is form and content

and ... look who is happy to see me home

2007-09-18T03:16:00.000-07:00

and so .... my last week in zurich ...

2007-09-18T03:00:00.000-07:00

okay so the pics are not your usual travel pics but they do reflect my enjoyment of my experience of place ... i love to explore a sense of place, whether i am travelling or at home ...

on the way home from italy

2007-09-18T02:48:00.000-07:00

notwithstanding bologne (our first stop) and florence (our last) - my two least favourite spots - i wanted to end the italy experience on an up note ... and the pink cow does it ! outside a petrol pit stop (where the best food ever is served - see earlier posts) on the way back to zurich ! ...

it was, of course, all fantastic ... the least faves only help to elevate the really really great spots ... i had the most amazing time during this time ...

Day 8 in italy - going home (to zurich) via florence

2007-09-18T02:32:00.000-07:00

Saturday 25 August 2007

We decided to leave today rather than tomorrow morning. We left early and stopped in Florence. (Firenze). My least favoured place apart from Bologne which was day 1.

A tourist place - to the extreme ... vendors everywhere outside all the monuments - multpile vendors ... keyrings and leather belts from china, nigerians hawking faux leather handbags and posters of famous artworks outside the uffitzi gallery, painters from naieve through realism to abstract and many portrait artists doing 'you' in pencil and charcoal.

The vendors continue throughout the city along the ponti vechio bridge lined with silver and gold jewellery shops.

lunch was a disappointment and shameful for Italy based on what we have experienced so far. The gnocchi was not hand made and they dished it up in bottled tomatoe sauce and a busker was making a nuisance of himself playing the accordian and when one customer paid him some attention he did a musical number and then went through the whole restaurant (which was an outdoor under cover restaurant on the piazza opposite the uffitzi gallery) asking every person for money for listening to the music. and and and .... We told him no.

We took photos of the statues and stopped enroute to home to have dinner - home at 10pm, showered and two episodes of 'Thank God You're Here' which Jon had downloaded and we slept until 11am Sunday morning.

≈≈

Day 7 in italy - sienna

2007-09-18T01:56:00.000-07:00

Friday 24 August 2007

Sienne. Walking through narrow laneways and cobbled stone pathways past buildings that have accommodation upstairs and businesses on the ground floor; interesting, colourful, flower pots and ephemera. Reaching the piazza and one is overwhelmed yet again by the sheer size of the buildings, the architecture, gorgeous statues, fountains and marble. This piazza is the place for the annual horse race where thousands of people come to watch cramming into the centre and around the whole piazza. Lots of lovely little places to eat and here we found a tiny restaurant and had THE best gnocchi ever.

The clock tower was part of a fortress and different to others we had so far seen. the Clock was closer to the base of the tower and the tower went for about three stories high.

Just outside of the piazza was another glorious church with fantastic architecture, complex facade and beautiful workmanship and materials used throughout.

It was here we found a shop called Cherie.

We stopped on the way home to pick up some groceries and ate picky food at home. Wine, cheeses (parmesan and bufffalo), sardines, bread, tomato, oil and balsamic

Day 6 in Italy - Gubbio and then came BELLONA

2007-09-13T01:01:00.001-07:00

Thursday 23 August - 23rd day of my holiday

Dinner tonight was at Bellona - a place recommended by Bernie where the owner is 'werid' and he tells you what to eat. It was fantastic. An old villa on a farm with huge rooms set up with tables and chairs on sandstone floor with stone walls with interesting features of small clay sculptures of faces within the stonework, different sized bricks and other stone cemented in.

We had the best meal ever ...
Antipasto which consisted of proscuitto draped over honey dew melon, Bruschetta with a tomatoe mix; another with zucchinni and pizza with real tomato sauce, Parmesan cheese which was smooth and cheddary;
Minestrone with buckwheat - this dish was more substance than soup
Farro - a legume done up like fried rice
Pasta - Taglatellie with a tomatoe sauce
chicken - and salad
Sweets - cherie had tiramasu, i had anglaise with berry sauce and john had lemon biscotte
capucinnos and latte machiata to finish

Day 6 in Italy - Gubbio

2007-09-13T00:47:00.000-07:00

Thursday 23 August 2007

To get to Gubbio we went down the other side of the moutain. A very different feel here; not as much money, some accommodation villas but they are isolated with no 'services' such as our own stop tiny village shop with everything in it. The town of Gubbio seems industrial and more modern buildings, a little rundown. The drive into this area showed the old village which is spread out, sprouting out of the hill above the new and exploring the old village in the rain revealed its own wonder. It is becoming all 'too much' with old towns and villages, piazzas, windows, doors and beautiful buildings Somewhat under construction also (someone is doing a roaring trade in cranes in Italy) it had its own charm and is easy to see why Bernie (our host) had this town on his recommended list.

