Panorama Photo

Fabulous layers in magic light - another spectacular documentation with enormous distances to the mountains!! The skyline of Milano is a nice icing on the cake ... perfectly done, Giuseppe - congrats.

Tanti saluti e una buona settimana,
Hans-Jörg

Thank you very much Hans-Jörg for the friendly comment.
But this pano was an excuse to ask a philosophical question ;-)
At Colle di Cadibona the Alps begin or end?

e altre artificiosità del genere... Possibili solo in Italia, grazie al nostro innato (anzi, forse assorbito dalle nostre radici greco-romane) senso per i bizantinismi e le analisi!!!
Questa è anche l'occasione per sottolineare come verso Occidente (dell'arco alpino) la parola "colle" indichi una depressione, un "passo", mentre a Oriente descriva indefettibilmente un rilievo. Anche qui, grazie alle ambiguità latine!!!

Ottima foto, come sempre. Ciao, Alvise

WOW!

Dear Giuseppe, to be honest, I never thought about the dividing line between the Alps and the Apennines. Wikipedia actually considers that the Col di Carbona is the dividing line.

But I found an interesting article with scientific explanations from the University of Bonn - unfortunately only in German. Here the link and the translation with the help of Deepl - my English is too lousy for the scientific "Gobbledygook" ;-)):

https://www.steinmann.uni-bonn.de/institut/bereiche/endogene-prozesse/arbeitsgruppen/strukturgeologie/lehre/wissen-gratis/geologie-der-alpen

"... The Po basin is closed in the west by the arch of the Western Alps. At the southern end of this arch, the Alps move on into the Apennines. A complex N-S running fault zone (Sestri-Voltaggio line) is assumed as the boundary. At this boundary, the prevailing direction of the overthrust changes: the main overthrusts on the Alpine side are SW-facing, the more recent overthrusts on the Apennine side (from the late Middle Eocene) are NE-facing, so that the Po basin is also the northern foreland basin of the Apennines ...".

Maybe our panorama friend and geologist Matthias Stoffels can add some more helpful information !?

Cheers, Hans-Jörg

NB:
And next time I should read your text a bit more carefully ;-)- you were only interested in the philosophical question whether the Alps begin or end at the Col di Carbona! You have already noticed that there is definitely the dividing line ... omg, mea culpa :-)!!

Excellent!

@Hans-Jörg
Your summary of the regional geological conditions in the Apennine-Western Alps
area is absolutely correct. Interested people will find more details in this article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236256889_Geology_of_the_Northern_Apennine-Western_Alps_junction_area_a_regional_review.

Cheers, Matthias.

I am not a fan of skyscrapers, actually, but Milano looks great within this superb pano.

Thank you very much for the comments. I am happy that there has been talk of geology in the Alps and Apennines and thank Matthias for the interesting link.
But, although probably nobody cares, which I meant, with the philosophical question it is this:
I usually observe the mountains from this position and I spontaneously think that at the Colle di Cadibona the Apennines end and the Alps begin.
But if someone claimed that at the Colle di Cadibona the Alps end and the Apennines begin, would I have valid arguments to argue?

Is there not a new beginning at every end?

Cheers Werner

In a sense. What I meant, but it is not important, is that we are used to having our own subjective point of view, which does not necessarily correspond to that of others. We are convinced of our reason, but others are not necessarily wrong ;-)

Solch ein Bild, das zeigt, wie die Apenninen und die Alpen zusammenkommen, habe ich mir schon lange mal gewünscht. Danke, Giuseppe, daß Du das bei diesen weiten Entfernungen auch noch in so hervorragender Weise zeigen konntest.
Und wenn man für das Zusammentreffen einen Einschnitt, den Colle di Cadibona, zwischen diesen Gebirgen nennen kann, dann finde ich das erstmal besser als die Beschreibung der Sestri-Voltaggio-Linie in dem Vorlesungsskript von der Uni Bonn, zumal man da keinen genauen Ort entnehmen kann. Trotzdem danke ich Dir, Hans-Jörg, für den Hinweis darauf, da ich darinnen noch andere interessante Sachen fand. Und vielleicht liegt ja der Colle di Cadibona sogar auf der Linie.

Als eine mögliche Antwort auf die philosophische Frage von Giuseppe fiele mir ein, was ich anfangs schrieb, daß sie dort zusammenkommen, also beide enden. Die beiden Kolosse sind demzufolge aufeinander zugestrebt. Ihre Anfänge liegen weit voneinander entfernt.

Thanks Heinz for your comment, which I share. The geological border is probably a little more to the east, but geographically and conventionally the division between the Alps and the Apennines is placed at the Colle di Cadibona.

To the two hypotheses that we have already made, we can add yours: both the Apennines and the Alps end up at Colle di Cadibona. I was hoping someone would say it.
We could also make another one: that both start there.
Does anyone think that one of these four hypotheses is more correct than the others?

A superb combination of beauty, education and philosophy.
Have had a combined view to both the southern Alps and the Ligurian Apennine last week, but with far less beautiful colours and the junction area here was hidden and the Apennine not really panorable. Will end up in my queue for AP.
Cheers, Martin

Thanks Martin, I don't think I deserve your compliments.
I continue with my bizarre reasoning and please consider it only a game.
We can only make a total of 4 hypotheses.
At Colle di Cadibona:

Hypothesis 1: The Apennines end and the Alps begin;
hypothesis 2; The Alps end and the Apennines begin;
hypothesis 3: both the Alps and the Apennines end;
hypothesis4: both the Alps and the Apennines begin.

I think that subjectively everyone has a favorite hypothesis. I said mine, Heinz his.
Does anyone think that there is necessarily a more valid hypothesis than the others?

@Giuseppe - I think your limited choice of options is a fallacy of Western culture. Recently I have read some very good books on "ambiguity tolerance": Why not accept that there can be multiple truths at the same time? Medieval Islamic culture was apparently very good at this. Dogmatism and the pre-occupation that there can only be a single truth has been introduced by the West, leading to lots of suffering because it implies that many people are wrong if I am right.
In that sense, this point can be both a beginning and an end of both Apennine and Alps at the same time, dependent on point of view.
Cheers, Martin

Premising that I am proud to belong to Western culture, I wanted to reach your own conclusions ;-)

The problem discussed here seems to be expression of mankind's wish to structure and name all the things to be found around. Geologists, geographers and historians, politicians, militarians and merchants have done so and do so, as we already have heard. When we take in account all their special interests, they are all right in their own way. Everything is clear to see so far, the question is: How much time would you invest to study all the splittered facts? And would it give the answer? Might be, rather not. Because: The more knowledge, the more classification.
Thats why I would add and support the following claims:

The Ligurian Alps go over into the Ligurian Appenine.
The Ligurian Appenine goes over into the Ligurian Alps.

Without denying the existence of Colle di Cadibona and its roll as well as the differences on its sides, both mountain ranges would be part of a system framing the Po plaine in its typical shape.
Please notice, it is only a claim by me, exceptionally a bit far from facts and science...

Just found another possibility: Alps and Appenine are meeting at Colle di Cadibona. In Italian we could call that: Un matrimonio d´amore.

I can only hope, I stayed understandable in my lousy Google-Translate-English.
Greetings, Wolfgang

An impressive combination of these two important European mountain ranges. The location ist great, as your other pictures from there have already shown.

Amazing distances! Because of the low inversion the high towers and houses of this big city are looking out of the mist, so this is a great combination with the view.
LG Jörg

@Wolfgang: "Un matrimonio d´amore" - I think, there's no more lovely way to put it in words...

LG Werner