What a wonderful airport and mountainous approach!
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) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
Wow. I did not plan for this. But when I learned that this was possible, I just had to go. One hour of my Sunday.... spent skiing in downtown San Francisco. In what looks like a garage. And a sloping treadmill. But, make no mistake. Contrary to my usual style, this is not a crackpot hobbyist scheme, but a commercial operation, the Adventurous Sports. And a place to spot and correct your technique, for the treadmill gives you no room to be sloppy with your form.
Just wow.
With all this, my July skiing turned out to be quite good, actually. It started out bad, with problems in my feet and knees, then too many things to do and too little time. And while I am in California now, I have no time visit the still open Mammoth mountain. That visit would be great... but instead I got to build and ski a three-turn real snow slope in Leppävaara (article) and then do this turn-practice in San Francisco. Actually, this is the way it should have been. Very nice, I'm so glad I found out about this place!
I do recommend visiting Adventurous Sports; they are nice and it can really help your technique, plus it is a ton of fun to ski. And very safe! The little kid that was in the shop before me seemed to enjoy it too, tremendously, so it is for all ages.
The prices for an hour-long session are a bit over hundred dollars. But it is well worth it!
Here's the video:
And here's where it starts, the garage in a suburban district:
Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko.
Flying again Finnair's Marimekko-decorated A350, OH-LWL. Nice.
I'm on AY 1, HEL-LAX for a business trip. For the lounge experience before boarding this flight, see the article about the sauna!
Taxiing:
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) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
No, HOT is not a new low-cost airline. It is literally the hottest airport lounge anywhere, ever. True statement! Finnair's Platinum lounge at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport sports a sauna. A dark colored, nice proper sauna. Respect!
My only wish is that I could continue to use it, but due to traveling less, I will not have enough status to visit this again, perhaps ever. Oh well, maybe that's good in other ways.
(And of course, this isn't the first time I'm here. Many good memories. Here's an earlier report.)
For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! 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) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.
This is a difficult month. Again. But, Leppävaara to the rescue! A constant stream of fresh snow is being delivered outside the ice skating rink. So why not make a ski hill on the nearby slope?
Quite nice. I made several runs, but I did get sweaty from moving all that snow. And rain was threatening to appear at any moment.
Video:
Of course, I've been here before.
Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko.
I had only heard about the Postojna Cave before coming to Slovenia. But it turns out that there are many caves (of course) as well as many very interesting or famous cave sites. Right next to the Postojna cave, a 10 minute car ride away for instance is the Predjama Castle, which is world's largest castle built in a cave.
This castle was built for defensive purposes only, and such sits in the cave opening on a massive cliff face. The castle has some normal structures in the front, but the back of it is built into the cave. At the top, the castle can be exited to the cave tunnels, and eventually through a vertical shaft to the top of the cliff. We're told that this was used to supply the castle during sieges, as well as to continue offensive operations from the back exit.
There's also (apparently separate) cave under the castle, further down at the bottom of the cliff. We did not have time to visit that, but there are regular tours there as well. Would have been very interesting though! Under the cave opening for the lower cave, there's also a deep river valley, perhaps that's part of the lower cave.
The castle can be visited just by walking through, a self-guided tour. I particularly liked of course the back side and the cave rising further up. But another really nice touch was the rock balcony, a tunnel cut into the side the cave opening, leading to a high-up balcony where you can view the valley from the cliff face. That is, a window in the cliff, not on the castle walls.
On the tour we learned that the castle has also appeared in a number of movies, and in the filming of a Jackie Chan movie, Armour of God, Jackie fell and had a serious accident.
If you visit the Postojna cave (see here), you can buy a combination ticket that lets you visit Predjama castle as well, as well as a number of other interesting things. Much recommended. Our tickets cost 50 euros per adult, and included the Postojna tour and Predjama visit, as well as some exhibitions and the like in the Postonja area.
The coordinates for Predjama are N 45.815831 E 14.126848. The official web page is here, and of course, Wikipedia has a lot of good information.
