Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 223: “Flights of Fancy”

John invites us today, to imagine the unthinkable and go behind the border of imagination for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. He writes:

“According to Dictionary.com, the idiom “flight of fancy” refers to “an unrealistic idea or fantastic notion, a pipe dream. For example, ‘She engaged in flights of fancy, such as owning a million-dollar house.’ This idiom uses flight in the sense of ‘a soaring of the imagination,’ a usage dating from the mid-1600s.”

and

“For this week’s challenge, consider sharing images of interesting or unusual subjects that represent notions or ideas that seem incredible even today or seemed. “

So, the jump point is set.

The French Brothers Montgolfiere used to have a dream, an incredible dream! And, in fact, they were able to realize it. On June, 4th of 1783, they presented their self-constructed vehicle to the amazed audience: the Montgolfière, the ancestor of today’s hot-air balloons. Their courage has opened up a new world for mankind.

This image is taken a few minutes before sunrise during my second flight looking east

.

The people of the North are used to this incredible glowing in the dark during the long and cold winter nights: Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. But, unlike us nowadays, they did not have an exclamation for the moving lights above them. The old Vikings found a saga to explain it: At night the valkyries ride along the battlefields to collect all the past heroes and lead them to Odin’s table in Walhalla. The rays of moonlight were reflected by their arms and shields which are supposed to result in the amazing lights.

 

My third image is to honor the genius Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí. In the past, I already donated a few posts to him and his absolutely incredible work. He was able to think outside the box when planning buildings and was able to make heave stone seem to be light plant parts. All the shapes were derived from nature, just like this hall of forest trees forming the main ship of the cathedral La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. I got aware of parts of his work first when I was in my 7th or 8th class at secondary school. I’m so happy, to have been there a couple of years ago and I hope to revisit when the cathedral is once finished.

 

Maybe, I was able to inspire you to dig in your archive and find some images, you can publish your images on your blog and set a link to John’s inspiration post. Don’t forget to tag it with the tag LENS-ARTIST, so we can find it.

Take care!

Lens-Artists Photo Challange 164: “looking up and down”

We have another guest host for LAPC: Sofia Alves

The first thing coming to my mind when recognizing the theme was the WIM of 2012. When standing on the ground, we were looking up to see all the colorful hot-air balloons of soo many different shapes flying over us.

And the next morning, we had the other view: looking down from one of the balloons.

 

Take care!

Traveling in times of the pandemic

This is my first bi-lingual blog-post. Text in Deutsch weiter unten.

A friend of mine started a challenge to inspire the reader to travel without leaving the room and and calls it Zimmerreisen,which translates to room-travel. The German word can be a plural noun as well as a verb. I really liked the idea and I wanted to participate. As she writes her blog in German and addresses people living here I would also write this post in German. But, the majority of my followers don’t understand German, so I decided to write this post in both languages.

Puzzleblume named a few of rules for the challenge:

1. each second Friday of a month a new turn
2. pingback to her post
3. 1,500 words should be enough (per language)
4. Not only images. Tell us a story!
5. use the tag #Zimmerreisen (and #roomtravel)
6. use the given letters as stimuli for your imagination to find places or things starting with the given letters
7. First we start with “A”, “B” and “C”. Use at least one of them for your post

I’ve chosen “Alpes”, “Balloon” and “Carnival” for this first roundtrip from the back of your seat to have

A few years ago, I was in Bavaria with some friends for having a hot-air balloon flight in front of the Alpes.

You know, flying balloons depends very much on the weather. While for most time of the year a balloon can fly safely only during the morning or evening hours, during winter they can also have good conditions during the day. So, we met at about 8:30 with the pilot and tried to find a good spot to start. The sky was covered with thick clouds, but the weather report (not the forecast) said, it would be possible to fly. And we did! After a couple of 10 meters, we touched the clouds and when we came out of the clouds, a sunny blue sky was above us. We went up to 1,000 meters and enjoyed the view to the Alpes.

Where’s the “C” you might ask. This happens during the core time of the carnival season while we were escaping the carnival festivities. In German, carnival translates to Karneval. The origin of this word is Latin “carne vale” and means “meat, farewell”. This festivity is the last before the start of the lenten season, which ends on Holy Saturday.

