On my way home from work, god talks to me

Any minute now, the magnolias will be joined by the cherry trees and the symphony will be deliciously defeaning

New York Times: Lodz one the places to see in 2012

Earlier this month, New York Times listed Lodz as one of the places to see in 2012, citing recent announcements by David Lynch and Frank Gehry to establish major projects in the city, future redevelopment plans and cultural projects and of course Manufaktura, Lodz's cultural epicenter-cum-shopping mall.  A bit more than a year ago, I was able to visit the city and write about my opinions about this somewhat grimy albeit rising city.  Although I'm sure Lodz is on its way to becoming a major cultural center in Poland, I think NYT is highlighting the the city merely as a novelty rather than a real travel destination.  Especially if seen in contrast with other Polish cities such as Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow and Wroclaw, Lodz's road to transformation is still long, maybe even going further than the goal of becoming a European Capital of Culture in 2016.  I think it is also dangerous, that this city is being highlighted as a novelty during a time when it is still trying to determine its identity.  Lodz needs time to figure itself out.  It does not need pressures from foreign interests dictating the direction of its development.  Let it be, and maybe in a few years we will see a truly cosmopolitan Polish city, not another Central European tourist trap.

At the bottom of the list, Portovenere makes it as an alternative to Cinque Terre.  It's nice to see them mention a place to potentially alleviate the barrage of visitors that go during the summer months, but I wish they included all of the Ligurian coast.  Oh well, more unvisited places for the rest of us...

Bad blogger, bad baaaad blogger!

Hello folks, apologies for laying too low, too long.  Sadly, I am actually getting ready to leave Italy for New York.  Besides being sad and depressed to leave this great and beautiful place, I've been busy packing my stuff, seeing people, and seeing places I was yet to tick off my list.  However, I should be posting on my recent travels soon, and maybe some Christmas-y things to soothe our collective post-holiday depression.

In addition, this blog will be moving out soon to accommodate the fact that all too soon my travels will not just be of Europe.  Stay tuned, and hopefully you are still up for reading about the great and silly things I encounter once in a while.

Villas of the Veneto; Villa Thiene (Quinto Vicentino)

Located at Quinto Vicentino's main intersection, Villa Thiene's brick facade does not look like much.  It's simplicity makes it blend well with the other buildings around it, making it very hard to spot while driving even though there are approximately five or six signs within a mile of the villa telling the driver that it is in fact in the immediate area.

Graffitti Fridays: Cute, Folgaria

Idleness and Being-Back-ness

Hey all--sorry for sitting idle for a few days, I have been out doing some travelling.  Shockingly, for that short span of time it seemed like Italy's economy went on the brink of collapse, then its prime minister quit, and a possible Bilderberg Group tool replaced him, and now everything might just be OK again.  Oh, and Liguria suffered some major floods again and United Colors of Bennetton forced a whole lot of powerful men to liplock for their latest humanitarian campaign to sell jumpers.  The world, I guess, has its way for correcting its imbalances I guess.

In the meantime, Romania is great, and everyone should go.  Modern in parts, almost medieval in others, its a perfect portrait of a Europe that isn't quite there yet.  The people are friendly, the food is good, and the landscapes are spectacular.  Sounds like a no brainer to me!

Fortified churches all along the central part of Transylvania

Bran Castle...allegedly Dracula's

Streets of Sighișoara

Celebrating St. Martin's Day in Sighișoara

Italian Beer Series: San Gabriel "Birral della Scala" (Busco di Ponte di Piave)

Founded in 1997, San Gabriel is a brewery located near Treviso that is committed to the "purity" of the Reinheitsgebot and the greatness of the products of the Veneto.  Following the basic Bavarian recipe, the company sources much of their barley and hops from local producers, and they take great pride with their local source of water.  However, they also produce seasonal beers from local products that are definitely not kosher with the Bavarians:  figs, radicchio, and chestnuts from Treviso; yellow peppers from Zero Bianco; rice from Isola della Scala.  Despite their professed adherence to the Bavarian law, this brewery is, in the end, an Italian type through and through.

Graffitti Fridays: Budapest Swing

Cinque Terre's Unlucky Month

Only a little more than a week ago, Cinque Terre was engulfed in fire.  Now, the torrential rains that hit Northern Italy threaten to drive the whole place into the sea.  "Monterosso no longer exists" may be a bit of a dramatic flair in part of the town's mayor, but the exaggeration may not be too far from the truth.  Here, too, are other pictures of the town.  I have visited Cinque Terre three times before, and was planning on visiting again during the sleepy winter.  It has always represented to me that Italian heaven everyone dreams of, and that Italian heaven that has become, finally, a reality for me.  One of my most cherished memories is hiking from Monterosso to Riomaggiore and seeing Vernazza for the first time and being amazed at the tenacity of those people who dared to build not only a village at what seems to be the end of the world, but create beauty out of a seemingly impossible enivronment.  Alas, I may not be back for this winter at all, for I'm sure the trails, the roads and possibly the railroad tracks will be blocked for weeks if not months.  Hopefully it comes back to life, and soon...

EDIT:  Here is a link to instructions on how to donate to rebuild Cinque Terre.  A worthy cause, and a much needed help, considering Italy's current financial situation. 

Padova

Although a mere 30-minute drive from Vicenza, Padova to me was mainly Ikea, Decathlon, and a couple of Indian restaurants.  I visited the city center more than two years ago, but it was at the hieght of summer, and the town mostly seemed large and quiet to me and nothing else.  In addition, the overabundance of industrial areas and modern buildings that ring the city center made it look like a large and important city, but definitely one that made it comparable to say, Baltimore.   Being the closest "big" city to my apartment, it was a place to run errands and nothing more.  But on my second visit to the city center, armed with a better understanding of Padova, I was able to really appreciate the wealth of heritage the city has to offer. 

