Donaufest (festival of the Danube) in Ulm

At Ulm the Danube is achieving navigable. Every year there is a festival with all the countries through which the Danube flows. There are are a lot of activities and a Arts and Crafts Market with sellers and foods from the 10 countries (Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Moldova and the Ukraine) of the Danube.
The festival is on both sides of the river. For getting on the other side you can take the solar ferry.

The products which are sold at the market are usually handmade.

Flowers and cornfields

Here are some impressions of the colours and flowers around us during our trips these days by skates.
 

"Pedalo boat trip" at Munich (Englischer Garten)

The city of Munich has a green heart which is called "Englischer Garten". This park is ideal for relaxing, enjoy the nature and having fun. We rented a pedalo boat and made a trip at the "Kleinhesseloher See". There are some islands into the lake which were populated by ducks and geese.

Of course the "Biergarten" was well attended on this sunny day.

On our way back we were lucky to see this little squirell.

Blue...

It' s very difficult to find words to describe our only Mediterranean sea: "Big blue" or "Fabulous blue" or "Rhapsody in blue".... We have to experience these unique moments during our dives around Gozo. But, let pictures speak for themselves....

Underwater life around Gozo

The mediterenean sea around the maltese islands is sometimes very rough. For this reason the underwater life is very multifaceted. We had luck and mostly very calm sea. On some of our dives we took a lot of time and  tried to find some of the small and beautiful sea creatures. We had a lot of enjoyable encounters with them, some very surprising and just for a few seconds. The animals often seek to escape from our air bubbles.

Tube anemones usually live in caves and move their long arms with the movement of the water. On danger they can pull their arms back quickly.

Between the rocks eyes of shrimps and small crabs  lights up in the light ray of our diving lamp.

Stingrays often hide themselves in the sand and prefer to escape when they are discovered.

Jellyfishes (Pelagia noctiluca) dance with the lightrays in the water.

You can find these bearded fireworms (Hermodice carunculata) everywhere, on the rocks, on sandy ground and between seaweed.

This pair dont stop staring into the sky.

 



A holiday theme at the bottom of the sea

This sea slug (flabellina) moves gracefully like a dancer in the water.

The turbellarian is very, very small. But we found one of them between the algae.













Slipper lobsters are nocturnal animals and you can find them in all warm oceans and seas. So far we have seen these animals always individually. During this dive there where two. They have felt each other with theiy blue antennas.

Azure Window (Gozo, Malta)

The Azure Window at the west of Gozo is a spectacular rock arch which was formed by the wind an the sea. It is about 20 m high and 100 m wide. We visited this really very nice place three times and made some atmoshperic pictures. Our first "meeting" was after a dive when we got up in the "Blue hole".

On the following day the sea was really rough....

...and we enjoyed on another day one of the most beautiful sunsets we have ever seen.

Salt works in Gozo (Malta)

Between Reqqa point and Qbajjar Bay near Marsalforn there exists until today a lot of salt works. In the artifical manfactured basins the sea water evaporates and the salt is harvested per manual work. The profit is not really a big amount. Today the Gozitanian salt is not be exported. It is only sold as a souvenir of this very nice little island.