Skiing the Planet: April 2025

Thursday, April 17, 2025

Caves around Annecy, France

I had a chance to visit Lac d'Annecy and surroundings last weekend. It is a wonderful area, much closer to nature than the bustling megacity Geneve nearby. Lakes, mountains, and .. caves! Visited three very different caves, Grotte du Grand Pertuis that was only reachable by boat from the lake, Grotte de l'ermitage by high up above the lake and under a church (where the founder of the monastery and church lived for 40 years), and finally closer to Geneve and on the mountains, Grotte du Diable, a mud-infested pit of the devil. Very nice!

Video:

The Grotte du Grand Pertuis cave is in Talloires-Montmin, coordinates N 45.841638 E 6.194382. It is the cave that can only be reached by a boat. The cave is a crack in an inside corner of the massive cliff covering this side of the lake.

You can drive the boat all the way to the cave.

Photos:

There were also small other rock holes, like this one with some kayakers camping in:

By the way, on the way on the lake be sure to stop around these coordinates N 45.833635 E 6.206131 to check out the remains of pillars for an ancient village from the times when the lake level was lower. See more information here. Here's a picture of the water ... there's a pillar right under that reflection, trust me :-)

The next cave was Grotte de l'Ermitage, the one under the church. It is also in Talloires-Montmin, coordinates N 45.841974 E 6.222744.

There's a church, a chapel, and just under the church goes a small road. Few tens of meters forward on that road there's a path that leads downwards. The cave is there.

Saint Hermain, the founder of the church, lived as a hermit in this solitary spot for the last forty years of his life. The site has been visited by pilgrims for a thousand years.

On the path there are rock pillars, stations. The stations represent the painful journey that Jesus walked towards the Calvary.

Photos of the cave:

The church and surroundings:

And a map:

I also scanned the cave, here's a GLB file for the 3D model, a rotate-on-your-browser link, a PDF for the map, and a picture of the plan view part of the map:

The final cave was the devil's mud-infested hole, Grotte du Diable in Le Sappey, just south of Geneve, coordinates N 46.088003 E 6.135531.

Photos, first the entrance and the main room:

Then a set of mud holes (that I did not crawl into):

Views to the outside:

Signage:

Again, I scanned the cave using my iPhone's LiDAR Scanner. Here's the resulting 3D model in GLB format, a PDF of the map I generated from it, a rotate-on-your-browser link, and a picture of the plan view part of the map:

If you visit here, check out also the ruins of the old restaurant (?), in these coordinates: N 46.088700 E 6.134722. This is also where you can park for the cave.

Photos:

Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko, except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.

And the next part to fall is ...

.. the refueling door. Sigh.

At least I have the part, but the connectors are somehow broken.

Just when the car was so shiny and nice for the spring, sigh.

Shiny car for the spring!

Car’s in shiny spring condition. Also added 1.5L of coolant as it appears to go missing. And the inner roof lining is falling down. Otherwise a peachy day :-)

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Failing paint on Finnair's A330

I was coming back from a business trip, on a flight from Amsterdam to Helsinki. I was kind of expecting an A350 ... I prefer to fly them if they happen to be on the routes I have to fly. It turned out to be an A330, however, which was very nice, too, and empty seat next to me at the back of the plane. Still wondered about the winglet paint being in less than ideal condition. I realize the paint nor the winglet are actually essential for flying.

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Bubble Barrel Sauna

Saw this on lake Annecy, at the spa "Eugénie Spa" in Talloires-Montmin on Lac d'Annecy. Nice location, and I don't usually like barrel saunas but I would like to try this one with the glass bubble on the business end!

I think the spa doesn't directly take hotel guests but you can enter the spa via Cottage Bise, next door.

The Google Maps location for the spa is here.

Is that boat on the yard a jacuzzi? I think it is...

For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. No saunagoers were present when the photos were taken.

Geneva and Ferney-Voltaire - two countries, "one" airport?

What an airport! Or two... or two sides maybe. I flew to Genève but wanted to rent a car from the cheaper French side of the airport, so had to change sides. Exit was easy, coming back was quite an adventure. You have to drive to Ferney and take the only road -- a road fenced off from both sides -- to enter the airport to return the car back on the French side.

And no surprise, the French side is pretty basic, the Swiss side .. there's chocolate. And watches. And jewelry.

I liked the French side though, gets the job done! Have to wonder though that even flights to Franee (except for Lyon and Paris) leave from the Swiss side!

I also visited the Swissport Horizon lounge on the Swiss side, the one that Finnair uses. That one was pretty basic, small and quite packed. But again, got the job done, there was power and Internet and some food and drinks.

More information from the Swiss side airport here and from the French side here.

French side. Yes, ALL of it:

Swiss side, one of the thousand shops:

Entry to the airport's French sector:

Flights from the French side:

Lounge entry:

Flight out:

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Gagernhöhle cave in Kelkhelm (near Frankfurt)

A very nice, very small cave near Frankfurt! On the way to the airport, even. I've been having layovers in Frankfurt and Munich many times, and always looked for the possibility of caves nearby, close enough to drive during the few hours. But nothing was ever close enough. But now when I was on a business trip to Frankfurt I found out that in the suburbs there's a cave, Gagernhöhle, that you can quite easily visit.

The coordinates are N 50.150202 E 8.452332. The cave is right on the side of a stream, the Liederbach and there's a nice foot bridge to cross over the stream. The cave is right next to buildings and roads as well, the easiest way to get to the cave is to park somewhere near the sports/playing field and walk 100 meters to reach the cave.

The cave looks naturally, but is actually man-made, by Friedrich von Gagern, from the Gagern family well-known in the area.

More information about the place can be found from the Kelkheim Discover page and the Outdoordad page. The cave is also called Fritzens Ruhe or Fritzen's rest, for the memory of the Fredrich's passing in the battle of Kandern in 1848. Yet another alternate name the cave is Fuchshöhle, for Fuchs, who carefully carved the cave per Friedrich's instructions.

I also 3D-scanned the cave with my iPhone LiDAR Scanner (using the Polycam app, and converted to a map using my own software, Cave Outliner).

Here's the generated map:

A high-res PDF of the map can be found here. The 3D model itself in GLTF format is here and BLENDER format here, and if you want to rotate it on your browser screen, click here. But a fly-through video is also below: