This Bridge/ Tunnel Is Between Sweden & Denmark, Apsolutly Stunning !!

My world.... and my jouneys that almost lasted a day,found this Bridge/Tunnel Breathtaking:-
The bridge (or should it be called tunnel) goes under water to allow
movement of ships . In order for ships to pass, this bridge is half
under the water. You drive down in the water and then come out on the other side.
Truly a marvelous piece of engineering!? This bridge is between Sweden
and Denmark. Picture taken from the side of Sweden .

These BreathTaking Photo's were taken with my digital camera Nikon 5.3 pixels.

It had been quite a miserable day in Spain near the coast where i live, infact it was so unusual to have most of the day covered in cloud, we were expecting the worst, and it really did look like we were going to have a thunder storm.
It was about 5pm late after noon when the cloud started to disperse,and blue sky was appearing through the cloud cover,and within 30 minutes it had almost gone,except fot the cloud that was now covering the sun.
As the night drew close,the sun was getting ever closer to its fall,and in Spain once the sun goes down it is almost pitch black with night.
I quickly ran to get my camera, and when i got back out side i was not disapointed, this was truly apsolutly beautiful site,a spectacle and all this was viewed from my home staniding in my Patio.

More Fantastic Sunset Images.....".Stunning "

A Bloggers Story You Will Have To Believe, As It was so True !!

It was a beautiful sunny day,as it was usual for this part of the world,so my wife & i had decided to walk along the coast with the dog bringing up the rear.
It was a stone throw from the house where we lived,so it was not going to take us long to get there,in fact we did this trip almost everyday,as we lived in Spain on the Costa Blanca and very close to a rocky fronted headland,we would stroll along and take sometime to reflect on any changes that may have taken place since the last time we were here( yesterday in fact )time was on our hands,i mean we had retired and the days could be long,so as we walked, often waiting for the dog to gather up all his usual smells along the ground, his noise never very far from the sandy surface and then he would from time to time lift his head, just to see how far we had gotten in front of him.

This particular day was a Sunday, and it would be normal for lots of local people to be walking their dogs too,or even folk walking together in groups,young couples and also families out for their traditional Sunday walk,maybe a time to reflect and take some well earned rest from their hectic working lifestyles,and people in retirement which were many along this part of the coast,as most people would have retired from Work and being Pensioners they all had decided to live near the warm waters of the Mediterranean,as we both had done the same.

In this part of Spain it was a mixed International group of people, Mainly from England,Germany,Sweden,Denmark,Holland,a few Retiring from France,and all other countries in the European Union,and of course the Nationals from Spain itself,the Spanish People especially the ladies young and old would be dressed so beautiful in their Sunday Best,as this was a real treat for the Spanish,it was very Traditional for them to dress and look absolutely stunning in their attire,and we would all look and greet them........ Hola,Bueno dias...... as they slowly pass us by,maybe a thought running trough their minds look at those in T-shirts and shorts, the typical dress of the tourist or us resident to the local community.

Anyway before we loose track of where we are going you will have noticed the photo at the top of this post.
This is the headland where we spend most of out time relaxing,walking,and generally making the best of the Spanish sunshine.

This particular day was different,it was strange as there were more people than usual and lots of cars parked all over the area,there was a deathly hush about the whole area, and we desperately hurried our dog to catch us up, so we could investigate what was going on. It was normal for the Local lads to be spending there leisure time jumping,and diving off the rock edge into the deep blue waters of the Med, and this area had been used several times for this activity, but why the interest, we could not understand the amount people looking around,and some of theses anxious people were pointing away from the main area.

We had reached halfway towards the main area of activity, when we noticed to our left parked on the out reaches of some rock area was a white Helicopter, "Wow" how did he land that Helicopter on there was our thoughts almost instantaneously, and then before our eyes,a lady popped over the rock edge towards where we were walking.