Villas of the Veneto: Villa Cordellina Lombardi (Montecchio Maggiore)

Villa Cordellina Lombardi in Montecchio Maggiore is possibly one of the most elegant villas in the Vicenza area, an obviously baroque homage to Palladio's neoclassicism, introduced a little more than two hundred years before this villa's construction.  It has all of Palladio's symmetry, if not Palladio's concern for the totality of the building.  (The back and sides are a little ho-hum.)  However, just like Villa Valmarana ai Nani, the architecture is not the highlight of this villa, but the colorful, swirling frescoes by Tiepolo to be found inside.  

Palladian Villas Mapped

If you're like me, you are probably very excited to be in such close proximity to great architecture in Vicenza, but are always completely frustrated by the research involved in even trying to figure out where these villas are in Vicenza's countryside.  There are many Palladian villas in Vicenza, let alone the Veneto, and most of them are surprisingly hard to find despite their importance in the world of architecture.  A lot of times, an afternoon spent "villa-hopping" (such an exciting word, for such an inherently mundane task...i.e., looking at people's houses) quickly devolves into villa-hunting, and not villa-finding.

With this in mind, I decided to map all of Palladio's villas in the Veneto and especially in the immediate Vicenza area to make the hunt for them more enjoyable and less frustrating.  As you can see, some of these villas stretch out the all corners of the Veneto, occupying even the smallest little towns and frazione imaginable.  Hopefully all the efforts help you in your quest to understand Palladio's style and influence through his works.  Enjoy!

Graffitti Fridays: Piggy Back, Arles

Italian Beer Series: Birrificio Artigianale Scaligero Mastino II "Beatrice" (Mezzane di Sotto)

Birrificio Artigianale Scaligero Mastino II (really long name! BASM in short...) is a Veronese brewery specializing in classic, traditional recipes from Britain, Germany, and Belgium.  Seemingly characteristic of the many breweries located in the Veneto and in opposition to the breweries of Lombardy and Piemonte, BASM does not try to fiddle around too much with the classics.  Whereas breweries in Milan and Torino may add grapes and fruits to their beer, BASM keeps it simple by adhering to the basic ingredients: malt, yeast, hops, and water.  This may or may not be as a result of the brewery's relative inexperience--it is just under three years old, previously specializing in providing the equipment fo commercial brewing--but their relatively simple approach nevertheless produces well-tasting brews.

Leather in Florence

Other than its beauty and its art, leather seems to be Florence's main tourist attraction.  Every street and ever piazza contains at least a few leather shops, selling nice jackets, bags, belts, and whatever else that can consist of leather.  

Transumanza in Bressanvido

Every Spring and Fall, communities around the mountainous regions of Italy--the communities around the Alps and the Apennines, specifically--celebrate the departure of cattle for the greener mountain pastures in the Spring and the milder winters of the plains in the Fall.  This constant movement of livestock has been enacted even before the Romans came around, and many communities to this day still celebrate the day their cows and sheep return.  

Sarajevo on My Mind

Reading this article reminded me of a quote from Safe Area: Gorazde of a Bosniak partier's reason for having so much fun in the midst of a bloody and seemingly endless war: "We don't party like there is is no tomorrow.  We party because there is a tomorrow."  It really demonstrates the resilience of the Bosniaks who, having gone through so much during the wars of the early 90s, chose to celebrate not the end of a conflict, but the continuation of life as it was.  

Sagra di Bosco di Nanto

Catching the tail end of Bosco di Nanto's sagra, we honestly didn't know what to expect.  What would they serve?  Would it be busy?  What kind of entertainment would they have?  Little did we know, none of it mattered.  Except for one: our introduction to the Italian urban cowboy. 

Dog Goes Boating

This past weekend was a long weekend for Vicenza, celebrating the 300th-or so year anniversary of an apparition of the Virgin Mary in Monte Berico that ended a terrible plague.  Devotees walk from the base of the hill all the way to the Santuario della Madonna to offer their prayers.  Below, citizens flock to the city center to enjoy the luna park and the fun energy in general. 

For me however, the 8th and the 9th were workdays.  So the weekend had to be an away weekend to avoid the feeling of depression borne out of having to work when everyone else gets a vacay.  So, I packed a tent, some sleeping bags, and some meat for the grill and headed out to my favorite lake, Lago di Ledro.  Above was the pooch, enjoying a bit of sun while we rotate peddling duties for the boat.  I overly underestimated the pedal boat: mostly relegated to artificial lakes in city parks, I thought it would be boring and relatively limited to within a few meters from the shore.  But it was the little boat that could:  it chugged along effortlessly from one end of the lake to another and safely accommodated two peddlers and two sunbathers.  Mixed with a bit of sun bathing and swimming (not me—the water was too cold and I was born in the tropics), it was the perfect, relaxing weekend. 

Palio of Castelfranco Veneto

Our recent trip to Castelfranco was largely a chance encounter, the result of a search for a new diversion after Treviso proved largely a bore.  I have been to the small, walled town before, to see the Giorgione exhibit which brought together all of the master's known works for the first time (including the town's own, "Castlefranco Madonna," which is housed in the town's cathedral).  This time around, I witnessed an example of one of the country's more typical autumn celebrations: the medieval festival.