Pile of Shards, Arschparasit and the art of watching snails eat

Alex and I had long talked about going for a photo tour on a Sunday morning and after Alex had ensured me the night before that he did not plan to leave at 5 in the morning for sunrise I was all game.

I picked him up at 9 am and we drove to Monte Scherbelino, or Birkenkopf, a small mountain in Stuttgart West from which we hoped to have a nice view. The history of the mountain also promised some good photos: in the 50s, the rubble and debris from WWII was piled on top of Birkenkopf, which raised its peak by roundabout 40 m. This is also why the mountain is commonly called Monte Scherbelino, an artificial name based on the German word "Scherbe" (= shard).

Alex was amazingly well prepared for the trip. He had brought a little book with maps and something even more important:

Alex: I thought, when two dudes are
out in the woods they need some proper
supplies: I have cake, sandwiches, fruits,
energy bars and water bottles.

Naturally, I did not bring anything apart from my camera gear.

And when we parked the car at the foot of the mountain and it started to rain, Alex conjured two umbrellas, too.
This is what I call being prepared...

Having arrived at the top, the rain and the clouds were not really helping the view, of course...



I had never been on top of Monte Scherbelino before, but you get more and more hints how the name came all about.



After each of us had taken two, three desperate photos in the rain (with the other holding the umbrella), we took shelter in a little refuge and had a go at the cake Alex brought. I also proudly tried out the rain protection of my camera bag for the first time:



Interestingly, the shelter had been creatively decorated on the inside with wisdom like

Wer das liest ist ein Arschparasit!

and

Destroy this world!

More importantly, we found this gem, however:



This alone had been already worth the hike to the top of Birkenkopf and we were then pondering to return to the car and maybe visit Porsche museum. Once more Alex had the right hunch to wait a little longer, though. It took a few more minutes and the rain ceased, indeed, and all of a sudden crowds of people passed by the shelter on their way to the top.

Finally we could take some more photos of the debris that has been decoratively piled up.



This is actually a great playground for kids...



... and hidden secrets can be found, too.



Though the rain had stopped, we still did not have sun and there were no eye candy panoramic views to take pictures of. So we focussed our attention on a little, overgrown bench on which we put a large garden snail, which we had found in the grass, as a model. A great opportunity to play with my Macro lens...

Alex: Sexy! Sexy!

Snail motivation

It's actually quite interesting to zoom so close onto a snail that you see all the details of the beast. On below photos you can see how the snail mercilessly attacks an innocent leaf...



Did you know that snails have those scary looking teeth in their gorge-like mouth?
So gross!

Much nicer to watch the bumblebees at work instead...



We eventually made our way back to the car for our meeting with Volker, Silke and Fabian at Grand Cafè Planie.

After all, we had spent nearly 4 hours up on the mountain and although the weather did not make it easy to take exceptional photos, we still had a great time and great talks (including a great rucksack lunch).

Needless to say that when we drove downtown Stuttgart, the sun finally came out for the rest of the day...