We shouted out to her in Spanish..."Qay passer" whats happening,but she just looked away,i asked again but the response was the same..."Nothing; we got no response" so we carried on towards the flock of on-lookers,in the distance we heard the horrible sound of sirens, these began to get closer and were coming from all directions, the sirens soon got louder and louder,and before we could speak they had driven to a part of the rocky area further away from the main area as we thought of interest.

They seemed to park up behind some small Fincas (bungalows on the coast) that would be used for holiday homes by the Spanish people who probable lived in the larger cities up North from us, and some considerable distance away.

These bungalows were not letting us see what was happening, and then all of a sudden all the people close to where we were heading just started running towards these bungalows,we could not attempt to run as we had the dog to think about, and he was oblivious to the whole thing,all he was interested in doing was finding his smells, and spraying little grasses that had forced there way up between the cracks in the hard sandy surface.l

We had almost by this time reached the rear of the small Fincas, and in front of us a track, large enough also to give access to vehicles that ran between the Fincas, and at this time a vehicle in fact came towards us in quite a hurry, so we had to quickly find a spot to get out of the way of this vehicle, we both shouted anxiously & loudly at our dog to get out of the way, we decided at this time to put on his lead,so that he would keep tightly against our heals.

The vehicle passed quite quickly,for some reason we both turned our heads backwards to catch the vehicle leaving the track into open ground,it was towing a small dingy with outboard motor attached,the dingy bounced on its two wheeled trailer as went out of site to the place we had just walked from, the place also where all the people had run from at the top of the rocky headland.

We had decided to take no notice at this stage,and carry walking to the end of the track this also into open Sandy rocky ground,from which another small bay opened up onto another rocky headland separated by these small Fincas (bungalows).
It was only then, we realised something really had happened,and we needed to see for ourselves what it was, it was strange as at this point we had realised our normal Sunday stroll with our dog had turned into a tragic event......BUT What Was It.?

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As we got within 25 meters of the Headland, it became apparent that this was a serious incident,as by this time there must have been at least two hundred people milling around trying hard to get a good advantage point at the edge of the rocky headland,and most of the area had been taken up by all sorts of people young and old,dogs were barking at each other, and it was difficult at times to hold our dog from pulling us towards some other dogs off there leash.

All of a sudden a familiar but not usual noise came over our heads the whooo hooooo ooooo oo of the Blades of a Helicopter,and everyone just looked up,as this large thing just above our heads with rotating blades creating a sand storm at ground level, we all turned away from this massive brown cloud that had covered us all,it was impossible to see anyone or anything for a few seconds that seemed forever,and finally the Helicopter flew out to sea, we wiped our eyes cleaned our sun glasses,and put our hair strait,within seconds the roar of the helicopter was banking to the right it turned back towards us, and faced us hovering above the cove,this was truly an incredible site.

I remember saying to my wife "hey" that's a different helicopter from the one that we had seen parked up on the rocks below the first headland, it was much larger and it had a heat seeking camera that protruded from the underneath, and a man in uniform was hanging out of the door,and he was making movements with his arms, as if he wanted us all to leave or get away from the edge of the rocks, we really did not know what he wanted us all to do,and then a loud speaker from the rear of us was shouting in Spanish please move backwards, get back !! and with this we all started to move backwards with great reluctance...but it was obviously very important.

I had not yet been able to see anyone we knew, i needed desperately to know what had happened,what was going on, it was even a lot more difficult as our Spanish language was not that good, we could understand a lot of words, but this only if they spoke slowly, and we had just arrived were all the people were, and before we could do anything or see anything we were pushed back to at least 50 meters,back from the edge of the rocks.


As we looked to the sky, the Helicopter was getting closer to the land again, he was coming towards us, a Police Man Police Women stood in front of us as they were placing barriers across the front of the crowd and the numbers of people was getting larger by the minute. Then this large Helicopter started to come down, and it landed on the rocks from the very place were we had stood only minutes ago.

