Makarska, Croatia

We spent a few days in Makarska, a pretty little seaside town in Croatia, and enjoyed wandering the harbor and the trails around town. We only managed to get one paragliding flight due to the weather, but it's a great location and we'd love to come back here and fly some more.



Some kids had caught a bag full of crabs and were taking them home for supper.



The trail south of town.







Fish (sardines?) being sold straight off the boat:



This cat was taking advantage of the bread that someone had put out to feed the pigeons:



And, of course, reflections in the harbor:



The last day we tried to fly late in the afternoon, but the clouds were covering the normal launch and our attempt to find an alternate launch didn't work out. Interesting light through the clouds though.



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Canazei, Italy

Next stop on our paragliding tour was Canazei, Italy. It was a beautiful drive from Bassano, past the Marmolada (the highest mountain in the Dolomites) in gorgeous evening light.

The first day we drove up to launch but it was too windy for us to fly. We still enjoyed the beautiful 360 views.

It was fun to watch the sheepdog herd a huge flock of sheep on the hillside below us.



This is a big ski area in the winter (lifts and gondolas everywhere) and a popular hiking area in the summer. Can you spot the "hut" (hotel and restaurant) and the trail up to it in this photo? The trail continues behind the hut and over the pass.



There were lots of alpine choughs flying around. This one was begging at the restaurant at the top of the gondola.



My father would have approved of this place, he always said the only good mountains were ones with a gondola and a coffee shop at the top.

The next day we went up on the first gondola at 8:30am. I launched first in light wind, but the wind ramped up and the last of us to launch had to use speed bar to get away from the hill. It was great to fly in this beautiful scenery but it was very cold. The temperature was only about -5c (not bad if you're from Saskatchewan) but that was plenty cold enough when you're sitting motionless with a 40 km/hr wind blowing on you and your hands held at head height the whole time. Even if I could have stayed up I wouldn't have!

This would be a great place to fly under better conditions. Maybe next time!

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Bassano del Grappa, Italy

While flying at Bassano, we made a brief visit to the attractive town. As you might guess from its full name, this is the place where grappa was invented - a type of brandy made from the grape skins, seeds, and stems left over from winemaking.



I was surprised to see a lone Canada Goose with the other geese and ducks on the river. Wikipedia says their migration occasionally reaches northern Europe, and they have also been introduced to the United Kingdom. Perhaps they are spreading.

The town dates back to 2nd century BC and possibly much older. The bridge is one of its landmarks, designed 500 years ago, but destroyed and rebuilt several times, most recently during WWII. The cathedral is 1000 years old. It's quite a contrast to Canada, where there is little manmade that is more than a few hundred years old.





As usual, it's the little things that catch my eye, like this poster for a bicycling festival. Bicycles are ubiquitous in Europe, which is great, except when they almost run you over!



And this piece of a sign:



Of course, the river had reflections :-)



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Paragliding Bassano, Italy

Next stop was Bassano del Grappa, north of Venice at the edge of the mountains. We stayed at Antica Abbazia, an old building that had been renovated and extended into a small hotel and a large (and busy) restaurant. It was very close to the landing zone and the start of the road up the hill to launch.

We had some great flights here, but it’s a very popular place. I cringed when we arrived at launch the first morning and saw 30 or 40 pilots waiting to launch. In addition, it wasn’t a very big launch area and there was barely any room to get your wing ready. It actually wasn’t too bad since a lot of the pilots were waiting for better thermal conditions and not trying to launch.



The launch was covered with outdoor carpet which was nice, but it was also steep enough that your wing would slide down the slope unless you had someone to hold it. It was also a bit slippery even to stand on. The big audience made me nervous but thankfully my launches went well.

Of course, there were lots of gliders in the air as well. At one point Shelley counted about 80 in the air. Add in the ones waiting to launch, and the ones that had already landed and I'd guess there were something like 130 people flying that day.

Conditions were good on our first flight and I had no trouble finding lift, even though I was avoiding the crowded areas (where people were all chasing the same thermals) I could have stayed up longer, but after an hour I was satisfied and headed down.

Although Nick figured our chances of flying from the top launch were only 50-50, we headed up late in the afternoon to check it out. Lucky for us, conditions were great and we had awesome flights down in the late evening light. Even better, there was only one other person launching and they left soon after we arrived.



The following photos are extracted from my video of the flight. Here was just after launch, flying over the road up:



A little further down (notice the other glider)



Beautiful countryside:



Heading for the landing zone (the large field on the left)



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Paragliding Makarska, Croatia

I had another amazing flight today, this time at Makarska, Croatia. Conditions were not ideal and we weren't sure we'd be able to fly, but we made it into the air. It's quite a long drive up the mountain, into a national park, and then about a 20 minute hike to the launch.



