United States of America Here my zest for photography has begun, as soon as I bought my first camera - Pentax Optio230 for 400$. Till today I do not regret paying such an enormous price, this gadget does magic, especially in my bumbling hands. I was shooting everything and everywhere I got the summer of 2002 as WAT participant to. Actually almost everywhere, in the New York city I had a regular analog camera, which somehow did not remind me of the necessity to use more-than-100ISO film in the gloom so that majority of pictures went awry. The digital one was bought immediately I arrived to California and held the first paycheck in my hands (being employed as motorhome rental agent not far from San Francisco), and to the very end of my stay it underwent really tough conditions. Up to the present day some grains of Santa Cruz sand has remained within the zoom lens, furthermore the camera endured the hot Death Valley, hiking the colossal Grand Canyon, gamblin' through Las Vegas and finally... customs inspection :o)=) What I do regret is geting up not enough nerve to take some pictures in Tichuana (Mexico). I didn't yearn to end up my journey being tickled by a blade. However, memories fade away...

San Francisco Yosemite natl.park Death Valley Grand Canyon Nevada California ...map... ...gallery...

Spain It was Spain where I experienced my first summer work camp for volunteers. Environmentaly oriented camp Vilarbo near the small town of As Pontes de Garcia Rodriguez definitely wasn't the only destination that had attracted my wandering shoes in summer 2003. The closest larger city - La Coruňa on the west coast that had just been recovering from oil spill - became an european miniversion of my beloved San Francisco. In the west province Galicia one can find the city of Santiago de Compostela as well, the oldest destination of pilgrims' voyages highly densified with Christian temples. And of course I couldn't miss the capital, Madrid, and some of the east coast bestsellers - beaches of Costa Brava, the Olympic city of Barcelona and the monastery of Montserrat.

Under construction...

Greece After a week of wandering the Chalkidiki and hiking the Mount Olympus (Mytika 2918m) in the summer 2004 I let my nose be kept to the grindstone (voluntary reconstruction works) for two weeks in the penisula of Mount Athos (Agio Oros = Holy mountain), which is (and for centuries was) a citadel of the Greek Orthodox Church. From about the beginning of last millenium the admission is free for men only, the restriction applies even to animals. Vegetation is uncommonly abundand here, which makes the large monaseries to modest hermitages hard to maintain. One year later I came back as an ordinary tourist spending ten days on a beach in Paralia. As I can't say I prefer this way of relax, I took the opportunity to get off and went for some trips, namely to Dion (City of gods, and of excavations too), to Alikes (mud baths, salty enough to prevent from drowning) but especially to Meteora, the complex of monasteries built on top of giant monoliths situated among a thousand of other pieces of stone which already from great distance makes an impression of a stone forest soaring on and above horizon. The forest where since very long ago people has been finding their spiritual oasis through calmness and solitude.

Under construction...

Slovakia Last but not least, here come the pictures from my beloved home-land with all the intimately known places lying under the Tatras. So far just only the summer 2005 trip is prepared, even not in english yet. However, I hope it won't take me too long to fill in the gap...

Low Tatras (sk)