Lake Constance – Meiringen

It was raining and bit cloudy, but the Swiss Alps were waiting for us. My first destination there was Meiringen Air Base (LSMM), which is a military airfield in middle of the most famous mountains of the Bernise Oberland.

Over the mountains of St. Gallen

The lake after Stansstad

The flight was short and you had to fly through the valleys carefully. Crossing the ridge between Lungernersee and Brienzersee was a quite adventurous experience, that almost resulted a crash, but somehow Cessna managed to gain enough altitude just on time…

The tires didn’t get grassy during the landing, that probably means, that some improvement has happened. Meiringen Air Base has a breath-taking view between the massive mountain ranges on the both sides of the valley.

Meiringen Air Base

Time to stop engine just before the sunset

This is probably the finest area of the Swiss Alps. Most people will come into Interlaken, sitting between two lakes, the Thunersee & the Brienzersee. From Interlaken, twin valleys go to either the resort town of Grindelwald, or the Lauterbrunnen, which has cable car connections to several stunningly located and isolated towns. Several glaciers are in this area.

Bernise Highlands, Wikivoyage

Bechyně – Lake Constance

The journey continued from Bechyně towards the Alps. The next destination was St. Gallen–Altenrhein Airport (LSZR) in Switzerland. The takeoff and the flight were fine, except some problems with navigation instruments, that are because of the uneducated pilot. The weather was nice and the landscape has started to be more hilly after the flat terrain.

Flying across Vltava river

Climbing over Bayerischer Wald

Sky got clearer for a while

Somewhere over Baden-Württemberg

Approaching St. Gallen–Altenrhein Airport

Landing succeeded without a crash, but again my altitude was too high, when approaching the runway. That resulting too high speed, that made the landing too long. More practice is needed still.

Landed as one piece but with grassy wheels

Lake Constance (Bodensee) is the third biggest lake in Central Europe and it is on the path of the Rhine River. The lake shore is shared between the German federal-states Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, the Austrian federal-state Vorarlberg and the Swiss cantons of Thurgau and St. Gallen.

All three nations have developed a specific culture around their part of the shore. There are eleven islands of which Reichenau is the biggest.

Lake Constance, Wikivoyage