| Archive for langcafe2.myfreeforum.org Come in and have your daily cup of languages! |
| fab |
That's interesting, I wonder why is Belgium seen as more francophone... maybe because of Brussels. But Geneva is aslo a internationally worldwide french-swiss city (a lot of world orgnaisations are there). I have remarqued that a lot of Americans tend to think that Germany and german-speaking cultures been more "alpine" country than "northern European/baltic". Actually when searching on wikipedia, Germany is grouped with Switezrland and Austria under the classification "alpine countries". It is very strange since Italy and France, which are alpine countries also are not included, and while only a very small portion of pre-alps are lying on a small portion of the extreme south of Germany. Is the "alpine thing" seen as something predominatly German-speaking in the US ? I persnally tend to see the alps as a montain chain which lies more on the southern half of Europe, and which concerns central and southern Europe more than Germany. In winter, in Antibes you often have a nice view of the white Alps over the sea. 
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| Porthos |
Fab, to answer your question, when I think of Alpine Europe I think of places like Switzerland, Austria, and southern Germany, but definitely not Italy or France. In English, "alpine" has a terrestial/geographical, cultural, and ethnic connotation. So, we don't normally associate Italy and France with "Alpine" Europe, even though small areas within their borders are technically in the Alpine region. | ||||||||
| Deborah |
Since I was aware of France's and Italy's rather large portions of the Alps, I had to check a map or two or five. They all show France and Italy as having much larger areas of land designated as Alps than Germany has, which surprised me. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Almost none of Germany of Germany is in the alps. Actually, I was surprised to discover quite recently that there aren't really very many mountains in Germany at all, and that the countryside landscape looks almost exactly like England. | ||||||||
| Deborah |
But the small bit of the Alps there is in Germany is beautiful and impressive. |
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| fab |
This is really surprising for me that you associate the Alps almost only with German-speaking nations. Since Italy and France are, with Switzerland and Austria the main alpine countries. Why does the usage in English seem to have taken acount only of the northern side of the range... that's strange. Basically the Alps were formed by the crash of the Italian tectonic with the mainland European one. 
In Italy the regions concerned by the alps (Piemonte, Lombardia, Venetia, etc) are very densely populated and are the economic core of the country with such cities as Torino or Milano, (Venezia been very close to the alps too). The dolomites regions should be really beautiful, I'd like to go there and then continue the trip to Vienna... maybe my next trip ! 
I'm now planning also to go to Italian switzerland just after Christmas. In France the Alps concern two very populated regions of the south-east, "Rhone-Alpes" (Lyon, Grenoble), along the Italian border, and "Provence-Alpes-Cote-d'azur" (Marseille, Toulon, Nice), where the Alps finish in the sea. On the other side the Alpine part of Germany is very very small, just some hills along the Austrian border.
I actually always saw Germany as a quite "flat" land, contrary to Austria.
We could add Slovenia, almost half of it is covered by the Alps... And France of course.
That's interesting, you seemed to expect Germany to have a lot of the Alps mountains on it ? whith the discussion with people of other countries and cultures it is interesting to see that the mental maps of Europe they have are often quite distorted. |
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| Uriel |
Well, we're not from there, fab, so we often have only a vague idea of where things are. You should see my mental map of Africa! Basically the Sahara ... and the rest of it.
Probably the reason why many Americans think first of German-speaking countries is because Italy, France, et al. did not feature in The Sound of Music.....  ....but Austria did!
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| Porthos |
I will try to explain further Fab. I wasn't just speaking of the actual "Alps" themselves, but of the culture and ambiance that comes with it. When I think of Italy the first thing that comes to mind is the mediterranean, and not the freezing, snowy alps of the far north of Italy. When I think of France I think of Paris and the French riviera, moderate climate, vineyards etc. The alps don't come to mind. I associate the alps with German speaking, Central European regions, where people drink beer, play the accordion, and yodle. (I probably spelled the last word wrong, lol) | ||||||||
| fab |
Yes, but the reality is that there is much more than one "culture" in the Alpine area.
