During the lockdowns of the winter 2020/2021 we conceived and launched a social awareness kite-flying initiative called Strings of Hope, as kite lines can be, well, strings of hope. The idea is simple: you send us messages, Messages of Hope, and we and other kite flyers from all over the world fly them high into … Read more
Another pandemic year, difficult, hard for most and sad for (way too) many, is finally coming to an end. There are some flickering lights at the end of the tunnel and it seems we can expect at least a better, if not a good year. Hopefully. But it wasn’t all bad in 2021 … We … Read more
Upper Pivka valley is a strange, a bit remote, and a very beautiful place. A kite aerial view to the southeast across the Pivka valley towards Mt. Snežnik massif Stretching from the village of Šembije at the edge of Mt. Snežnik massif north towards Prestranek and Rakitnik, and ultimately the Postojna basin, the Upper Pivka … Read more
Bloke (pronounced /’blo:keh/, not /bləʊk/) is a high karst plateau some 30 km south as the crow flies from Ljubljana, Slovenia. It’s an enchanted and place, with lush meadows, deep forests, meandering streams and scattered small hamlets, where wildlife outnumber people: all the big beasts of Slovenia, the bear, the wolf and the lynx call … Read more
Imagine: a shallow, marshy lake; a clear stream flowing into it; a village: a flock of wooden houses, covered with dried grass, standing on hundreds of stilts, driven deep into the marshy soil on the bank of a stream. There are small gardens just behind the houses on the more solid ground; goats, sheep, and … Read more
Polje is a cool word in English language. It is borrowed from Slovene – where it means ‘a field’ – and is a terminus technicus for a ‘karst field’, a large flat-bottomed depression in a limestone area. Planina polje is a classic example of this geological formation. A 5 km by 2.5 km flat depression … Read more
Les sanglots longs Des violons De l’automne Blessent mon coeur D’une langueur Monotone. It was a great day: a sunny, windy, colourful, warm late October day, perfect for flying kites … yet the feel of this poem – Chanson d’automne by Paul Verlaine – seemed to permeate the air. Autumn is here, the winter is … Read more
Prvić – prvi means ‘the first’ in Croatian, as it is the first island in the Šibenik archipelago; the ancient Greeks named it Proteras, ‘primeval’, ‘first’, and Prvin the Slavic spirit of spring (again, being the first) can also be its namesake – is a cute little island, 3.1 km long and 1.4 km wide, … Read more
(This article is derived from a European Researchers’ Night 2021 lecture. Theoretical parts and fundamental research by Maša Mramor, Gimnazija Vič; kite flying, kite aerial photography, and photo processing by KAP Jasa kite society.) As we have said many times before, kites are spectacular, affordable and versatile aerial science platforms. A large Rokkaku can easily … Read more
Novi Vinodolski is a town on the Adriatic coast in Croatia, at the end of the valley of the vineyards (Vinodol in Croatian) that stretches from Bakarac to the sea, below the mountains of Gorski Kotar. It is a prime tourist place, with a mild climate, clean sea, and pleasant setting. A vacation spot for … Read more