June 20, 2011

Deutschland Part II: The Autobahn

The view from the hotel where I stayed (and street racers came buzzing by at 3AM....every night!)

Completely separate from the beautiful scenic landscape and bier, is the Autobahn. The roadbed itself is more than twice as thick as the best road in America. consequently, the ride is uber-smooth. It would need to be if speeds commonly average over 200km/h (125mph).

BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, and Volks Wagon all have facilities/headquarters within 200km of where I was!

I can gladly say that our Ford Kuga maxed out around 210km/h (~130mph).

A Lotus whizzin' by

This Ferrari had no problem doing well over the "average speed." It blew by us as we were going 160km/h (100mph)

This concludes the posts from my trip to Germany. I hope you've enjoyed looking at these pictures as much as I've enjoyed taking them

-Matt

June 13, 2011

France Part I

I've failed to be consistent in posting these since returning but here are some of the lovely sights that France (the northern part) has to offer:

This is one of a few of the breathtaking country-side. I love the fact there are so many shades of green.

The yellow in the field really makes this shot!

and the last of the bunch...

On our travels in France we stopped in Reims which is in the Champagne Region. So, naturally we stopped to take a tour of a large Champagne company Tattinger (as opposed to the small mom and pop Champagne makers):

The caves had terrible lighting (to keep the champagne in the dark) but this was a label on the ridiculous stack of bottles (99,710 to be exact!)

A closed section of the caves.

Yet, another label.

Look for a conclusion to the Deutschland Series soon!

-Matt

June 1, 2011

Deutschland Part I

German Countryside Between Pforzheim and Ulm

A month has passed and no updates have hit the blog. Well, A barrage of posts are about to hit. The next post will be based on the day trip I made to France. But the purpose of this post is show off some of the absolutely gorgeous sights in Germany.

We set off for Ulm cathedral (3 hour drive) early one Saturday morning and it was visible from 40/50km away. For those of you who don't know why Ulm cathedral is worthy of mentioning, it's only home to the tallest steeple of any church in the world.

And we climbed to the top!

The final ascent (after 550 steps in the sky) was inside a spiral staircase that measured no wider than 1 meter. Just as a side note this photograph was probably my favorite shot I took the whole trip. I love how the staircase leads your eye into the photo.

With no obstructions, the view from the top made the entire city of Ulm look like a city of ants.

The view from the inside of the church was also not disappointing. In fact, this panoramic is one of two that I shot on this trip.

After we spent the morning in Ulm we got back on the AutoBahn (there's a post solely devoted to this, stay tuned) and headed into Munich and then south to go and visit Garmisch-Partenkirchen which is a mountain resort town in Bavaria, southern Germany and Home to the Zugspitze.

This is the tallest Alp in Germany and also played host to the 1936 Winter Olympics.

Stay Tuned for more updates soon!

-Matt

May 3, 2011

Rural Light: Calgary In the Spring

While up in Calgary on business I was treated to a trip north of the city by one of the guys who had been driving me around all week.

You'll notice that the weather is not exactly what we in the south call spring weather the night before we went exploring they got around 8 inches of snow with snow drifts as deep as 3 feet in some places. Luckily, in Asheville, we see all four distinct seasons.

Another interesting fact is that things in this part of the world are relatively young. I was told that if anything (structure-wise) that was older than 80 years was most likely built by Native Americans. And also that as few as 3 generations into the past would be Native American.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll not be updating the blog as frequently due to a two week business trip to Germany. Please stay tuned for another international update!

Until next time...

-Matt

April 19, 2011

Rural Light: The Purposeless Building Or Drastic Oversight?

This old guy was just at the edge of town in west Asheville. As I went to take the picture I was constantly looking over my shoulder to see if I was going to get hit by a car. From what I can tell about the location, it seems like the business that used to inhabit it fell victim to the same thing many businesses that are run in the middle of nowhere, lack of customers. As I look at the actual building itself, I'm having a hard time imagining the kind of business that needs a covered car port, especially a building that has no fuel pump. So, I'm looking to you guys to let me know what you think this building was used for, there's no idea too crazy! I lied there is, BUT, I'd still like to know what you think it used to be. Leave a comment below.

-Matt