There are mountains in the far south of Italy, and in these mountains it is also freezing.
The French riviera is precisely an Alpine region, it is what gave it it specific famous scenery, when the mountains meet the sea. The mediterranean climate change itself in mountainous with the altitude in very short distances. You can be under palm trees and one hour after being under the snow. On another point, the Mont Blanc, the highest Alpine summit is presicely at french/Italian border.
I understand what you meant, but as soon as we are here to exchange views about our countries and continents I think it is good to disolve the inacurates images. As a European I take a pleasure to explain the realities of my continent. I am from a "departement"(region) in France which is at once Alpine and mediterranean (Nice's region : its name is "Alpes maritimes"); those two notions that you seem to think to be in two complete different categories are actually mixed. The "cultural" image you associate with the Alps is the Austrian imaginary, it does exist in the northern part of the Alpine area only (but not in Germany since it is not Alpine). on another way, the mediterranean climate is not something "tropical" were it is never cold, or not freezing. It is a quite mild and dry in summer climate but it can be cold, especially in the mountains. In the riviera, especially when you go far from the coast, it often freeze the moorning, and especially the higher you are. The mountainous climates in Europe is more a mediterranean thing, or at least a south-central thing than a northern one. The whole mediterranean area is surrounded (with some exceptions) by mountains, Alps are one of these. 
the alps in my region look like this, it is different from the Autrian Alps but as much alpine : 
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| Porthos |
This might not mean anything to you, but just to give you an idea of the image in my brain, I will write whatever comes to mind about the Alpine region:
green forests, snowy winters, springs, beer jugs, women with hair in braided locks and traditional Austrian/Swiss garb, people with chestnut hair, small villages nestled in between hills and mountain slopes, meadows, valleys, chocolate shops, German pastries, German language, acordions, skiing, ricola cough drops, Swiss banks, Swiss army knives, fresh crisp mountain air, high altitudes, and Central European architecture. These are basically all the things I associate with Switzerland and Austria. Culturally I tend to group southern Germany in with these countries, while I think of northern Germany more in terms of the Netherlands, Flanders, and England. Some of the things I mentioned are obviously outdated cliches, but these images have still left an imprint on my brain. |
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| fab |
I understand what you meant, just that the term "Alpine" is, in my opinion very inapropriated to speak about that. "central European" would be much better, or "southern German/Austrian", etc. This represent only the Germanic part of the alpine area, which doesn't represent the majority of the chain. Maybe it is the one that have been the most mediatised in your country. Also, only a part of Austria is in the Alps and almost 99% of southern Germany has nothing to do with the Alpine region. That's why I find the word "alpine" very inacurate when used that way. |
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| Deborah |
I knew that the Bavarian Alps were only in the south, but I hadn't realized they were only right along the border. As I said earlier, they are beautiful and impressive. 
The peaks aren't nearly as high as those in other parts of the Alps (they're under 3000 m / 10,000 ft), but since they start at a lower altitutude, they still look like big mountains. More pictures of the Bavarian Alps. |
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| Icke |
I have to agree with Fab and Deborah that only the southernmost part of southern Germany belongs to the alpine region - which is really teeny - and therefore, it would be wrong to group the rest of southern Germany into this region.
Germany can be divided up into three regions: the flat country of the north, the highlands in the middle and south, and the foothills of the alps in the very south (along with the alpine region). Central Germany and Northern Germany don't differ much culturally. I live in (the south of) Central Germany and still most things in Bavaria seem alien to me! By the way, when we in Germany think of the Alps, we tend to think of Austria and Switzerland first, then Italy and rarely of France. |
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| Julian |
Some random shots of Haute-Savoie (Upper Savoy) in the French Alps.
Chamonix: 
Click to see full size image 
Lac d'Annecy: 
Le Grand-Bornand: 
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| fab |
although I've never been there, I expect Bavaria and southern Germany to be quite flat, or little bit hilly.
Munich seems to be lying in a endless plain 
Even Austria is only partly concerned by mountains, vienna is in a wide plain too. 
Contrary to Germany, Spain is a very mountainous country, with the second highest height average after switzerland. the Highest range of Spain are actually not the pyrenees in the north but the Sierra Nevada in Andalucia. As the name show it it is very snowy : 
Switzerland ? No, Andalucia. |
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| Uriel |
Heidi. That's the other reason I think of Switzerland first.
There was a German (I think) painter named Albert Bierstadt who came to the US in the 1800's and whose paintings of the Rockies were instrumental in getting the US gov't to designate the first National Park -- Yellowstone. The problem is, he was steeped in Romanticism and trained in the European school of nature painting, so the argument in art history clases was always that his paintings were well and good, and it's nice that they opened the door to formal nature preservation in this country, but the mountains in 'em always resembled the European Alps (complete with glacier-cut peaks a la the Matterhorn), rather than the unglaciated uplift mountains that form the North American Rockies! (A little art history aside -- I actually argued in a paper that despite the superficial stylistic characteristics of his paintings, Bierstadt was not a true Romantic painter, because his style never changed throughout his working career -- I posited that he had been trained in that style and simply stuck to it because it sold well, rather than actually embracing the philosophy behind it. It was a strange argument because Bierstadt is generally thought of as being a quintessential Romanticist, but I played Devil's advocate well enough that my professor thought, Hmmm, but gave me an A anyway!) |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
I think that another reason why people tend to think of Switzerland first is because almost all of Switzerland is in the Alps, whilst France and Italy are much larger, so the Alps only constitute a fairly small percentage of those countries. Basically, when one thinks of Switzerland, one almost immediately thinks 'Alps'; but for France and Italy, one tends to think of other things first. | ||||||||
| Deborah |
I remember when I first saw Bierstadt's painting of the American West. I didn't even associate them with European mountains, as I hadn't seen any of those yet. I just thought that Bierstadt must never have seen the Rockies and had painted them from his imagination. |
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| Uriel |
No, he actually went out west and had first-hand knowledge of his subject material. But he composed and painted his paintings in a studio later, I believe, rather than en plein air.
The light is one of the first things I always notice in his work-- it's that transcendent light that just seems so contrived and artificial to me. (People still use it, so I can't just blame the period for that one). One of my art books mentioned that when artists began sending back paintings of the west and the southwest to eastern art establishments, easterners didn't believe the light in the paintings -- it looked too bright and garish to them, the shadows too stark, the clarity of distant objects too different from what they were used to. Western artists were accused of fictionalizing. It was only later that it became apparent that the atmospheric effects are quite different in the two parts of the country --but Bierstadt's paintings didn't help! Granted there are strange atmospheric conditions and lighting effects that happen on mountains due to the high altitude -- alpenglow and things like that. Unfortunately, I'm borrowing my half-sister's Mac and can't figure out how to paste pictures, or i'd find someof Galen Rowell's wonderful photographs and post them here! (Gosh! Didn't we discuss him way back when, on the very first Langcafe? Antimoonbis?) |
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| Deborah |
Yes, we did. I posted a link and possibly a photo or two, or maybe someone else posted the photos. Here's the link, at least. http://mountainlight.com/ And to keep on topic, if you click on Fine Art Prints and then Other Wild Places, there's a picture of the Matterhorn. (It's sort of on topic -- it has to do with the Alps, if not the French Alps.) I think it's the only photo taken in Europe on that website. |
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| Uriel |
Oooooh. Wasn't he an incredible photographer? I'm not usually a big fan of photography, but when it's done that well...... | ||||||||
| Fredrik |
Yes, lovely photo art. Funny how the light differs in different regions. Because of the tall mountains which cast long shadows, our topic, the Alpine region, often has a lovely melancholic light in the afternoons and evenings in my experience, when the dark mountain slopes contrast with the last glitter of the evening sun on the peaks.
I totally agree with you that Bavaria shamelessly and quite wrongly has adopted an Alpine identity it's hardly entitled to. Garmisch-Partenkirchen (home of Germany's highest mountain, 2.962 metres tall Zugspitze may have a Tyrolean identity with yodling and lederhosen, but that only applies to a very narrow string of Bavaria along the Austrian border. But Bavaria has cultivated an Alpine image of itself for a long time, and it was no doubt immensly enhanced by mad King Ludwig II's megalomanic Alpine retreat, Neuschwanstein Castle, the inspiration for Disney's fairy tale castle: 
But in fact the scene is highly un-Bavarian. Only the hills behind are Bavarian, the mountains are Austrian. The background in the more Bavarian view from the opposite angle doesn't look as grand: 
Although both Austria, France, Italy and Slovenia are Alpine countries, I kind of see Switzerland as the quitessential Alpenland. Not only because of sheer geography, but also because of the ambience. In Switzerland you can stand in the streets of bustling international metropolises and still breath fresh, crisp mountain air and gaze up at almost vertical mountains. And the Alpine heart of Alpine Switzerland must be the one canton that often is described as a Switzerland en miniature and a world apart: (Ge.) Graubünden, (Fr) Grisons, (It) Grigioni, (Rumantsch) Grischun, Switzerland easternmost canton and home of Heidi. Its not only highly Alpine because of its mountainous and confusing geography, but because its the meetingplace of languages (both German, (Rhaeto-)Romansh and Italian are spoken there) and the contrasts between isolation and transit that are so typical of the Alps. Graubünden's capital and the oldest Swiss town, the old Roman city and present railway hub of Chur is typical and a city I liked very much when I visited it. Note the snowy vineyards - contrasts examplified: 
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| Deborah |
In summer 1980 a dance company I was in had a teaching/performing residency in Switzerland. Our first week was spent in Graubünden / Grisons / Grigioni / Grischun, more specifically in the area called the Engadine, and even more specifically in the town of Zuoz. We stayed in the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz, a prestigious, exclusive preparatory school
Here’s a map of the Engadine. Zuoz is about in the middle: 
Here’s a photo gallery of Zuoz and its environs. One day we hiked up to a little village above the tree line where the 1968 version of Heidi was filmed. I’ll try to find the location and a photo. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Last year, I went by train from Nürnberg to München, and later from München to Saltzburg. For some reason, I had expected both journeys to offer spectacular mountain views, but was disappointed to find that the scenery actually bore more resemblance to the Netherlands or East Anglia — a lot of rather flat green fields. | ||||||||
| fab |
Yes, compared to its size, switzerland is surely (proportionally) the "most alpine country". But said that, to the starting subject which consisted to claim that the alpine imaginary was associated in the mind of many people with german-speaking regions. It is interesting to see that a big part of the German-speaking switzerland (the most populated around basel, bern and Zurich) is in fact quite flat and un-alpine. basel 
zurich 
Bern 
I just came back from holyday in the south of France. I went to Isola 2000, a ski station situated at Italian border about the same latitude than Firenze, Tuscany. 
The Alps seen from the mediterranean coast, near St Tropez : 
from the other side of the chain, From Turin, Italy, the view over the alpine chain is often impressive (when the sky is clear), which is quite rare in the po plain. 
From lombardia plain, near Milan 
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| Loic |
Really dreamy pictures from everyone. Are the landscapes as perfect as they look? | ||||||||
| Deborah |
I can only speak for the ones I've seen: yes. | ||||||||
| fab |
I think yes. High Mountain are really beautiful landscapes which give a feeling a being just a little human being in front of nature. But it is also true that the Alps are surrounded by many very populated regions (and industrial), and are very touristically frequented. A lot of cities lie in the valleys, and modern skifacilities at top bring many people, pollution and so some "shadow" in the ideal image of the wild mountains. The pyrenees are the other tall mountain range of Europe (excluding Caucasian mountains), they cover a less big area than the alps, are less internationally famous and a bit lower, but generally much more wild (they still have some bears, 5 I think) and as much beautiful (if not more). 
