Since I came back from Lapland, weather hasn’t been great… It seems that, since we burnt the Böögg in April, the clouds have decided to stay in Switzerland. Temperature hasn’t improved a lot, we are still wearing coats and scarfs in late May. And it’s been raining for weeks.. Or, at least, it feels like that, because we haven’t had a sunny weekend for months!! This, of course, is affecting us. Unlike last year, when Spring came strong, rising temperatures very early and giving us so many beautiful sunny days, this year’s gloomy weather hasn’t allowed us to go outdoors as much as we would have liked. Weekends aren’t that fun inside home!

When I was living in Dublin I had a remedy for seasons as grey as this one. I used to take my camera and force myself out to find color. Yes, color! I found it the best therapy, the one that could cheer me up after days of grey skies and never ending rain. Dublin is full of parks with flowers and a lot of houses have small front gardens were I could take photos of flowers and little animals like squirrels and birds. When the weather was at its worst, I headed directly to the National Botanic Gardens for a bigger dose of color therapy.

Zurich is very colorful in its own way too, but there are less places to find flowers all year around. Even in the botanical gardens, where I love to go, there aren’t many flowers… But I recently discovered the perfect place where I can go when I can’t stand more grey days: Insel Mainau.

Insel Mainau is a small island in lake Konstanz, in Germany (close to the border with Switzerland). This botanical garden is also called a “flowering island”. Due to the milder climate, thanks to its location in the lake, a great variety of plants and flowers grow in the island. From the beginning of spring, the island is in constant bloom with several types of flowers blooming one after the other: tulips, daffodils, narcissus, roses, rhododendron… It’s such a magnificent spectacle!! When I went, thousands of bulbs were in bloom, covering the whole island in color. But the flowers are not the only attraction in the island. There you can find also a Schmetterlingshaus, a butterfly house, where you walk through a tropical forest full of cascades and waterfalls while thousands of butterflies fly around you…

Well, you can imagine that, even if the day was still cloudy and cold, I had such a good time in Insel Mainau!! Here are some photos I took that day… I hope their colors cheer you up!

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