Hiking: Le Môle (1863 m)

Today I got a bit further out of my city to climb Le Môle (1863 m). It's a nice little mountain with a spectacular panorama that stretches out both, on the Alps and on Geneva. In fact, you can see almost 360° round when you reach the top. Moreover, an ascent to Le Môle is a mild one making it a perfect mountain for the season start, or for a pleasant walk.
In the very beginning of my climbing the weather seemed a bit ominous, but these were only the remnants of the past day which was very grim with a lot of rain. However, the higher I went the more sun I could see through the clouds.

When the forest finished I reached the plains and cows herd grazing on the grass. From that moment on the route became way steeper and more difficult, but also more enjoyable since the views became magnificent.

When the steep part was finished I was left with only a couple of meters left till the peak. However, I kinda lost my way to the peak and took a neighboring mountain to be Le Môle. But, as French say, c'est pas grave. Le Môle was just 50 meters and maybe a couple of meters higher, so I don't feel like I missed anything. I rested for a while by the cross, admiring the Alps in clouds (with Mont Blanc showing oneself every now and then) and enjoying the breeze and then went down through Le Petit  Môle path.

ATLAS unplugged

I have already seen CMS detector with Ania and it was pretty awesome. Today I had a chance to see ATLAS experiment, which in principle does the same what CMS but is way bigger (CMS is a compact detector). It was quite nice, the size of the machine was spectacular.

Dendrological Garden in Przelewice

This is going to be a long post...
We set out for a walk in dendrological garden in Przelewice, very close to Szczecin. I always wanted to go there but never have had a chance so far - it's a shame not to see places like that when they are only a few kilometers away from your city. Since I'm having some back aches and need to recover after surgery, walks are expedient and so - off we went.
What can I say about the place? 45 ha of terrain with a prominent garden and a newly restored residence, surrounded by ~1200 species of plants.
We started our stroll from a less populated route by turning into polish trees alley which led us to Three Ponds area. The walk was very relaxing since we were walking in a soothing shade of the trees and we were the only visitors on that path. The view was not spectacular (in the end - we are all used to the image of the polish trees) until we reached the ponds.

The ponds were lovely, with all the shades of green one could imagine. I particularly liked a zigzag footbridge that wobbled riskily under our steps. Well, no risk, no fun - if it hadn't been for the footbridge Radek wouldn't have made a fantastic frog shot (yet more shades of green to experience). After spending a while next to the water we moved along and followed the path that led us to a central meadow and pond. And that was really awesome. I don't know if the garden is designed in such a way that the flowers are in full bloom all the time, but they all were that day. Lovely.

 

We remembered not to feed the swan although it acted like it hadn't known the rule, leaning out towards us, counting for a piece of bread. When I thought it would be the end of a representative part of the garden, we went round the pond and it turned out it was even prettier at the other side of the water.

By that time we ran out of water and got pretty tired, so we went by the residence to have some juice and ice cream. I enjoyed the time, resting after a longer walk, so in the end they needed to rush me a bit to get up. As I did, we moved to an orangery but we hurried up a bit when inside... The temperature that day was somewhere around 33 dg. Celsius and it was way hotter and stuffier than that in the greenhouse. Imagine yourself... We finished our tour passing by the remnants of a former folwark (agricultural enterprise) with an old creamery, barns, distillery, granary and a couple of more - now shabby but still showing a spark of its former magnitude - buildings.

Sinéad O'Connor in Szczecin

It's not that often when world wide stars visit Szczecin to give concerts, so whenever it occurs, we try to participate because it seems like a big deal for our city. This time it was Sinéad O'Connor who is a brilliant singer to me. I love her songs but most of all, I love her voice.

Here is my favourite song of her (it's a pity she didn't perform it) and a couple of photos from the concert:

Roses are red...

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Sugar is sweet,

And so are you.

I dedicate this poem to Radek, it pictures our today's activity pretty accurately, as we went to see a rose garden very close to our apartment in Szczecin. The weather was perfect and the sun falling on the petals made the colours vivid and beautiful. It feels like first days of summer in Poland.

The garden seemed not yet in its full bloom, nevertheless, it was very pretty. Roses are indeed royal species, it's no wonder that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry chose this particular flower to be the love of le Petit Prince. 
We strolled around the garden (it's not particularly big), sat down on the bench, enjoyed the sun, smell and colours and had a look on a small posters' display arranged in the park. There will be a French music concert here later this week, perhaps we will come again if time permits.