I’m on my way to the Le Mans 24 Hrs race in France. France is one of the most favorite countries my wife and I like to visit, so the “deal” is that I can go to Le Mans as long as we go to Paris for vacation, which is not a bad “deal”. We left the USA last Friday night (luckily the Air Traffic controllers and train strikes were over in France) at about 10.30 pm and flew Air France to Paris. We arrived, at the Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG) at about 11.20 am on Saturday morning. As we entered the immigration area, I saw to my left a large advertisement for the 2013 F1 Ferrari watch from Hubolt, which I’m sure is out of my price range. Hope you like the photos.

Ferrari F1 watch advertisement at Charles de Gaulle airport immigration area (iPhone 4, 3.8mm, f/2.8, 1/60, ISO 80)

Before heading to Le Mans, we planned to visit some friends in Basel, Switzerland. We originally booked train tickets to leave at 5 pm, but were lucky enough to be able to rebook for an earlier TGV. We took the 12.36 pm TGV from the CDG airport to Strasbourg which is about 2.5 hours east of the airport and is right next to the border with Germany. At Strasbourg we took a TER regional train south for about 45 minutes to Mulhouse, then another regional TER train south/south/east for about 20 minutes to Basel SBB. In Basel we stayed at the City Inn Hotel which is right across the road from the Basel SBB.

While staying in Basel, our friends took us for a two day trip to the mountains at Kiental, which is south of Thun. We took a train from the Basel SBB train to Bern, then another train to Spiez, then a bus up the mountains to Kiental. The trip took about 2 hours. At Kiental we stayed at the Hotel Baren. I know this is a motorsport photography blog, but wanted to share a couple of photos from our trip to Kiental. This is one of the most beautiful places in the world I’ve seen, with breath taking landscapes, and would be a wonderful place to stay for a few months to hike the mountain paths and take photos. We will staying for a couple of more days in Basel, then we’ll be off to France for the Paris Airshow and the Le Mans 24 Hrs race.

(Canon 5D Mark III, 50mm f1.2L, f/8, 1/200, ISO 160)

(Canon 5D Mark III, 50mm 1.2L, f/11, 1/80, ISO 100)

(Canon 5D Mark III, 24mm f1.4L, f/16, 1/160, ISO 1250, HDR +/- 2 EV; borrowed my friends lens)

Posted with Blogsy