Some one tapped me on the shoulder, "Hi you Two" it was one of our English neighbours,he said terrible news isn't it,i said why what has happened,well all i know he said was that someone had reported seeing a fishing rod and tackle all set up at the edge of the rocks,and a bottle of vino that was half empty, but know one was anywhere to be seen,that's terrible i remember saying,what has he done, has he took his own life,or had he been to close to the edge and fell into the sea......we really did not know.

It was about five minutes later that another boat passed us by i noticed it rocking in the tide,as by this time the sea seemed to be getting higher,it was as if the tide had pushed its way in,this could not be good news for the Rescuers,and this large orange coloured boat with several men on board,it was something we all regognised as a rescue boat,some one said that it had taken some thirty minutes to get to the scene.

We were disgusing what could have happend,when we over heard a conversation that it was a brother aged 9 or 10 thought to be diving off the rocks, and that the tide had taken him down,as this was a very bad area for swimmers, although everyday you could see boys diving and swimming all of the time,it was if the were oblivious to the dangers.

As we looked on, four or fiver divers passed us in there diving suits,carrying oxegen bottles and flippers,it was not long before they had dropped into the sea,a loud noise was then heard and the roar of the Helicopter engine & rotor blades sounded as the Helicopter began to take off heading out to sea.

The Helicopter banking right and heading strait back to the shore,but this time it was hovering over the waters edge, the sea crashed into the rocks,and once again people started running towards the edge of the rocks to get closer to see what was happening,so we oviously followed them.

As we reached the edge of the rocks, we could see a couple of boats or dingys and also more divers,and red cross volunteers( Cruz Roco)the Spanish name for Red Cross, these men and women were looking to a cave below us.

These volunteers were pointing towards a part of the waters edge that went into a crevis or cave area, and the water was lashing in, as the divers crashed against the rocks,a very difficult task for them,and the possiblity of one of them being injured.
We could not bare to watch anymore and our dog was getting fed up with the whole thing,he was just so bored,so we started to Make tracks home.

whilst heading for our home we kept looking back all of the time,as we watched the Helicopter take to the skies this after giving two complete turns, as if to wave goodbye,also the divers were coming out of the water, and they gathered together in a circle, and one of the men was using on a walkie talkie, he seemed to be talking to the Life boat, and the next thing,he sped off leaving a white trail behind him in the choppy waters.
No one was found,we wondered what had happened,surley they cannot leave someones family in that water.....BUT for some reason they did...... and no one could explain what was going on.

We had ruined our walk,and we spent at least two hours watching this unfold,and to get nothing from it at the end gave us both a very sad empty feeling.
We had returned home,and we talked about the incident for hours after,and it was not untill we went out again later on that day to walk the dog which was some four hours later that we actually found out what had happened.

"This sad event had turned in to a FALSE ALARM".

The person who had gone missing,has aparantly been found safe,and it was great relief to learn that this was the case.
what a great job all the Volunteers and Emergency rescuers did,they all diserve a pat on the back,they were apsolutly fantastic,and all that for a false alarm which of course at the time they did not know.

"How a day can turn out,and at least a Happy one to end".

We had Just returned from Dinner at the local bar...The Moon was about to rise out of the Sea !!

My Wife and i had gone out quite early this particular evening,both walking to a local bar restaurant for a meal.After drinking a couple of vino tintos (red wines)and eating a fish dinner, and at the same time sharing a laugh with a couple of friends. We had not stayed long because other friends we had met at the bar had said about the beautiful moon that came up last night, as it was also forecast for tonight,it would be the same bright white moon,that would rise up from the Sea,and would be well worth seeing.
The moon would rise up in the East more or less the same place has the sun had done in the mornings, but this was so unusual, as normally the moon would be high in the sky, and would have risen with out us seeing it, and it had never looked any different,so we was exited to make our way to the coast road not far from our house.

