The perk of spending a couple of nights in Cinque Terre: F and I caught beautiful sunsets on both balmy Italian evenings in quaint villages, feeling lighter and happier than usual. I’m not sure if it’s possible to get more idyllic than this.
At Vernazza, we combined sunset watching with cocktail and dinner high above the village, at a terraced restaurant. The experience was mostly undocumented as my camera battery died and I’ve left the spare in our room. The next evening in Riomaggiore, we went back to basic and bought fresh pasta-to-go and sat by the port to eat. We also added a cone of gelati as dessert, all the while observing people came and went in their (row) boats.
Continue reading »
It is no secret that F and I like eating in single menu – or no menu, depending how you see it – restaurants. We like to be surprised with something different, something that pushes our (usual) palate boundary, and more importantly, something that the chef creates based on what’s fresh and in season from the market. Even better combination, for us, would be a meal that’s creative yet home-y at the same time.
You may have noticed the lack of planning to our Italian trip thus far, relying mainly on serendipitous wandering around town for sightseeing, food, and gelati. Apart from knowing where we would be sleeping on any particular night, everything could happen. L’Imbuto (i.e. The Funnel) was the sole restaurant that I’d pencilled onto our itinerary, having seen it mentioned in an article about Lucca and got me all curious.
It was a tough self-debate if we should seek out Cristiano Tomei’s contemporary restaurant, or head to one of the local favourites which serves more traditional fares. We eventually decided an evening of out-of-the-ordinary meal over two weeks of traditional Italian could be a good culinary break. Our B&B host did make us doubt our decision for a moment, with his constant mention of how “special” this restaurant is, according to his friends.
Continue reading »
Lucca is a splendid walled-city, lies just to the north east of Pisa. I am not sure why there aren’t more people visiting this small city, but I am certainly grateful that we got to enjoy it without being jostled about. Founded over two millennia ago (even Julius Caesar had been here, and Puccini called it his hometown), it had seen days of glory (it was an independent city state, like Venice, until Napoleon came along) as well as certain decline (the fall into the Tuscan’s hand). Luckily, it had also retain plenty of charm to make this a worthy detour when travelling in the region. Hands down, better than Pisa!
The very first thing any visitor should do is to rent a bike. While Lucca is the kind of place one could happily saunter from one end to another, there is much more fun to be had on two wheels, especially when you could start touring the city by way of its intact Renaissance-era city walls and tree-lined ramparts. Very leisurely, a full turn takes about 20-25 minutes to complete. And you’d want to do it more than once, or maybe even in the other direction.
Continue reading »
A second day of whirlwind Italian sightseeing continued, this time to the heart of Tuscany. F and I were en route to Lucca, which requires at least a train change in Florence, and since we would be at the train station already anyway, why not take advantage of the time gap between trains to take a quick glimpse of the birthplace of Renaissance?
We were there sufficiently early in the morning that we could enjoy an external admiration of the prominent Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore among relatively thin crowd. Its green, pink, and white marble façade was breathtakingly elegant, and we also marvelled over the large brick dome – quite a feat of engineering when you consider the timeline of its construction. One of these days, I’ve got to visit it properly. This was my third trip to Florence and I’ve yet to step foot into the cathedral!
Continue reading »
It has been a good decade since I last visited Rome. I have forgotten just how enormous the buildings are, how many churches and cathedrals you can find within a stone’s throw, how chaotic everything could and would be, and how much I enjoyed hearing melodic Italian around me. However, I recall vividly the sheer number of people who flock to the main sights (even during the “shoulder” season)…
F and I started our two weeks trip to Italy with a quick stopover in Rome. How quickly? Just a little over a day. Frankly, I did not have the courage to brave the August crowd in the August heat, but when our schedule necessitated flying into Rome (but also out of Rome), it also seemed silly not to give F his first quick tour of the Eternal City.
Continue reading »
Still trying to keep the homebody syndrome at bay, F and I cycled across Pont de Grenelle into the 16th arrondissement over the weekend, nodded hello to the Lady Liberty in passing, and intent on exploring the petite ceinture sort of adjacent to the Jardin du Ranelagh/Bois de Boulogne. This stretch opened a good few years ago, in 2007, thus predates the one in the 15ème which we visited recently.
Passing by many elegant buildings in this affluent neighbourhood, we finally spotted an entry into the former railway belt near La Muette and slipped through the low gates that are characteristics of many entrances to Parisian parks and gardens. Had it not been for the sign we saw just a minute ago, we would not have guessed that this was where the trains used to pass. Unlike the petite ceinture in the 15ème, nary a sign of abandoned rail track could be found here. They had been dismantled.
Continue reading »
It could be the weather, it could be work, it could be a combination of multiple things. Whatever the underlying causes, I’m more a homebody lately than the overly perky urban explorer that I could be. Luckily, F wouldn’t let me languish about at home for more than what’s healthy, and we’d end up taking some short walks somewhere around town. A couple of weekends ago, we explored a small portion of the old railway belt of Paris, called La Petite Ceinture, in the neighbourhood.
Parts of the disused railway line, which once encircled Paris in its entirety, are now officially open to public for walks and jogs, although a large part of it remains out of bound – not that it deters the most ardent urban adventurers from accessing and actually enjoying beautifully wild paths in Paris that tempts me to follow their footsteps at some point!
Continue reading »
To spend only approximately 36 hours in Dubrovnik is too short, especially when this time frame translates sub-optimally to 1.5 days of activity time. We saw the old town in a rather cursory manner, without additional time to understand the culture, to visit any museum, to admire churches and their hidden compounds, and to explore the coastline by kayak.
But hey, we had not intended to visit Dubrovnik initially either. It was through a stroke of luck (and flight arrangement) that we ended up here. It gave us a taster of what it could be like and teased us to return, sooner rather than later. We do not yet know when that may be, but we will relish it when the next opportunity jumps at us.
Continue reading »
Having explored the old town of Dubrovnik and then walked the city wall, all in one morning, we decided to enjoy more of the city albeit a little differently. We decided to head up to Mount Srð, the mountain which stands over Dubrovnik to its north, with a peak height of 412 meters. That’s taller than St John’s in Kotor, so we were expecting some fantastic aerial views during this hike.
There are 3 ways to access the summit of Mount Srd. The easiest and quickest is by taking the cable car at Petra Kresimira Street, and the journey of mere minutes costs 60 kuna and 100 kuna respectively for a single and a return journey. For anyone with a car, it is also possible to drive up via the village of Bosanka. As for us, we took the active way up – some 90 minutes walk of it – a serpentine footpath which starts from Jadranska Cesta (near the long sign board which welcomes folks to Dubrovnik) above the old town and goes all the way up to the Fort Imperial.
Continue reading »
We travelled to Montenegro by way of Dubrovnik, thanks to reasonably priced air tickets that were half the price of those to Podgorica. Quite naturally, we opted to spend the final day of our trip in Dubrovnik before flying home, so we won’t be at the mercy of some long-distance and cross-border public bus while racing to the airport to catch our flight. More importantly, we were glad things worked out the way it did because we absolutely love the stari grad Dubrovnik!
Having arrived later than expected on Friday (due to wrong timetable found on the internet, plus further delays because of heavy traffic and slow border crossing) we decided we would make the most of our full day on Saturday by starting very early in the morning. By that, I meant 6am early. And even then, it was already a little late to catch the sunrise by the time we were out the door!
Continue reading »