Cave behind and above the castle:
And these steps lead towards the top of the cliff exit inside the cave, eventually becoming a vertical shaft:
Castle itself:
Not all rooms were as nice, however:
And the torture chamber was, well, torture:
The balcony on the cliff face, accessible from the castle:
Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
We were driving back from the technical museum of Slovenia - a massive museum, by the way, well worth visiting. Then there was a hole in a cliff we drove by. I had to stop. The cliff was next to a parking lot and a bus stop, in town of Notranje Gorice near Ljubljana. No one was paying any attention... too many nice caves in this country, I guess. I decided to call the cave the Forgotten Cave. And I did go in.
The cave was a large hole, maybe 10 meters wide and 6 meters high, and perhaps ten meters deep. There were no obvious signs of human construction, this seemed like a real, natural cave formed under the cliff in the weak stone. Weak as in not granite like we have back home...
If anyone else wants to visit, the coordinates are: N 45.988011 E 14.401508. (But perhaps our other cave visits in Slovenia are more interesting, see the Postojna and Predjama cave stories.)
Here's what the cave looks from the outside:
Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
Many years ago, I tried to find some skiing inVenice. No luck, could not score any snow from local skating rinks, so was unable to plaster the Calatrava Bridge with snow... sad... or maybe good. This year we went back there.
No snow or skiing this time either. We just walked around, and got to see most of it (if one can ever say that for a short visit). But we walked around the islands at least. In the heavy heat of 32 degrees, but reportedly it is going to get even hotter soon. I have to say I was suffering even in 32 degrees. And I'm worried that I'm contributing to the heating with travel and other consumption... :-(
It is a wonderful place though.
For more about the bridges of Venice, look here. And more information about the Calatrava Bridge can be found here. The bridge is often called by the name of the architect that designed it, Santiago Calatrava, but the formal name of the bridge is Ponte della Costituzione.
I really loved the royal gardens, too, in the heat:
Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot, TGR. Photos, videos, and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko.
Piran is a medieval town on the coast of Slovenia. A wonderful town, clearly retaining its historic parts. The protective walls of the city date back to the 7th century, and can be toured for a nominal fee. Much recommended.
We were also treated to an unexpected airshow as a Swiss DC-3 and three smaller planes were performing flybys and turns above Piran's harbor. Very nice!
Walking along the shorelines of Piran is particularly nice. On the northern side there's a long stretch where one walks under a steep cliff. The signs say there's some rockfall danger, and one should not swim or spend time there. But many people seemed to do exactly those things :-) If you walk further from the center though there's a proper beach near the camping grounds, the Fiesa Beach.
From the harbor one can actually see three countries in one glance, see below for the photo. We're standing on Slovenia, but on the left there's the northern parts of Croatia, and on the right there's the most eastern corner of Italy.
Later on this trip we ventured to both the Croatian and Italian sides, see here and here.
For more information about Piran, see here. For more information about the walls, see here. The walls can be visited in these coordinates: N 45.52746 E 13.571584.
Piran view:
Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net, and other underground stories from planetcaver.net. And for aviation related content, see planetflier.com. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.
On our tour of Slovenia's Piran, we also peeked on the Croatian side, and had a swim in the Polynesia Beach in the town of Umag. Little did we know that the ruins we started our swim from were actually the ruins of the Sipar Castle from A.D. 1000 or thereabouts. Some have even called this place the Atlantis of Sipar. Interesting!
Apparently Sipar Castle was built by sea-faring pirates. Today, the area looks like a thin small peninsula, or perhaps the ruins of a unmaintained pier.
Nice swim, by the way! Very warm water. Maybe even too warm. Our swims in Lake Bled and Lake Bohinj were more refreshing!
The coordinates for the ruins on the beach are N 45.467779 E 13.507431.
The Polynesia Beach's castle ruins are along the eroded pier or peninsula at N 45.467779 E 13.507431. Read more about its history here and here.
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) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers and visit when there is simply no one else or the facility has been closed or booked only for me.
