Memories of Italy

When I turned 40, I’d never been to Europe. I decided that it was time, and started formulating a plan. I wanted to go somewhere warm where I really liked the food and where it was warm – I was thinking of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. As it happened, I saw a flyer from our local community college that listed a two week language school in Florence that could offer homestays. I attended a short seminar, and really liked the people involved and the price. I arranged for a month off from work, and off I went. Here is a photo montage of the sights. This chilly Portland weather makes me yearn for a sunnier climate, and Italy would certainly do.

Lake Como

Green door with rust

Venetian window display of marzipan fruit

Terra cotta roof tiles in Cortona

Looking out the hostel window in Levanto

Cavallo castagne (horse chestnuts)

Church tower

Canal in Murano

Christmas Around the World

We usually travel in late November to maximize our vacation days. It’s often cold, but flights are less expensive than in the summer. A great thing about traveling then is that we get to see Christmas lights and markets in different countries, even those that aren’t really Christian countries. My favorite Christmas tradition is the German markets with mulled wine (gluhwein) that you can buy in a cup and take with you as you walk around the market, the mall, or the street. Here are some glimpses of how some cities are decorated for the holidays.

Christmas lights in Seoul, Korea. It was REALLY cold.

Also in Seoul. Todd took this photo – we didn’t actually try one.

Santa’s helper in a market in Istanbul. Todd took this photo.

Bon Nadal! Literally, Catalana for “happy birth” but it translates to “merry Christmas.” This is in Barcelona.

Christmas night market (“Weihnachtsmärkte”) in Berlin.

The best part!

Christmas lights in Hong Kong.

Snippets of Bologna

Our visit to Bologna earlier this year was wonderful. My favorite part of the visit was the food, of course, but I also liked the red buildings. The Italians refer to the city as “the red one” (la rossa) in part because of the red bricks and roofs in its historic center but also because after WWII it became a center of socialism and communism. Its other nicknames are “la dotta”, or learned one, because the oldest European university is located here; and “la grassa” (fat), because of its cuisine.

Window looking into canal

We discovered a little canal on one of our walks. In the photo above, Todd is taking pictures of the canal. The photo below is very overexposed on the top but when I cropped that part out, it didn’t seem balanced. My Photoshop skills are not advanced enough to fix it. For a better view of the canal on the other side of the street, see this post.

Reflection on a canal in Bologna

Red brick

Old Roman ruin near the train station in Bologna

It’d be amazing to live in a city with old Roman ruins mingled with everyday buildings. This is one of my favorite things about Europe – the old and the new living harmoniously together. I love the sense of history that permeates Europe but some of it is very sad.

Roman ruin and old street light

Reflection and Art Deco window grates

Tunisia

Our trip a couple of years ago to Tunisia was amazing. The old Roman ruins in Carthage was a highlight of our trip, as was wandering around the medina (market). The food was great; I think my favorite discovery was harissa. It’s a paste made from garlic, olive oil, and chiles. It’s used as a condiment to bread in, and to flavor things.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from that trip. Enjoy!

Mosaic Ceiling in the Bardo Museum

Sculpture and Ceiling in the Bardo Museum

Column, Carthage

Gold Door in Tunis

Tunisian cat and Blue Door

Roman Tomb in Carthage

So how DID that challenge to pack lightly go?

Black Dress

You might recall my earlier post about my personal challenge to pack very little on a 10 day trip to Europe in May. My idea was to pack everything in a smallish carry on. Here is what I ultimately packed:

• black travel dress
• white silk crinkle skirt
• 4 dressy tee shirts (fuschia, white & black stripes, black, deep orange)
• trouser jeans
• black 3/4 sleeve cardigan
• scarves -green, red
• green Puma slips on shoes
• black Adidas thin sneakers
• lightweight undergarments to wash in the sink

I wore either the black knit dress or the white pleated skirt with a tee shirt most days, and didn’t even spill red wine all over the skirt. I hand-washed the tee shirts in the sink but the cotton ones took a really long time to dry. Next time I’ll just bring the modal ones. The black dress also took a full day to dry, but I’d still bring it because it’s so versatile. It was summer, so I only wore the jeans on the plane, which wasn’t a good use of my limited space. Maybe linen pants would be better next time – they’d certainly dry faster.

Green skirt, striped tee, black cardigan

I think this packing list would have worked better if we’d had easy access to a laundromat but we didn’t find one quickly in Bologna or Lucca. Having our clothes laundered was very expensive, so we both went shopping to tide us over till we found a place to do our own laundry, which wasn’t till the last day of our trip.

My choice of shoes was poor. I brought two pairs of “comfortable” but not too American-looking shoes, with which worked okay except that neither had very good tread. I slipped and fell in Madrid on one of the beautiful but very slick sidewalks in the rain. I suppose I need to find a cute pair of Mary Janes with better tread. I REFUSE to wear athletic or orthopedic shoes. I want  cute, comfortable shoes, with a bit of tread, made for narrow feet.

Puma slip-ons

I forgot a sunhat, so that’s the first thing I bought in Italy. I also bought a green linen skirt, an orange cotton sweater, and a green tee shirt because we couldn’t do laundry as often as we’d expected. Next trip I’ll look for another lightweight dress in something other than black, a pair of better shoes, and maybe a pair of lightweight linen pants instead of the jeans. Overall, I’m pleased at how little I brought with me on this trip.

Are you a light packer or do you bring everything but the kitchen sink? Is there one thing you bring no matter where you’re going?

Watch your step!

One of the things I like to photograph on our trips is the surface we’re walking on. It’s so basic but I’ve gotten some interesting photographs from changing my perspective to holding the camera down, instead of the usual over or up.

Carthage

Chestnuts in Como

Como

Juno Beach

Paris

Frankfurt

Venice

Guadalajara

Taipei

I still haven’t figured out the whole “gallery” function on WordPress but this little project was a good learning session. I really need to check out a basic HTML book from the library so I can learn the basics.