Bilder – "A photo blog!"

It has been an eventful year, most notably, becoming a father! ❤️

This blog post, however, features photos from Corsica, from a summer vacation back in August 2017.

Current, Δt: 5 years, 4 months, 27 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes, 40 seconds

We flew down to Ajaccio via Nice with Air Corsica. I still remember having to supply my full credit card details in an email to pay for a change of flights. Oh GDPR, where were you?! 😂

But apart from that, I had no other complaints… or wait a minute… After having boarded the plane, we could see the ground vehicle coming towards us with all the bags stacked. Mine, a large blue backpack, fell off the first car and then all the subsequent cars drove over it. Nice, pun intended.

Ajaccio! Beautiful city (except for all the damn cars in the inner city)! It is maybe best known as the birthplace of Napoleon (1769). Idk. We stayed in the hotel situated in the middle of the following image:

The island, which is the 4. largest in the Mediterranean sea, has a rugged coastline, and mountainous interior (thanks ChatGBT!). Awesome! And photogenic! It also features many intriguing towns with narrow, twisty roads to explore.

Baguette 😏

After staying in Ajaccio for a few days, we left for Porto-Vecchio, which in Norwegian sounds like a spell to make something disappear! Anyway, Bonifacio, the city furthest south, is a spectacular attraction that we had to visit. The same idea had approx. 1 million other tourists that very day. Clever thinking.

It sure looks like something straight out of Game of Thrones! 🤩

In Bonifacio, the famous “Escalier du Roy”, or the “Staircase of the King”, is a series of steep, narrow steps that lead up to the citadel. The stairs were built in the 14th century and were originally used as a defensive structure.

These two tourists passed the “go no further” sign and thought, “heeeeeya, let’s continue”…

On our way back to Ajaccio to catch our plane, we did some further sightseeing of the island and even found a secret river full of locals that had escaped tourist hell for a cold swim. We also got another shot of “epic mountains” 🤤

Cheerio 2017, and hey there 2023! 🎆
Me, just now

University was over, early summer upon us, and a road trip north seemed mighty intriguing. What better time to… freeze for an entire week in the beautiful Upper Peninsula?

To be fair, the trip was not my idea but came from my new homies Sverre and Martin whom I met at Michigan State University (MSU).

Upper Peninsula, 2016 #0000 — Mackinac Bridge as seen from UP

The first part of the trip went to Tahquamenon Falls, past Mackinaw City and over Mackinac Bridge that separates Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

We set up camp and hiked upstream to find the legendary, yet unpronounceable falls:

From here, the road trip went onwards to Munising and Pictured Rocks situated next to Lake Superior. Simply stunning with its dark pastel tone palette, mirrored in the crisp cold freshwater.

We walked barefoot East along the waterside from Mosquito Beach, after crossing Mosquito River… cold… and slippery. The caves at the end were well worth it!

The rock here is quite special: it resembles the butter dough that goes into a croissant – tons of razor-thin layers – except the butter is petrified sand that crumbles easily if applying medium pressure. Here are three images at various distances:

After a couple of days of camping, and a moment of unknown influence where I decided to check out how cold the waters of Lake Superior really were (with my entire body) we got back on the road. Yes, images exist. No, they will never reach this blog.

Next stop: Marquette, the westernmost city we got to visit. Due to its location next to Lake Superior, the fog can set in very quickly. We heard stories of people disappearing… so we decided to stay on land – or molo (breakwater), while enjoying the thick mist. Here at Presque Isle Harbor Breakwater Light looking towards Lsi Dock:

We found back to land – now floating in the mist as a conjured mirage

Some days later, at Kitch-iti-kipi:

My memory is sadly failing me, even with the help of Google Maps. Safe to say we camped by a lake… (it might have been Big Knob State Forest Campground ?!)

Upper Peninsula has a bad reputation for its nasty black flies. Luckily for us, the cold weather had delayed the “hatching season” to accommodate our travel plans. However, everything didn’t go as planned; on the last day they hatched. My freaking God if they hatched. We had to run away from an old farm after waking up a dark-looking cloud, taken straight out of LOST.

Anyway, let me leave you with a peaceful and quiet moment of Lake Michigan.