Spanish pirinean villages 
Aragon (Spanish side of the chain) : 
[img]http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~ig206/Pyrenees_2005/Mountains/P6041072.html[/img] From Pau 
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| Deborah |
However, the 1st, 3rd and 5th highest mountain peaks in mainland Spain are in the Sierra Nevada in southern Spain. (The highest Spanish peak is the volcanic Teide, on Tenerife.) |
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| Deborah |
Seen in this photo are Mulhacén and Alcazaba, the 1st and 5th highest peaks in Spain, photographed from Veleta, the 3rd highest.
Although the highest peak on the Iberian Peninsula is in the Sierra Nevada, the Pyrenees contain many more peaks over 3000 m. |
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| fab |
Yes, Deborah, the Sierra Nevada has higher summits than the pyrenées, but they are very limited in area, and doesn't relly represent a wide area of high altitudes, nor a real mountainous geographical entity, but a more or less isolated mountainous spot, contrary as the pyrenees or the Alps. | ||||||||
| Deborah |
I never said anything to dispute that. | ||||||||
| fab |
no problem ! 
Spain as a whole is very mountainous, it has mountains such as pyrenees, Sierra Nevada, Sierra de Guadarrama (there down photo), and also plateaux. It said to be the second highest European country after Switzerland. Sierra de Guadarama 
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| Deborah |
Another mountainous region of Spain that I think is very picturesque (from what I’ve seen of Spain on TV)
is the Cordillera Cantábrica, on the north coast. Although the peaks are all lower than 3000 m, they can be impressive because of their rapid rise from the coastline. The cordillera includes the Picos de Europa: 
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| fab |
your right I forgot this one !
I know a bit the cantabria coast but the the mountains, It would be nice: 
Maybe a next trip... |
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| Deborah |
So many mountain ranges, so much beauty... | ||||||||
| greg in noord-frankrijk |
I drove through Cantabria twice. It's really magnifique ! |
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| Uriel |
That's exactly the sensation Romantic painters were trying to convey -- they called it the sublime. |
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| Harrenys Targaryen |
Yea, the following image from my Grade 10 European History textbook came to mind: 
But the question is how it compares to the real deal. 
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| Uriel |
Reminds me of one of my painting professors, who said not to bother painting sunsets -- they would never compare to the real thing.
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| Fredrik |
Wow, I never knew the Alps were so present in Provence. They must exercise a strong hold on the Provençal imagination then, I guess. |
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| fab |
The administrative region which corespond to the former region of Provence is now fully called "Provence-Alpes-Cote-d'Azur". On the six departements of this regions, half of them have the name "Alpes" in them : such as - "Alpes maritimes" where is Nice. - "Alpes de haute provence" where is Digne and Verdon canyon. - "Hautes Alpes", where is Gap |
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| Uriel |
Just a small transposition, and you will be saying it perfectly, fab --
"Alpes maritimes" where Nice is. - "Alpes de haute provence" where Digne and Verdon canyon are. - "Hautes Alpes", where Gap is. It's just a weird little eccentricity of English. But the way you had those sentences worded actually makes them read as interrogatives -- that's how you would ask "Where is Nice? Where are Digne and Verdon Canyon? etc. To turn them back into statements, you go back to noun, then verb order.
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| fab |
Thanks Uriel for the corrections !
I didn't knew that aspect of English grammar ! I think my grammar is horrible... |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
What's weird though is that I still often make that mistake in German, even though the word order is the same as in English. For example, when I was lost in some random suburbs in Germany at night, I asked a girl who was waiting at a bus stop for directions. I said:
'Entschuldigen Sie bitte, wissen Sie, wo ist Kircheim-Rathaus-Nord?' When I should have said: 'Entschuldigen Sie bitte, wissen Sie, wo Kircheim-Rathaus-Nord ist?' I don't know why I made that mistake, because it's the same as in English. |
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| Uriel |
Your grammar is sometimes unique, but I can always make out what you're saying, so no big deal.