From launch you could look down to the town. The LZ (landing zone) on the beach looked pretty tiny from up here!



The launch was rocky but otherwise pretty good.



Nick went first to check out the conditions and then flew straight down to the LZ to talk people through their landings.



Most people just headed down, but I managed to stay up on the ridge, scratching for bits and pieces of lift. After about 40 minutes I got up above the ridge and level with the clouds and took a cruise along the face. At the end of the face I started to get sucked up into a bigger cloud so I headed for the beach. This is an amazing site, you are 4000 feet above the Mediterranean sea, flying beside 1000 foot cliffs. It was quite warm on the ground and I didn't wear my heavier gloves, a choice I sorely regretted as I lost the feeling in all but my forefingers and thumbs, which were luckily all I needed to fly! Thankfully I recorded this flight on video. (My memory card filled up after an hour, but I got all but the final descent.)

Here's a two minute clip about 40 minutes into the flight to give you a taste of what it was like:



And the Doarama 3D visualization to get an idea of the overall flight:



And Shelley's video of landing at the beach:



We're hoping the weather will cooperate to get another flight here tomorrow.

Venice

With the weather unsuitable for paragliding, we ended up with almost a full day in Venice. I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand I'd never been to Venice and it's a unique place and a favorite with many photographers. On the other hand I knew it would be overrun by tourists (even in off season) and full of tourist shops. In the end, I'm glad I've seen (a little bit of) it, but I'm not in a hurry to get back.

We stayed at a hotel in the country outside Venice. The only hitch was that a wedding party had booked the restaurant so we had to drive into the nearest town and find some place to eat. We had a few minutes to look around the grounds before we left in the morning. I liked this old weathered statue.



Of course, the defining feature of Venice is that there are no cars or roads for them. (Which I love!) Instead there are pedestrian walkways and numerous canals. The smaller canals often have buildings backed right up to them, with no walkway alongside. Many of the squares and walkways were packed with tourists, but you could also get off the beaten path and get away from the crowds. (At the risk of getting lost among the narrow walkways and dead ends.)



Of course, I found some reflections in the canals.



The gondolas are cute, but almost as touristy as the ones in Las Vegas.



My favorite parts were the small corners and details:











For more of these, see all 33 photos as a slideshow or overview

Werfenweng

After Zell am See we flew at Werfenweng (pronounced "verfenvang") , another ski hill with a gondola. One nice thing about this site is that the landing zone (LZ) is a short walk from the bottom of the gondola so you can easily get multiple flights.



I got lucky and had my favorite flight ever. It wasn't the longest (about an hour and a quarter) but it was by far the most spectacular. I managed to stay up in the launch area for long enough (about 10 minutes) to catch a good thermal that I managed to ride all the way up to cloud base. That gave me the height to cross the valley to the ridge on the left of the photo below.



At first I couldn't find any lift over there and I was afraid I was going to sink out, but then I noticed two other gliders had followed me across and had found a thermal out front. I joined them and soon got back up. That gave enough height to head out across the huge face where I was lucky enough to find lift and get on top of the ridge with fantastic views of the mountains beyond. To be honest it was a little scary flying beside 1000 foot high cliffs! There was someone on top of the highest peak and they waved as I flew by 100 feet away. I returned to the thermal out front and regained enough altitude to take another lower pass across the face. By this time my hands were freezing and I was getting cold. (In addition to being colder higher up, the constant 40 km/hr wind as you're flying adds significant wind chill.)

Unfortunately I didn't set up my video camera on this flight and I was a little too nervous about the flying to get out my still camera. Here's my route:



And here's a 3D visualization on Doarama (best full screen)

Zell am See

After meeting up with our paragliding group and getting a flight near Salzburg, we headed south to Zell am See, a ski town beside a lake. We stayed at Der Schmittenhof, a nice hotel conveniently close to the mountain (although a bit of a walk to town).



We rode the gondola to the top of the mountain to launch. My first flight here was my best. I managed to find a thermal and climb quite high and then explore down the valley. Two other people in our group kept going down the valley and one of them went about 40 km. I turned back and landed at the regular LZ. We flew here a couple of days and had good flights, if not quite as long as that first one.

It was nice countryside to wander around.





Our second day we finished flying in time to take the free boat ride around the lake (which we almost missed because one of our fellow pilots "made" us stop for gelato :-) The first attraction was the water jets (fountains). At night they have a light show using them.



Of course, water and late afternoon light made for some good reflections.



And some nice light on the scenery



If you had lots of money, the Grand Hotel looked like the place to stay. (There are rich folk around, for example the Porsche family comes from here.)



The hotel terrace was especially attractive: (the beautiful weather didn't hurt!)



I love all the flower boxes everywhere, old and new:





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