I am still taking 'a sense of place' snapshots but have expanded beyond pictures of windows and doors for my 'special' photographs. New ideas have sprouted thanks to Cherie and Jon whose points of view extend my own and i am enjoying reflections and learning to use my camera better.

Day 5 in Italy - Spoletto and Trevi

2007-09-13T00:22:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 22 August 2007

Today we did Spoleto and Trevi. Very different towns again. Each one has been amazing and different. Spoleto was rundown and under major construction with many buildings sporting a crane and construction taping around to keep the public out. Shops were few and ecclectic with a couple of piazzas that provided food and one magnificent square with a huge church in it and the theatre. A convent was nearby located next door to the contemporary modern art gallery where i got to wander around for a couple of hours. Lovely stuff. Stephen Calder pieces were in one of 15 rooms that spanned three stories of a maginificent building with marble staircases and stone floors. Room 2 had some wonderful drawing of Henry Moore and Advid Smith and small sculptures of Lyn Chadwick.

I discovered some fabulous italian abstract artists of the 50s and 60s taking down some names to google and find out about. These include Accardi, Dorazio, Morlotti, Arnaldo, Burri was my favourite with one particular piece that got my attention - a book with one of the pages showing burnt out holes made across the page - about 4 or 5 of different sizes and shapes that are edged with varying degrees of burnt brown and then delicate torn gauze is behind some of the shapes. Very nice.

Trevi was narrow laneways, hardly any cars and one laneway running into another with wonderful little corners of wooden doors, window shutters and plants in plant pots along staircases. It had two piazzas - one more modern than the other which had rundown buildings surrounding it with wonderful old walls, windows and doors in disrepair.

Dinner was the best pizzas and ice cream ever.

Day 4 in Italy - Cortona continued

2007-09-08T16:41:00.000-07:00

Day 4 in Italy - Cortona

2007-09-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 21 August 2007

We drove to Cortona - where the movie 'Tuscany under the sun' was made. It is full of tourists - we heard American, English, German, French and us. It is very steep to get to the piazza, past all the villas and through the narrow cobbled streets. The beginning of the walk has escalators built into the rockface of the natural environment that takes us to the beginning of the walks through lots of narrow laneways.

It was beautiful with lots of great photographic moments. We lunched on fabulous home made gnocchi and lasagne with a *** salad and bread and olive oil.

Got home around 4pm downloaded photos, had a shower and rested a little. Ate dinner at an italian retaurant - wonderful again. John had ravioli, I had pasta and Cherie had spaghetti, all with a glass of red and salad to share. We had capuccinnos and desert .. Cherie had (real) tiramasu, Jon had souffle and I had the most divine pannacotta with baileys.

A lovely dinner again ... with great chit chat and interesting discussion - about colours that people are and business ideas and about food !

Home and a bit of post production work on our photos and into bed by midnight.

Day 3 in Italy (continued) - Perugia, Perugina and sunflowers

2007-09-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

Jon and i hopped a farmers fence and trudged through mud to get these photos

Cherie had a couple of work calls to do so Jon and I visited Perugina, the chocolate factory at Perugia which was very interesting with a big history both on a local and international level providing employment 24 hours round the clock for months of the year and billions of Bacsi chocolates a year to the world.

We stopped enroute on our way home and while Cherie continued her calls Jon and I took sunflower shots in a field of sunflowers. Loverly 1.5 hours spent in a muddy, smelly paddock ending up with beautiful sunflower pictures.

Dinner was a fabulous affair at a restaurant by the lake - a wonderful meal. Red wine with shared platters of salad (buffalo cheese and tomatoes) and antipasto followed by home made gnocchi with truffles, fillet steak and portofino mushrooms and pasta in a tomatoe mix. We finished off with a complimentary lemon/vodka drink each which sealed the deal for us.

cherie had a business call so from hereonin today only i used her camera !

my last picture at perugia before my battery died ...

This is why i ran out of battery in Perugia

2007-09-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

This

This beautiful piece of porcelain was in our accommodation and i spent a long time exploring it with my camera - pics from every angle (using a flash - no wonder i ran out of battery so quickly - it just never occurred to me ~!) ... The griffin is quite an icon in Italy and the colours used in this piece are regional.