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| Fredrik |
She may not have perceived it as a mistake, it sounds like the kind of lax syntax a tipsy night owl might resort to, to me, but let's ask Icke in the German section! If the girl was your age, she was probably more baffled by the polite form of adress! 
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Lol! Prior to that, however, I'd asked some men who happened to be sitting out in their front garden (yes, in the dark). I said something similar to them, but one of them responded responded:
<Strong American Accent> 'Kircheim-Rathaus-Nord? You guys have any idea where that is?' Apparently, I had wondered into the American ghetto in Heidelberg. Which I must say was rather fortunate, even though I'd gone in completely the wrong direction. In case you're wondering, I'd been to Baden-Baden by train for the afternoon, and on the way back had got off at the wrong station in Karlsruhe, which had delayed me several hours. I knew that the busses from Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof to Kircheim (where I was staying) would be rather infrequent at that time, so I decided to get off at Kircheim station. Besides, I had seen Lidl right by the station, and I knew that there was a Lidl very near to my host family's house... of course, it wasn't the same Lidl. So I ended up wondering around in almost total darkness for about an hour trying to find their house! When I finally got there, most of my host family weren't there anyway, except for their 22-year-old daughter and her boyfriend, so I sat in the garden with them for a bit and we ate massive pieces of the chocolate cake which she had made.
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| fab |
Some people seems to not associate mountains with southern Europe. In reality, at the exception of the Norwegian mountains, most of high mountains in Europe are situated around the mediterranean. The meeting of them with the sea is actually one of the main characteristic of mediterranean landscapes. 
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| Uriel |
I've always noticed that most of your European mountains are in the southern parts -- the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Carpathians, the whole spine of Italy. Northern Europe seems to be a lot more mountain-free -- flat or hilly.
Of course in North and South America, all of the major mountain ranges run north and south for vast distances -- the Rockies, the Appalachians, the Andes, so I have no reason to associate mountains with northerliness or southerliness -- usually I have to think in terms of east or west to think mountainous vs flat. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
I must admit that what that I often associate with extreme 'Northerliness' or extreme 'Southerliness' are grassy mountains, dry stone walls, lakes, small isolated cottages, and lots of sheep. I suppose it's the sort of landscape that I associate with Northern England, Scotland, Norway and Iceland, but also with the South Island of New Zealand, the Falkland Islands, and Southern Argentina.
Of course, I know that there are lots of mountains in the Mediterranean, but it's a different sort of landscape compared to the more extreme northern or extreme southern one. |
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| Uriel |
Not sure I would dignify what you call "mountains" in the northern part of the UK with that term, when your highest point is only 1344m above sea level.... which is at about what I am, sitting here at my keyboard -- on the desert floor!
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
Well the Scottish Highlands have always looked like mountains to me (even though I've admittedly never been to them!):
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| fab |
nIce pictures Benjamin ! those scottish landscapes are really wild... And the foogy ambiance that generally goes with (but not here) gives them a very interesting feeling, sometimes even a bit fritherning.
I would call Scottish relief as mountains, even if they are not high mountains but more average ones like massif central or Jura in France, I consider them not to be just hills. In fact it is quite difficult to define what a mountain is. Actually it is not only a question of altitude, since you can have some VERY HIGH places completly flat, such as the Bolivian plateaux that rise at 4000m, but are as almost as flat as netherlands. it can be also question of declivity more than altitude itself.
Well, it actually depends of the place you are and its altitude. I know places in southern Alps of Provence that could look like those scottish landscapes. the vallée des merveilles, just 50 km from Nice beaches 
At high altitudes the landscape looks more the image we have of the Alps, and we foget that we actually are in a mediterranean region. 
Since a few kilometers more down, in the lower parts (préalpes), the inland mediterranean vegetation is present and gives a different fell to more dry and much less high mountains. 
