Milano

Here we had another old lady leading us around Castello Sforzesco, Cimitero Monumentale, la Scala, la Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele and il Duomo.

We saw a lot of nice sculptures on the cemetery and the tombs of the rich and famous families of Milan, e.g. the families Martini, Branca & Campari.

The gallery and the Dome were as extra-ordinary as always.

Turino - FIAT & ciocolatto

After the luxury cars, we looked for some more affordable cars this time. So we headed to Turin and the plant Mirafiora where we had the possibility to see the assembly of the FIAT Muse, Idea, Punto, Grande Punto and Multipla. Efficiency and order were not the main focus there.

Our city guide was a nice little old lady, who showed us the old FIAT plants - the first and the second. The latter was a multi-storey long building with two car ramps leading up to the roof where they had a test parcour of 1 km length. Today the building contains a shopping centre, offices, cinema, playground and many other things.

In the city centre, we made a walk around old places, palazzi and checked out two chocolate cafés and bought also some chocolate to take back home.

Fast, Furious - Ferrari

From our hotel in Novara, we drove down with our little bus to Maranello. There we visited the plant of FERRARI.

Two Ferrari guides showed us around the factory with buildings by Italian star architecs like Renzo Piano who designed the wind channel in which the F1 cars are tested.

In fabrication halls, we saw the production & assemply of engines and cars as well as a lot of current and old Ferraris and two green islands with trees and plants right in the middle.

As my budget did not allow for a new or old Ferrari, I invested in some red Ferrari Puma sport shoes. They are really hot.

After lunch and a visit to the Galleria Ferrari, we went sightseeing in Modena. Modena features its famous vinegar and many nice old buildings: il Duomo, Palazzo dei Musei and the Palazzo Ducale - you can see the inner courtyard of latter on the picture:

La rossa, la dotta, la grassa

This April, I finally returned to Bologna - the place where I lived 3 years ago. Knocking on my old apartment doors I found out that all my room & flat mates moved out, but the new tenants still knew some of the girls and gave me Adriana's number. So we got together and I could stay at her place.

In the evening, we met most of the other girls and made music as in the old times:

The following day, I finally picked up my Italian language certificate - nearly 3 years afer the exam. Afterwards, I walked through the city visiting the sights I knew so well -le due torri.

Season´s End in Austria

On 5th April, we left home early for Innsbruck and just in time for the first run, we arrived at Axamer Lizum.

Axam is one of the 7 ski resorts around Innsbruck. It seemed that just some days ago it had snowed again and the conditions were perfect: good snow, cold weather and a shining sun.

As I was really fast on trying all the pists, I was heading for the ski routes before lunch. The ski routes go downhill beside the pists and are not prepared at all. Having seen already a lot of runs on the new snow, it was quite hard to find my own run and it costed a lot of energy. But it was a great end of the season.

Swan Lake on the head

"SWAN LAKE" is the breathtaking realization of a brilliant idea. The acrobatic version of Tschaikowsky's ballet-classic "Schwanensee" is a hymn on the human body. In a sensational show circus is no longer circus and ballet gets a new dimension.


I experienced the show on a rainy sunday evening with some friends.


100 acrobats and dancers from China enchanted us with fantastic costumes, overwhelming stage settings and colourful props. This firework of power, poetry and perfection set completely new standards.


The „toe dance on the head of the man“ is such a breathtaking performance that the creative team from China decided to produce for this world-class couple a sweeping, high-class show.

Ain´t no mountain high enough!

At the beginning of March, twelve adventurous people headed south and high to the Italian Dolomites around Pedraces, La Villa, Corvara & Cortina d´Ampezzo.

Our apartments were on a little farm about 3,5 km off the main valley road up in the mountains. That gave us a challenge on the snowy days when we had to show off handling of snow chains.

For luck, Mark gave us a helping hand, so we could manage the last 500 metres.

The core team consisting of Micha, Jan, Victor, Inka and me were out skiing every day - more than once, we did the Sella Ronda - a connecting round by lifts and pists around the Sella Group. Usually a full day trip, we succeeded in doing one round in 3 hours.

In Cortina, we found a slope only for experts and did some video shooting of our runs downhill.