Day 3 in Italy - Perugia, Perugina and sunflowers

2007-09-03T16:47:00.000-07:00

Monday 20 August 2007

Drove to Perugia .... wow
i ran out of camera battery very quickly - about 15 minutes into the walk and didnt have my spare with me. it was a magnificent place; i had managed to get a few photos of that sense of place and just soaked in the atmosphere while walking around.

THe first two pictures that show a dark cavernous type of crypt is the original roman buildings that have been retained and are the walkway through to the train station and the main piazza - its huge and has many offshoot corridors filled with roman artifacts like the horses head in the third pic.

It was hot with lots of people everywhere, eating, sitting around the fountain, an accordian player dressed in old trakkie pants and a long sleeved tee shirt, beautiful clothes on tanned bodies and a lot of dogs on leads. The buildings were magnificent, ancient, enormous structures that surround the piazza with lower floors now being shops like 'Colours of Bennetton', shoe shops and smaller retail shops and restaurants.

Lunch was at one of the outdoor restaurants with good old fashioned style home cooking. Cherie had chicken and vegetables, Jon had pasta and vegetables and I had a pork and potato dish which looked like my mum's porkolt and was just as tasty.

Later, post Italy, in assessing the places we visited Perugia was my favourite.

Day 2 in Italy (continued)- Castiglione and Lake Trasimino

2007-09-02T04:18:00.000-07:00

Arriving back at our place we were too tired to contemplate eating out so we walked around the local town for about 2 hours. There was a race meet on at the local square which is quite small, surrounded by villas and in the centre it has a gold statue of a conqueror with a dagger and a staff of some kind. The square had a race track laid out and men were racing little formula one remote control cars around the track. They were very serious about the race with cars zinging along and around bends, taking pit stops and filling up with petrol or changing tyres.

We took some great photos around the town and this event. Back to our quarters around 8.30pm and we had a smorgasbord of eats that we had purchased yesterday from the local deli.

The evening was spent downloading photos of the day and having a showing where all three of us discussed composition and what works or not.

A lovely night.

≈≈

Day 2 in Italy (continued)- Castiglione and Lake Trasimino

2007-09-01T18:19:00.000-07:00

Sunday 19 August 2007

We walked for about an hour around the lake which reminded me of Lake Balaton in Hungary ... people stretched out asleep along the grassy edges of the lake, bikinis sunning themselves on the jetty and very brown, topless men walking around.

Day 2 in Italy - Castiglione and Lake Trasimino

2007-09-01T17:38:00.000-07:00

Sunday 19 August - we explored Lake Trasimino and Castigiolione. The piazza was fantastic in a warm 30 degree heat that seemed less oppressive than the Australian sun.

We took photos and had lunch at one of the cafe restaurants here - i had spinach and ricotta covered in a home made tomato sauce; jon had proscuitto with melon and a kiwi fruit sauce; cherie had a fish selection that included pike, tench, eel and some kind of yabby - all with fresh crusty bread.

Arriving in Italy - Castel Rigone

2007-08-28T05:04:00.000-07:00

WEll .. WE LEFT Zurich on Friday, late afternoon 17 August 2007 and drove 6 hours to Bologne with an hour break for dinner at Auto Grill which has the most amazing array of food - apparently these are what all the pitstops throughout italy are like ... fresh fruit and veggies on show ... cooking the fresh salmon (or pasta) while you watch and everything set up for presentation - fresh orange juice in glasses stuck in ice in front of a mountain of fresh oranges and so with the cakes and other fruit and vegetables surrounding the hot food stuff as you walk around the various buffets.

The trip was most comfortable in the car - 30 degrees outside, an even cool temperature inside, smooth ride through the alps listening to scissor sisters and sly and the stone, our trip being directed by 'Jane', the car's navigation system - amazing stuff and lots of fun.

We never got lost and ended up on many backroads one would never try to take with just an ordinary road map. We tried a road map one day ... it lasted all of 2 hours - the tension was too great so we turned Jane back on again and she got us out of our 'lost zone'. (I want one !)

The hotel in Bologna was 'wow' ... and after a great night's sleep we started Saturday with a wonderful continental breakfast.

