Every year the carnival in Basel starts exactly at 4am when all the lights in the old town are turned off, and the different "Cliques" march through it in different parades, playing some traditional marching songs using piccolos and drums. This year has been exceptionally warm, so I thought it was a good opportunity to see the Morgestraich again, and I was not disappointed at all.

We visited Berne yesterday with some friends who came to visit us from Catalunya. This time around we parked again next to the bear park and there were a couple of bears walking there. I brought my camera to take some pictures in the lovely Swiss capital, and while I was taking some shots of the bears, I learned something new: You can't run away from them by climbing to the trees because they surely can do it as well. As you can see in this picture, one of them climbed quite well to the top of one of the trees. All the visitors were surprised and amazed at the same time. They are very cute, as you can see here, but as our friend was saying, they are cute until they bite your arm off! Anyhow, we consider ourselves very lucky to have had the chance to see such a nice spectacle.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit Brussels again. This is the third time I visited the Belgian capital known not only for being the heart of the European Union, but also for its beautiful central square, its beer variety, and its "Moules et frites", a traditional dish of mussels prepared with white wine served with fries.

I decided this time to visit the Atomium, a steel structure in the north part of the city, to get a good panoramic view and take some pictures, and I was not disappointed. I was rewarded with some interesting aerial spots including MiniEurope (a miniature park with reproductions of monuments in the European Union) and some other buildings created for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. I find it interesting that even if the Atomium is not as famous as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, both were "temporary" steel structures created for world fairs.

I have the impression Milan is more famous for being the main industrial, commercial and financial centre of Italy, rather than for its landmarks (compared to Rome, Florence, Pisa or Venezia), but between la piazza del duomo and la piazza della scala you can find the remarkable one: the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, named after the first king of Italy. This is not only one of the world's oldest shopping malls, but it's probably the most beautiful one. Once you enter the shopping arcades, you can't stop looking at the amazing structures of the ceiling. At night, with the lighting, it is even more impressive. Last weekend we enjoyed a short city break in Milano, and this place was definitively one of the highlights.

Sometimes you get a nice photoshoot in the most unexpected place, so it’s good to have a mobile phone with a decent camera at hand to capture the instant. This is exactly what happened last weekend when we went to the big shopping center in Weil am Rhein, located very close to the river point where countries meet (France, Germany and Switzerland). We were in the parking lot and getting ready to leave the place, but when we looked outside at the sky, we just saw this amazing view composed of some blueish hues and a stripe of sunny light in the background, so I got my phone and shot a couple of pictures trying to capture this view. I wish we had a new year full of nice sky views like the one we experienced last weekend. Happy 2014.

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