Btw. I’d encourage you, to join. I guess, it’s a lot of fun 😊

German:

Eine Co-bloggerin von mir hat eine Challenge gestartet Post zu schreiben, in denen man reisen kann, ohne das Zimmer zu verlassen und nennt das “Zimmerreisen”. Ich fand die Idee so gut, dass ich mich auch daran beteiligen möchte. Da mein Blog aber in Englisch ist und Ihre Idee in Deutsch, habe ich mich entschieden diese Post Zweisprachig zu schreiben, denn die Mehrheit meiner Leser verstehen kein Deutsch.

Sie hat ein paar Regel aufgestellt:

1. jeden zweiten Freitag startet eine neue Runde
2. Pingback zu ihrem Post setzten
3. 1,500 Wörter sollten genug sein
4. Nicht nur Bilder, sondern eine Geschichte erzählen
5. Den Tag #Zimmerreisen benutzen (und #roomtravel für englisch-sprachige Leser)
6. die gegebenen Buchstaben als Inspiration für den eigenen Blog-Post nutzen. Die Orte oder Gegenstände sollten mit diesem Buchstaben anfangen
7. Wir beginnen mit “A”, “B” und “C”, und mindestens einer der Buchstaben muss verwendet werden

Ich habe mich für “Alpen”, “Ballon” und “Carnival” für diese erste Runde entschieden.

Vor ein paar Jahren war ich mit ein paar Freunden in Bayern um eine Fahrt in einem Heißluft-Ballon vor der Alpenkulisse zu unternehmen.

Wie jeder weiß, Ballon-Fahrten sind sehr Wetterabhängig. Die meiste Zeit des Jahres können sie nur in den Morgen- oder Abenstunden starten. Im Winter hingegen besteht in den Alpen auch die Möglichkeit tagsüber zu fahren. So haben wir uns morgens gegen 8:30h mit dem Ballon-Piloten getroffen und einen Start-Platz gesucht. Der Himmel war mit dicken grauen Wolken überzogen, aber der Flugwetterbericht sah für einen Start gut aus. Nach einigen Duzend Metern haben wir die Wolken erreicht und nach einigen weiteren Duzend Metern erfolgreich durchstoßen, wo wir von der Sonne und strahlend blauem Himmel erwartet wurden. Bis zu 1.000m sind wir aufgestiegen und konnten die Aussicht auf das fantastische Alpen-Panorama genießen.

Was ist mit dem “C”? Die ganze Aktion fand in der Karnevalszeit statt. Zwischen Weiberfasnacht und Tulpensonntag, während unserer järhrlichen Karnevals-Flucht (darüber habe ich schon ein paar Mal geschrieben). Karneval, oder in Englisch carnival geht zurück auf das mittel-lateinische “carne vale”, das “Fleisch, Lebewohl” bedeutet. Aschermittwoch, mit dem Karneval abschließt, ist der Beginn der Fastenzeit, die mit Karsamstag ihr Ende findet.

Btw. Eventuell möchtest Du auch teilnehmen. Tu es!

Take care!!

 

 

Throwback Thursday: up in the air

Eight years ago I did my first hot air balloon trip. What an experience!

Did you ever do such a flight?

Take care!

 

Throwback Thursday: WIM

2012-09-02 : 5 years ago I did my first flight with a hot air balloon during W.I.M. 2012

Take care!

Weekly Photo Challenge: afloat

This weeks photo challenge at The Daily Post is called “afloat”.

I really love flying with a balloon. Here you can find more photos 🙂

Take care!

(as always: click on the photos to see them in a bigger size)

Weekly Photo Challenge : Between

When I read the title for this weeks photo challenge at The Daily Post, I knew at once, which photo I’ll post.

Even there are ask many options to interpret that word and a few of them were already mentioned in the original post by Danielle.

Being between sky and earth passing the border between night and day. Although this happens twice every day it is a very special moment. I’d encourage you to feel it yourself, especially in the morning. Get up early and go out to the fields in the countryside. turn you head to the east and welcome the sun. Feel how the early sun can warm your face while the night still cools your back. Enjoy the silence and the awakening birds. Smell the aroma of a newborn day.

Have a nice day / week

and Take care!

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Threshold

This weeks assignment for photographers over at “The daily post” is quite challenging. It’s “Threshold” as you already might have seen from the subject.

I picked this photo taken last year at a ballooning festival. Here, here and here you can read more about the festival.

Threshold means, done with the preparation and going up to the next level. While some balloons are already in the air, the big red one is still in preparation on the ground.

I hope you like it. If so, you can go back to my previous post and have al look on them.

Take care!

Weekly Photo Challenge: An Unusual POV

This weeks assignment at “The weekly Photo Challenge” is “an unusual point of view”.

I picked a photo taken last year at WIM.