After making my way home rather quickly to retreive my camera my wife Marj played catch up,we certainly did not want to miss this opportunity of seeing the Moon so bright and low in the sky.
As usual in Spain when the Sun goes down it leaves a beautiful red sky,and this night was exactly that,but it had gotten darker much quicker.
We both met outside our gate,and then heading down with camera down towards the rocky headland,which was just down our road from where we lived,no more that 3oo meters away.
We made it there just as the moon was rising up in the sky,and it just looked as if it was rising out of the sea,the water this night was calm, and the air was warm and very still,and the Moon was so Bright and white,it was apsolutly stunning.
We had got that excited i had forgot to take photos of the moon as it crept up out of the sea, so i had to get moving to get some interesting shots.

But as you will see these stunning photos of the moon just above the water, and giving out light along the sea onto the bank where i had laid to take these photo's.
What was really nice when i got home and downloaded the photos onto my computer,i had captured a Moth in the film as it had took off into flight,i must have disturbed it has i got down on the ground and i had not noticed this when i took the photo.
So i had taken some great shots of the moon just rising up from the sea ,and at the same time captured nature in flight...I truly remarkable end to our night out.

To view these photo's up close, please click on the photo to enlarge it

A Trip To Remember. BUT what Happened When We Arrived InToulouse France. !

We were about to travel some 12 hours by train leaving Alicante one of Spain's railway stations and heading for Toulouse in France.The Train would stop in France at a place called Narbonne about one hour and half hours into France and were we would have a hotel for the night, before catching an early morning train onto Toulouse,as the train from Spain did not go to Toulouse,and this would take us approximately one hours train ride into Toulouse.
The train journey was long and tiring,although the sites were the most beautiful, especially leaving the Costa Blanca's dry sandy looking desert,in fact we had not seen any rain in the Costa's for some months now,well i think the last and first storm we encountered was in October,the rains were heavy and lasted for about three days and before that we had a year almost without any rain,so you can imagine what the ground and Plant life looked like.

Anyway we are now in March and the weather leaving Alicante was gorgeous,and that's the weather we expected to greet us in France.
We was expecting to see some lovely sites along the way,most of the first hour or so was along the coast,small Coves with beautiful blue Mediterranean waters were just stunning to see, almost every bay we passed along the way people would be swimming in the sea or bathing on the sandy beaches that stretched for miles.

It was soon apparent that we were starting to head in land, and the scenery started to change quickly,this part of the country was no longer views of the beautiful Mediterranean,that we had grown accustom too, in fact we were greeted by large green forest,and mountains which were standing tall and proud reaching for the blue Sky's,a hint of mist on the very highest tops.The Rocky brownish dark and light in colour stone that made up these mountains looked absolutely stunning and almost could take your breath away,we had really been away from the inland areas for to long,living on the coast for so long we almost forgot how it all looked.

We travelled at a steady speed of about 100mph on a very fast smooth and quiet Train heading towards Valencia,A very old and big city that's was the largest on the Costa Blanca, we had been to this city before,and loved it. Soon we would pass Valencia after a short stop to pick up and drop off passengers,and then head towards Madrid, and then following on towards Barcelona,which took approximately seven hours,as there were many stops along the way.

We only had some five hours left to travel,so at this time we were feeling quite hungry, so we decided to go and get some well earned food, we made it to the Cafe bar on the train, well it certainly was not a restaurant,and the tables did not have any table cloths on,it was that wood looking plastic finish,and you could see the smear marks from the cleaning cloth they had used,may be that's why the Spanish people did not eat there,as they had bags and bags of food with them and obviously better prepared than we were.

We could not understand why they were not eating in the Cafe area of the train, was it that the food was to expensive, or was not that good to eat.
We would soon find out...... o'h by the way the cutlery was plastic too.....But the food looked good on the menu,so we ordered the days special,..... we were on a train,so we asked for the menu that looked the best, and we hoped it ate well,and although the Spanish Train system is good....it is safe......fast......and among all other things it is on time, so we would expect the food to have the same sort of quality.

