35-kilometer long, fully preserved Simplon mule-trail from the 17th century is the culturally important, historic hiking route from Brig over the Simplon Pass to Gondo. In the renovated Alte Gasthof (”Old Inn”) in Simplon Village, two museums dedicated to the cultural landscape on the Simplon were established. The trail can easily be hiked in three days, with overnights on the Simplon Pass and in Simplon Village.
https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/experiences/simplon-pass/

Please see my previous set from this region for more images: https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-694679-1.html

All of these images(except #10) were taken from the tour bus windows with a Nikon D7200 and a Nikkor 18-300 lens. Try the downloads for color and clarity and please forgive the occasional glare.
Mark

I've always been intrigued by photographing the night stars, so for the last few months, I've been reading up on Star Trails and Milky Way photography and finally got to the point where I had to either do it or forget it. I'll admit that I don't have the ideal lens that the U-tubers are recommending, but I just used my 18-55mm kit lens on my Canon M6 Mark ll mirrorless with a 1.6 crop factor.

On Monday morning (04-12-21) I woke up around 01:30am, threw my gear in the truck and headed out to a deserted First Water Road which runs parallel to Superstition Mountain. My Photo Pills app had indicated that the Milky Way would be right above the mountain at around 03:00, and I was just hoping that the near 5,000ft ridgeline wouldn't be blocking it out.

I drove to one of my favorite parking spots, set up the camera/tripod and checked "Pills" again. Pills showed the Milky Way as being above the mountain with a slight incline to the East, which would put it in-line with the top ridge. I took a series of 'test shots' to see if the camera was pointed right and, after a few adjustments, took a 5-shot sequence. I did the same at five different locations to see which one would provide the best results, then called it a morning at 04:30am and went home to see what the computer would show me.

I used Sequator photo stacking software for the first time, while watching a U-tuber demonstrate its abilities and came out with a final image that I could take to the next step. I loaded the .tiff image into Affinity Photo and made some adjustments to enhance the Milky Way and highlight the face of the mountain and called it quits for the day.

Camera Settings:
Camera set on: Manual
Lens set on: Manual focus
Aperture: f/4 (its minimum)
Exposure time: 15 seconds
ISO: 1,600
White Balance: 4,000 K
Timer Delay: 2 seconds
Focused on: Infinity (I hope)

I'm open to critique/recommendations but keep in mind that this is my first time for celestial photography.

Jack Olson
Apache Junction, Arizona

From late October to early December 2013 we took an interesting trip to the Far East and South East Asia, covering Sichuan in China, 4 cities/regions in Myanmar, a bus tour to Northern Thailand and eventually wound up for a month in Hong Kong where we lived in the 80's and where my wife originally hails from.

The pictures in this second part of my calendar images for 2013 come from the beautiful region of Jiuzhaigou at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau near Chengdu in Sichuan/China. Jiuzhaigou literally means "Valley of Nine Villages" and features 9 ancient Tibetan villages where life carries on in pretty much the same way as it always has. The area is famous for its series of clear lakes with astonishingly blue water and wonderful waterfalls. We were very lucky to be there at a good time in very late October to view the fall colors of the trees reflecting in these spectacular waters. This is followed by a few candid shots of Pandas in the famous "Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding" with some close-up shots of these cute creatures. The second part of todays post shows a few pictures of beautiful and exotic Myanmar with a Royal Barge in the former capital Yangon, its ancient temples on the Plain of Bagan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a scene on Inle Lake. It closes with a colorful palette in Northern Thailand and a Christmas ambience in Hong Kong.

I have not yet presented any of these on UHH, but plan to do so in the future. For those interested: You can find albums with a much more in-depth view on my photo-website under the CHRONOLOGICAL tab in 2013 in the "South / East Asia" group. I recommend viewing the abbreviated version under the link "Short". Website: www.weberwest.weebly.com

Please note when looking at the website photos that these pictures were shot with a crop sensor D90 in jpeg and very minimally processed in Picasa. I did not have the tools nor the skills at that time to make the necessary level and perspective adjustments nor could I do many of the other tweakings that are available now.

Notes
TRIP INTRODUCTON: Set # 1 provides an introduction. Please use the link below if you would like to review it:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-682502-1.html

EARLIER POSTS of this series: To view, access my profile via the link below, then click on the figure behind "# of topics created" for the list of posts:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/user-profile?usernum=45105

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

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The following 2 sets presented today and tomorrow cover the year 2018 which saw us exploring some new venues as well as reliving our memories in some some more familiar places.

To start off, we made a quick trip in March to the frozen reaches of the northern shore of Lake Superior, where our third grandchild was born a few weeks earlier, after which we moved down to still freezing-cold Toronto, our home town in an earlier life for a total of 8 years in 2 different stages. In April to June, we first visited London, then flew down to Toulouse and enjoyed the countryside and the fascinating historic towns and landscapes located between Toulouse and the Provence and ended up in Switzerland. In the fall, we took a very interesting river cruise from Saint Petersburg to Moscow and spend a substantial amount of time with our son's family in Switzerland, which gave us a chance to re-visit many places in my native country.

The images in this first set cover Ontario, London and Switzerland in different seasons.

Notes
TRIP INTRODUCTON: Set # 1 provides an introduction. Please use the link below if you would like to review it::
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-682502-1.html

EARLIER POSTS of this series: To view, access my profile via the link below, then click on the figure behind "# of topics created" for the list of posts:
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/user-profile?usernum=45105

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

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