It’s a very unusual POV or have you ever been inside a hot air balloon? Look, how small all these people are. And, the balloon isn’t filled completely as you can see on the ground.

Have fun!

Maybe you’re also interested in my other series. Currently I run a series on Cuba on Thursdays as well as changing topics on Tuesdays.

 

Balloons at night

Yeah!

Balloons at night are very cool. I love it. I love the ambience.

This is my final post on this little series on the balloon festival at Kevelarer.

There was one additional  festival on my schedule, the WIM 2014! the Warstein International Montgolfiade. But, unfortunately it had to be canceled because of a dangerous, unclear Legionella epidemic in Warstein.

Best of luck for the ill.

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setting up an hot air balloon

In my post on last Tuesday I proposed to write a post on how to set up a balloon. And, here it is.

A balloon consists of the basket, that’s the passengers compartment of the balloon, and the balloon itself. The basket is usually woven from willow branches. The balloon is made from a lightweight fabric. Both parts are transported with a special trailer.

First you get the basket and the sack containing the balloon from the trailer and attach the basket to the car to fix it and hinder it from flying away. Next you unpack the fabric, spread it on the ground and attach it to the basket.

In case you got the OK to prepare your start, fill the balloon with (cold) air by using a ventilator. At last you put hot air in the balloon by using the gas torch. Now a dangerous phase begins, because the helper have to hold the balloon open and have to avoid any contact of the balloon fabric and the flame. While the air inside the balloon heats up, the balloon begins to become lighter than the surrounding air and takes slowly up. The basket is lift by the balloon and the passengers can enter the basket to start their flight.

The hotter the air inside the balloon, the lighter it becomes. So, the temperature regulates the height and the wind sets speed and direction. Gone with the wind!

The sun heats the air over the ground. And that’s one reason for wind. But, wind makes ballooning dangerous.  So, hot air balloons usually start  in the early morning before the wind starts or in the late afternoon, when the wind already has stopped. A flight is about 60 to 90 minutes, because of the limited amount of gas on board.

Only hot air

Even this is part of a German saying and describing what a bragger produces, the title fits perfectly for today’s post.

On Friday afternoon I attended another Ballooning Festival. This time I was in Kevelar, in the lower Rhine area. It was a small festival compared to the Warstein International Montgolfiade, I attended last September.  ‘Only’ 20 balloons and 8 model balloons were in Kevelar. But, it was a very relaxed atmosphere and it was easy to come in touch with the pilots. This time we were able to take photographs even while setting up the balloons. So, I have some very impressive photographs in the gallery. Enjoy!

I also recommend, paying attention on how big a balloon really is, compared to an adult human.

I split this post in 3 parts. This first part is for giving an overview. In the second part I’ll show the setting up of a balloon and the third part is for the night glow. That’s always the most impressive part of such a balloon festival. In case, there is one in your region, I’d definitely go and watch it.

We had a wonderful, sunny and warm day. Unfortunately we had a quite strong, choppy wind that cased the balloons to delay their start for about an hour. Finally the balloons were allowed to start. But not all of the balloons were able to start their flight. Suddenly heavy gusts came up again and pushed the remaining balloons back to the ground. One of the model balloons escaped from his owner and flew alone and unmanned over the next street. Fortunately the owner was able to catch it soon. The escape didn’t last long – pew! The other balloons in up in the  air were save.

No-one was hurt, so enjoy the colorful balloons. 🙂

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My own first ballon trip

Yes, I did it! I took my opportunity to fly with a balloon and it was amazing.

The smallest aircraft I already flew with, was a small propeller plane with 18 seats. Because such a small plane won’t fly hight, you can see much on the ground. But that’s nothing compared to a balloon flight. You’re not inside a cabin and it is quiet, when the heater is stopped. The heater usually works

Night glow

Another interesting event at the Montgolfiade was held in the evening: the night glow!

You know, a hot air balloon is heated up by gas fire and a fire usually is bright. When starting such a fire at night, it shines bright and you can see it well. That’s what done during night glow. Put many balloons

W.I.M – Warstein International Montgolfiade

Last weekend I was in Warstein, a quite small city in Northrheine-Westphalia. It’s located in a region calles Sauerland, an agricultural region with many offers for vacations. Many lakes, hills and hiking trails are attracting the visitors.

A local brewery is the main sponsor for this event, held for the 22nd time. So, no wonder, many balloons had the brewery’s logo on it.

I was there with 5 friends for taking photographs and it was worth the effort. We arrived