Bologna was awful. Just awful .... The city was on our itinerary list to explore but it didnt have a nice feel to it (dirty and run down - which isnt a problem when you LIKE a city, as experienced later). We did try to park twice so we could explore the city which was written up as a university town with some great historical walls and art to see. We drove to a car parking garage in Bologna which said we had to leave our keys with them. Cherie and I were not too keen with computers in the car and our gear so we went to another one. Driving around, Bologna was old and 'seedy' looking/feeling, lots of graffitti and run down facades with many vacant retail shops. At the second garage we asked the lady if she speaks english and she said no but managed to explain in stacatto two syllables that we have to give them the key to the car and then she went on to say 'and no luggage' ... this was when we erupted that we had luggage and oh well we should keep going. The lady went around the corner (as if to find someone to talk to us) and came back and spoke in perfect english telling us that here was the ticket for parking and "lock the car and take your keys with you, but listen to what i say and park only on the right hand side and you have not understood a word i have said."

So we did. We got out of the car and in the middle of the parking lot, were looking at the map - each of us pointing in a different direction - and the guy from the other end of the parking garage approached, and in a most belligerent manner told us to hand over the car keys. We left and he charged us 4 euro (approximately $6).

We decided to drive on .. Bologna was not very appealing and grew less so as we progressed. We did see the old Roman walls, from our car, on our way out.

3 hours later we drove through and around and into a Piazzo .. it was amazing ... we were in the area of our destination and completely lost, even with Jane directing us who had gone very quiet of late ... approximately 20 minutes prior, the last thing she said to us was 'you have arrived in the vicinity of your destination'. Usually she is very precise as to street and number using her best British accent

The buildings were amazing and such narrow streets , poor Jon, it was a little nerve wracking and we soon lost interest in the beautiful surrounds and began to look out for a place to eat as soon as we could get out of the criss crossing laneways that ran past everyone's front or back door.

Everything was shut so we continued on and by 3pm we found our place way up in the hills -

Stopping at the local 'diner' we go directions for a place to eat which turned up to be 10 minutes drive away into a tree-filled seating area opposite the local swimming pool which was packed with people. Our first home made bread-pizza type with melted cheese and proscuitto, a tonic water and coffees which were strong and cold with the lattes being served in plastic cups.

We got back to our place and met the host ... very friendly German guy who married an Italian and they rent out these villas in this tiny town of Castel Rigone. We had a ground floor apartment consisting of 1 bedroom, a bedsit part of the lounge, dining and kitchen; The villa has a swimming pool just outside our apartment. Our welcoming basket had the usual milk, jam portions and crackers as well as pastries, cracker bread and a fabulous huge home made jam tart.

We got some groceries at the local (small) deli which provided an array of goodies - we came home with bococinni, local sardines, fresh bread, water, coffee, cereals, ice cream, the most beautiful parmesan cheese cut off the round, a home made salsa dip, the creamiest fetta, balsamic and olive oil.

We weren't hungry and around 8.30pm sat ouside at a table by the pool with a bottle of red and jam tart ... It was a new moon with the first star out and a bat flying around the airspace above us with views of rolling hills with villas in pockets of olive groves.

watch this space

2007-08-25T16:40:00.001-07:00

UPDATING in the next two days - lots of catching up to do and photos to work on - have been away in Italy for a week

verandas are big in switzerland ... it extends one's home

2007-08-16T17:28:00.001-07:00

and garden ...

gardens

2007-08-13T11:34:00.001-07:00

for the gardeners ...

2007-08-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

so many photos so little time ...

2007-08-12T04:22:00.001-07:00

tweaking my favourites

2007-08-09T10:46:00.001-07:00

Aguust 4 - evening walk along Lake Zurich

2007-08-09T09:10:00.001-07:00

zurich August 3 & 4

2007-08-05T05:02:00.000-07:00

walking a full circuit along the Limmat River through the Niederdorf District

downtown Zurich 2 - days 1 & 2

2007-08-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

downtown Zurich

2007-08-04T13:21:00.001-07:00

Cataract Gorge on my doorstep

2007-07-19T02:25:00.000-07:00

its a breathtaking place located slap bang in the middle of the city ... filled with diverse and unique flora and fauna it affords recreation and relaxation activities that is utilised by locals and visitors

and then there's russell

2007-07-19T00:56:00.001-07:00

twilight they seek out high points to perch upon... usually on top of a chimney

peacocks

2007-07-18T15:21:00.001-07:00

they live in my garden - well they live in the gardens along my street and arrive at any time of a day. one is friendlier than the other; they lose their tail feathers in winter although spring must be close because their tails are growing again AND the birds are displaying their half tails.