Have you ever been to Mallorca? No? You definitely should plan a visit there in the years to come. Recent political changes how to treat and possibly limit the enormous amount of visitors each year makes it an even more desirable place to visit. What an irony. Sure Mallorca is still famous for endless parties and possibly a lot of alcohol, but this is not what I want to talk about here. There's so much else to discover and the Spanish island is just too beautiful to recover in bed from your last night's adventures all day long. At least this time this was not part of my plan. read more…
Zermatt's youth hostel lies on a hill, which seems to be quite the norm for almost any youth hostel in the world. In a mountain village like Zermatt this might be even more understandable as simply there's not enough room in the mostly flat areas of the valley for all the houses, restaurants, hotels and yes, youth hostels. The youth hostel in Zermatt was built in the 1950s and over time was clearly showing its age. Especially inside the big bedrooms for many people felt rather outdated. Even in a youth hostel today's guests request some minimal standards like smaller rooms with their own bathrooms, some more space to store their luggage and at least some amount of privacy. To achieve all of these new demands within the old building was simple not possible without significantly reducing the number of available beds. So the youth hostel in Zermatt went right in the other direction and in 2002 started planning and building two new addons, two separate buildings right and left in front of the old, existing one forming a new reception, a new courtyard which opens up to frame the view of the Matterhorn. read more…
We're in 2023 and it's still surprisingly hard to publish a simple Markdown .md text file as part of a blog on the internet. I did a bit of research what tools are out there and how difficult all these different setups are. And honestly I'm pretty shocked and disappointed that for me with very little programming skills it's more or less impossible to get what I really want.
Are my demands really that special? All I want is to write some Markdown .md files in the Obsidian app locally on my Mac. But really it could be any markdown editor. I then want to magically transform these texts into some HTML files and upload them to my existing blog. read more…
When going for a walk on weekends or in my spare time I tend to explore always the same spots. There's a handful of tracks that I usually prefer to walk along. In a way it's relaxing to know what's coming next. You don't have to look on a map continuously to find your way or not to miss the next turn. I fell into the habit of listening to podcasts while walking, so these little timeouts are refreshing for the mind as well as for the body. But honestly besides the weather, which can be quite different all through the year, there's not much happening there. But I enjoy this unagitated calmness. read more…
Mountains are incredible. They have always been there since the beginning of time. They will always be there until the end of time. They don't change. They are eternal. In fact there are only a few places left where you can think of planet earth as something that is stable and reliable. Stable like a rock, durable like a stone.
Mountains are hard to reach, there are many obstacles on the way up, the conditions are rough, the local climate is all too often a mixed bag, at best. Maybe therefore mountains are still places of solitude and contemplation. read more…