Sicily 
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| Deborah |
I think it's a mountain if it looks like a mountain, and those are mountains in Benjamins pictures. | ||||||||
| Uriel |
I was kidding.  I used to work with a girl from Colorado, and we were always trying to out-mountain each other -- she was from the Rockies, of course, and she used to always sniff, "These aren't mountains -- these would just be little foothills where I'm from!" (The Rockies top out at ~14,400 ft, while our mountains are slightly under 10,000 ft.)
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| Loic |
Not sure if the mountains on your continent can hold a candle to mine, what with Mt Everest and her colleagues on the Himalayas. |
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| Fredrik |
fab wrote:
And in fact there is a very cute movie about that, from Wales: "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain". When the English mapmakers refuse to recognize landforms of less than 1000 feet as mountains, the villagers conspire in Welsh and start a nocturnal improvement of their mountain.... |
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| fab |
Actually for me 1000 feets is a bit small for a montain... It is the high of the Eiffel Tower, I'd have difficulties as recognising it a montain !
But that's actually very subjective, in Champagne region there is a place which is called "la montagne de Reims", while it is only a little hill of 50 meters !! |
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| fab |
Actually those mountains are also on my continent - since the continent (real landmass) in which I live is Eurasia Contain both Europe and Asia, which in fact are the same continent, Europe is just a peninsula. |
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| Fredrik |
Talking about mountains.....this mounatin, Ulriken (643 m), is what I see from my window. (In fact I see more of a grey stone mass, as I live closer to the mountain than the point of view in the photo):
This mountain and the six other mountains that surround Bergen are very irritating, as they transform all clouds from the North Sea into rain.... 
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| fab |
Wao, you have a nice view from your window !!
Is that photo taken now ? Is it covered of snow as we see it ? With snwo it give a very peacefull feeling... |
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| Deborah |
My host during one of my trips to Moscow took me one day to what he described as "our mountain" in the quite flat region where his family's dacha was. He said it even had a waterfall. (This was after I'd shown him pictures of Yosemite.) The mountain turned out to be a respectable hill, high enough that I didn't feel like climbing it, having a bad hangover. But my friend insisted I had to see the waterfall, so I climbed the hill. The waterfall turned out to be the place where the water dropped about 1 foot (30.5 cm) from the pipe which was inserted in the opening of a spring on the side of the hill. My friend got a chuckle out of that. 
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| Uriel |
I know the feeling. Right outside LC (only a little ways from my house, actually) there is a place called Dripping Springs Park. After a nice little 30 minute hike into the mountains:
you get to see the full eponymous glory of this little trickle: 
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| Icke |
When I think of the so-called „extreme Northerliness“, then wooded landscapes, i.e. the taiga, enters my mind like in Finland, Sweden, Canada, Alaska and Russia. I wouldn't call the landscape of Scotland as being „extreme northern“- but maybe that's just subjective. |
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| fab |
That's intersting, I would tend more to associate fisrtly sheep with mediterranean areas... not so much cow cheese there... |
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| Uriel |
Lots of sheep in cold places, too, though -- like Scotland and New Zealand. And in hot places, like Australia and here. Sheep are pretty versatile.
Cattle are bred for various temperatures as well. European cattle tend to be adapted to cooler climes -- I know many breeds don't give milk well in the heat, lose weight, and don't reproduce as well. That's why many modern hot-climate cattle are the result of outcrosses between better milk and meat-producing European cattle (Bos taurus) and the tougher and more disease/pest/heat-tolerant Indian and African cattle (Bos indicus): The Santa Gertrudis of Texas (a shorthorn/Brahman cross) 
The Brangus (Angus/Brahman cross) -- also comes in black - first developed in the US, also popular in Australia 
The Australian Milking Zebu (Jersey/Red Sindhi/Sahiwal cross) 
That may be why they were not historically as favored in Southern Europe as sheep. Although we know that there a few good cattle breeds in Southern Europe -- the (now rare) Texas Longhorn is a Spanish descendant: 
And of course, Greek mythology is full of bovine references, from minotaurs and Cretan bull dancing to Zeus seducing (apparently rather freaky!) Io as a bull, and Hera's symbol being the cow. 
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