El Teide – Tenerife’s Volcano Giant

The Canary Islands are located at the shore of North Africa and only a few couple of hours on the plane away from Europe. All together they are witnesses of Earth’s history and on Tenerife that gets revealed at its best as over there the interior force of the earth created El Teide, an imposing volcano that is to boot Spain’s tallest elevation.… Read More

Viñales – Tobacco and Dripstone Caves

The Viñales Valley (Valle de Viñales) in the West of Cuba is one of the island’s key growing areas for tobacco, the Cuban export hit number one. Its scenery belongs to the UNESCO cultural landscapes of humanity as is shaped by the surrounding Sierra de los Órganos, a range of karst mountains.… Read More

Athens, Acropolis and Roman Ruins

The area of greater Athens is inhabited by humans for about 7.500 years. Symbol of this presence and its cultures is the Acropolis Hill, the famous and conspicuous castle hill with its Parthenon temple. The rock as well its development are evidence of some of the world’s greatest civilsations, of the Greeks, Romans, Venetians and Ottomans as well as the ever boiling conflict discord about the Mediterranean Sea.… Read More

West Berlin’s Soviet Heritage – The Tiergarten Soviet War Memorial

The preliminary final of my photo series “East Germany’s Soviet Heritage” is dedicated to a paradox, that is the first of Berlin’s big Soviet commemorative sites as well as the only Soviet War Memorial on the territory of West Berlin. The monument was guarded by Red Army soldiers around the clock and is located within sight of Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag.… Read More

East Germany’s Soviet Heritage – Löwen-Adler barracks and the Elstal Olympic Village

When hearing of the Olympic Village for the 1936 Berlin Games, then people quickly think about Hitler, the Nazis as well as their making a cult out of Hindenburg, the former WW I hero and later President of the Reich. However also the Soviet Army lodged itself in strategically well located Elstal and its Löwen-Adler Kaserne military barracks, leaving a very interesting melange behind as in the Olympic Village not only a terrific abandoned swimming pool can be seen, but also a mix of clearly recognizable Nazi elements neighbouring with typical Soviet iconography… Read More

Gasometer – Berlin-Schöneberg’s steel skeleton

Hip and cool Berlin can be pretty shallow as with having a highest elevation of only ~100 metres it’s generally got a very flat topography. And since German megalomania once also regulated the maximum height for residential buildings, it is very easy to overlook whole Berlin when standing on elevated places.… Read More

Moscow Metro – Queen of Undergrounds

I can still feel the New Year’s party on Red Square in my bones; the very square that was said to be entirely closed if one would believe the words of western media. Well, I had quite a great midnight, enjoyed the fireworks and ice-skating together with Russians, Georgians and Armenians before going underground to captue the whole Moscow Metro.… Read More

Golden Turtle – Almost missed Award

Already last year I made it into the final of Golden Turtle photo competition, that is part of Russia’s largest eco-cultural project. This year I even got honoured while the image is now part of an exhibition at Manege (Манеж) being located directly next to Kremlin. Yet alone the divine dispensation called tailwind made me arriving Moscow on time and not facing the desaster of missing the final ceremony as Eurowings (former Germanwings) was again delayed…… Read More