We sat ourselves down with a vino( Red wine)and waited anxiously for our meal to be served,as they had told us to take a seat, they would bring it to us when it was ready.We had little chuckle to each other,as there were only two tables in this very small cafe come restaurant,and we had took the last one,on the other table a young mother was sitting rocking a baby to sleep in a pushchair,we hoped that no one else decided to eat,as they would have to sit on our knees, well there was a couple seats at the bar, and only one had been taken, but it did not seem the right place to eat a meal....maybe a snack !!Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Anyway the waiter turned up at our table looking very smart in his white shirt, tie and waist coat,with his napkin come Tea towel hanging from his arm.
My wife thanked him for the meal as he placed it down in front of her, and then he placed my plate down on the table in front of me,he spoke to say enjoy your meal as he left.
The Plates had taken up most of the table space,we knew we were going to keep hitting each other on the elbow from time to time as we tried to make space to eat.....BUT after all that!.......The the food was really good and very edible,we ate Peppered Steak....(medium cooked)....a Baked Potato,Vegetables,and a Salad Dressing, and this meal was large, well cooked and tasty,and the Vino Tinto was superb.

I would not have believed we could have eaten such lovely food,especially on a train,and the one thing that was so strange,you could not have a meal on your Carriage table,you were only aloud snacks,and that in the form of a sandwich etc,but at least now we could finish the journey feeling full of food.

We were almost at the border with France,and the train slowed almost to a halt,travelling through a very dark tunnel which seemed for ever,the train stopped in total darkness,the lights went out for approximately 30 seconds, coming back on to raptuas applause.The tunnel was rocky which made us think we must have been inside the Pyrenees mountains which separated France and Spain.

We seemed to have been in this tunnel for at least 15 minutes when the sliding doors which separated the carriages opened and Police entered,these were French police we could tell by the hats on their heads,Then following them was a civilian male and female, these two were asking for our Passports or ID, they soon passed them back to us as they quickly checked our identification was correct.

The police men looked very interested in certain males and colour, they seemed to know what they were looking for, the police had hand guns with their hands clasped around the butt,and their trigger finger pointed strait down away from the trigger.
The time was passing quickly and it must have been something like 30 minutes in this tunnel,a noise of the other sliding door opened behind us,and as i looked back they entered the next carriage checking everyone, this was not any ordinary border check,as these people were looking for someone or something.

It was about five to ten minutes later, and the sliding door again opened behind us, and the police and plain clothes officers returned,they had arrested a male who had brown skin and looked scruffy,he was walking between the two police officers,and was handcuffed,this really made us feel quite scary, but thankfully it looked like this event had come to an end,and we hoping this journey could carry on so as we could safely make it to our stop.

The train soon started to move forward,and within a couple of minutes we soon saw day light,the train was traveling very slowly passed a lot of police and other people who probable were custom staff i really don't know...But what ever they were after they seemed to have found......who was he?.......was he a terrorist we really did not get to find out, but i can tell you we could not wait to get out of that train.

As we railed into the French territory there was such a difference in the scenery, it changed so quickly, the one thing i noticed strait away was that there were loads and loads of Poppy's growing all over the side of the embankments,it reminded me of November 11th and made me think of Flanders, what a beautiful site, i had never seen so many Poppy's except when i saw a film on the tele about the Poppy fields in France.

We had heard that our train station was approaching, so we got our selves ready close to the exit close our cases, so we could quickly get a prime spot to get off the train, and this we did.
The weather was fine in France and it was close to six o'clock in the evening,now we had to find a taxi rank,so as to get to our Hotel for the night,and this was no problem, we booked into a lovely hotel,and made strait for our room where we crashed out on the bed for some two hours.

After our sleep of sleeps it was a matter of refreshing ourselves and getting out into this small seaside town for a bite to eat
and a walk along the coast, we felt quite at home beeing back by the coast,as this was a beatiful part of France,this part of france on the East Coast would be where the French would visit for a day out.

