Baku bacchanalia

The UEFA Champions League. A great opportunity to visit some far flung and little visited places. My old friend Mick and I made the trip to Azerbaijan, the most easterly country in the Champions League, to watch Chelsea play Karabag at the Olympic Stadium in Baku. Karabag actually come from Agdam in Nagorno-Karabakh, but the town was destroyed after  the invasion by Armenia in 1993 and as is still under Armenian occupation.

We were pleasantly surprised to find evidence for some local Chelsea support.

We arrived in Baku without tickets, but Mick showed off his trading skills by acquiring a couple outside the ground just before kick-off for 10 euros each - and I settled in with the Karabag fans.

Unfortunately, for the sake of atmosphere, Karabag defender and captain Rashad Sadygov was sent off at 19 minutes for a rash challenge on Willian advancing on goal. Eden Hazard put away the penalty to open the scoring for Chelsea. Karabag battled on with 10 men, but had to settle for a 'respectable' 0-4 defeat.

The Romantic in me would like to have visited Baku when camels took rest under the city walls, where now tarmac car parks mark the spot.

Inside the city walls a flavour of Baku's asian history can be found in the 15th century complex of the arabic Shahs of Shivan, as this area of Azerbaijan was known, who ruled for 700 years until conquer by the Persian Sasafid dynasty around 1600. Murad's Gate in the east makes an imposing entrance.

Within, the magnificent mausoleums of the Turbe...

...and the layered geometry of the octagonal Divankhana.

Persian style architecture can be seen throughout the old town...

..and provided the inspiration for the main train station built under Soviet rule.

During World War II, 80% of Soviet oil came from Baku. General Hazi Aslanov, an Azeri tank commander, was one of its defenders. He died of wounds in last year of war. He has a village in the north named after him.

Beyond this monument is martyrs row, where portraits of those killed during the independence fights of the early 90s can be seen - faces frozen at the age of death.

Other monuments to this era have been erected by roadsides.

Refreshingly, the statue in the main square outside the central station is of a writer not a fighter. Even though his work fell under communist propaganda, Jafar Jabbarly had a wonderful name and translated Hamlet into Azeri. The square is named after him, as well as a tube station.

But it is the three 182m Flame Towers on the hill top, completed in 2012, which dominate the city and loom over the old Persian and Imperial Russian buildings. Monuments to oil money.

The Flame Towers are covered in LED screens. When the sun sets, they alight with the Azerbaijan flag - out-competing the more subdued lighting of the Shah's mosque and minaret.

In the east of Baku, the Heydar Aliyev Centre - appropriately designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. Heydar Aliyev was the first secretary of Soviet Azerbaijan from 1969 to 1982, and president of the Azerbaijan Republic from 1993 to 2003. A big cheese.

And it is these curves which young loves chose as the backdrop to their future.

All this Ozymandian observation makes a man hungry. The Persian influence here has filled the market with pomegranates.

A good place to eat a pomegranate dish is the Sirvansah Musey Restaurant.

Azerbaijan has many local varieties of wine grapes, but we were recommended a good Merlot - made in the Savalan Valley in the Caucasus, but using 'modern Italian technology`.

Time to leave. Mick takes a last glance back at a grandmother who has lived through many changes, and a grandson who will see many more.

Georgia on my mind

In Tbilisi, 200 years of Russian rule is history - and the diggers move in to begin a face lift of the crumbling Imperial architecture.

Until the bright future of fast food outlets arrives, local ladies continue to bake and feed the neighbourhood.

Behind the facades, life goes on in courtyards lined with rickety wooden stairs and balconies.

The pure and simple lines of the metro lead deep below the city. Built in 1966, it was the fourth in the Soviet Union after Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev.

In the Kashveti Church of St. George, 1,600 years of Georgian Orthodoxy is tangible as a bride awaits her turn to marry.

Ahead of her, a knot is being tied.

They walk hand in hand into their technicolor future, whatever that will bring.

Raptorous applause

A few summer days on home turf with Mike. We started our tour in Valais, above the pines of the Pfyn-Finges Nature Park.

At the Devil's Bridge by Rotafen, a few km east of Leuk, we searched for Wallcreepers - but to no avail. Instead, we were treated to a pair of young Sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus) performing acrobatic antics over the trees below us.

From Leuk, a drive up to Leukabad spa town - in time to luxuriate in an outdoor hot pool. 

Next morning, a cable car up to the 2,270m Gemmipass to scan around the Daubensee.

We watched an Ibex (Capra ibex) cross the steam feeding the lake.

Alpine Choughs (Pyrrhocorax graculus) flew around the restaurant, looking for scraps.

On the path Swiss Brassy Ringlets (Erebia tyndarus) sunbathed.

In the foliage close by, low-flying Scotch Burnets (Zygaena exulans).

Then eastwards, along the valley to Fiesch and the cable car up to Eggishorn - at nearly 3,000 m, a panoramic view over the Aletsch Glacier.

At these alpine heights, plants have evolved to survive by reducing their foliage and clinging to cracks in the rocks. But in the short days of summer they bloom with a flower meadow magnificence. I am growing Saxifrages in my rock garden. Here we saw two species in the wild, Saxafraga bryoides...

...and Saxafraga exarata.

Also in flower, one of the Mouse-eared Chickweeds, the One-flowered Mouse-ear (Cerastium uniflorum).

And for the daisies, Leucanthemopsis alpina...

and Arnica montana.

Further north, the mountain tourist resort of Melchsee-Frutt - to search for Lammergeier (Gypaetus barbatus). On the boating lake, a homage to the great beast gives us hope.

We walked up the valley which leads to the pass between Rotsandnollen and Graustock.

The rocks around us have been squashed and folded over millions of years, in nature's attempt to make filo pastry.

The whistles of the Marmot (Marmota marmota) can be mistaken for a bird of prey.

And at the end of the valley, a small observation hut aimed at the Rotsandnollen. For it is in the shade of this peak that the Lammergeier can be found. 

This predictability is due to the fact it has been introduced here from other parts of Europe, and provided with food. For monitoring, distinctive markings have been painted on their wings.This is Johannes, only a few months old.

There is a rumour that a kettle of Griffon Vultures (Gyps fulvus) is visiting the peaks above Boltigen in the Simmental - a potential rare sight of a southern species. We head off, and find a suitable observation point.

Out of the clouds we saw a few descend and pass by the rock face.