A small walk back to the Hotel was now in order,as we had eaten far to much and drank to many french Glasses of Wine....it had been along day out, and it started at 6.30am and finished at 9.45pm rather a long day...."Yawn Yawn"...GOODNIGHT..&..GOD BLESS!!

Tomorrow we start again early in the morning our train leaves for Toulouse.

The Hotel staff had made sure we were woken early,and a French style Breakfast was waiting for our arrival,and this did not include a full English Fry up, how disappointing, but we had come to France so i suppose the order of the day.... WAS....."do as the Romans did".

We did have a cereal with milk, and of course a croissant and a little marmalade, so we had at least filled a small gap in our stomachs, and could start the day in fine fettle and await anything that was put in front of us.
The Train Station was packed out with alsorts of commuters mainly i would have thought going to work, so we were in the middle of the rush hour in France,and i think everyone had decided to use the train on this particular day,or was the normal for France,as the trains in France were fast, full, and on time.

We had purchased two tickets for Toulouse,and in France, we had been warned it was a scramble for seats, as with the Spanish service your ticket was also your seat.
The train was to leave in approximately 20 minutes, so we placed ourselves half way down the platform,hoping this was the correct place to be able to get on the train and be seated.

The train arrived and it was massive,really bigger than we had expected, as this was the fast train going north west towards i think to Paris, the carriages kept passing us by, when was the train going to stop,it kept going and going,there must have been 20 carriages and they were large in length,the train came to a halt,both myself and my wife were going giddy, it was a mad dash, that we had not experience anywhere before, both of us with cases started to move forward,as did everyone else it was matter of barge yourselves through,it was really horrible.

We had made it onto the train, but now it was full of people and no one could move, people were trying to move down the train in different directions,some people were actually lying on the floors across the doorways, it was impossible to move, we had to climb over bodies who would not move,this did not happen on the Spanish train, we did not expect anything like this,and we did not get a seat for the whole journey which lasted 90 minutes.

It was such a great feeling to land at the Toulouse train station,we could not wait to meet our daughter and grandchildren,the weather had took a dive for the worst, it was cold and throwing it down with rain,such a change in just a day from something like 75 deg.F in Spain to a low 8 or 9 deg.
We met the family and they had been delayed as the weather had caused a few problems with Flooding,and now we had a 20 minute drive to their house in the country just outside Toulouse.

We spent most of the rest of the day chatting,and watched the weather get worse, we were looking forward to tomorrow,as we were going up the mountains skiing,Well we were going only for site seeing, it would be our kids who would be spending their time probable falling over in the snow with ski's on,and we would be able look at the beautiful snow capped mountain ranges,something we had only seen on Television.
We would all have an early nights sleep, ready for our two hour track up the large snow capped mountains,I believe our son-in-law had put the Chains on the vehicle already for the trip.

We woke up early to the children saying look outside,we could not believe what we were seeing, we were almost snowed in,all night the snow had come without warning,we were not going anywhere,and it did not look good from our bedroom window.It was decided after listening to the local news that the roads would be blocked up near the slopes, so we were not going out that particular day.
Check the photo's out in my next post...... Were been stranded in a country chateau surrounded by snow.

"Great to see the family, but we were not going to see the mountains"
All roads were cut off,so it was decided to have a day in, and see what the next day brought, but we could not go far, as not only the weather, but our Son-in-law had to go to work on the next day as it was Monday, and his shifts meant we would be there whilst he worked, but at least we got to see our daughter & kids etc and that was great,as we had not seen them for a few months.
We Would soon have to leave France on our journey back to Spain in a few days....and another 12 hour Train Journey! Dont worry i will not tell you about the Return Train trip to Spain......Unless you would like to here about it,so if you do, post me a comment.................and watch this space.










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Snow Covered Fir Trees Just outside Toulouse France

A View from our Bedroom window the Next day after we arrived in Toulouse

Fir Trees in Toulouse France covered in snow,Breathtaking !!

The Day before our Grandchildren were Swimming in this Ice covered Pool

A Break in the Fir Trees, A Scene For Xmas Cards