Castellini is a small village in Tuscany located between Florence and Sienna. The first settlement in the area dates back to 800BC and the current village dates back to 1100s. Perched on the top of a hill and surrounded by olive trees and vineyards this is a quaint little town with great wine, cheese and olive oils which […]
Since we visited Florence before we were able to skip a lot of the major landmarks and attractions and simply concentrate on things we have not seen yet. Having said that, it is nearly impossible to be in Florence and walk by the main cathedral and ignore it – it is simply stunning and quite spectacular. […]
For all the planning in the world we did to get to Uffizi without much hassle, we almost blew it today by being late for our scheduled time. In July the line ups to get into Uffizi Gallery are up to 5 hours long. Uffizi has the usual collection of Italian and other European greats like […]
Penza is a birthplace of Aeneas Salvias Piccolomini who later became Pople Pius II. Once he became Pope, Piccolomini had the entire village of Corsignano rebuilt and renamed to become an ideal Renaissance town. The place was intended as a retreat from Rome, and it represents the first application of humanist urban planning concepts. The humanist […]
WOW, it’s been quite a while since we posed anything on here. Having said that we are back on the road again travelling a bit. Short break, nine days in total – destination Tuscany. We did what all responsible parents would naturally do, leave the kids in school and in charge of the house and […]
Today we set off for a nice walk at Deep Cove Park with some old friends from Anna’s university years – Damian and Allisa and their children. The one hour leisurely hike up offers spectacular views of the bay and a great vista of downtown Vancouver. On the way down we stopped for some coffee and crêpes […]
Strathcona band was preforming a Christmas Concert today at the church downtown. We have been to the junior high Christmas concert, but the high school kids are in a league of their own. They are more refined and mature and quite sophisticated in their sound. They played one very modern piece which was our favourite. […]
Today we have our first taste of what is coming and will be here for the next 6 months – snow and frost and lots of both. Luckily it did not get too cold quite yet but we all know it is coming. Until it all melts it will be white and pretty and clean […]
Today we woke up in a frozen world. It has been quite humid and overnight we had a bit of frost. It is absolutely beautiful outside, but cold.
Today is a Remembrance Day celebration at Mount Pleasant School. At the assembly the children recited poems, sang some songs and played music. There was even a representative from the airbase at the school. It was well done, that’s for sure.
Yesterday was Halloween, today is a lazy Saturday morning. While the kids were out shopping at WEM for some Christmas gifts, we made a quick stop at Audio Ark. For me going to Audio Ark is like going to a giant candy store – it is a happy place full of refined sophistication and decadence.
Today for breakfast we are trying the Liege Cakes once more time. This time a bit different recipe which has a bit less butter but instead of yeast we are using live culture. We essentially used the same recipe as last week but scaled down a bit on butter. This should have been an entire […]
It is snowing! At around 5pm today the skies opened up and it started coming down like crazy. Huge wet snow flakes everywhere. Only Evelina was happy with this turn of events, we all just looked in disbelief! I am sure this snow is not going to stick around around for long, but we all […]
Let’s call this for what it really is – it is a blog mostly about food. We are always talking about, eating too much, over eating or seeing some church. Of the last 8 posts 6 of them are about food. We had a little brunch today with Dobrescu’s. Simple brunch with little to no work. […]
What better way to spent the weekend than doing little to nothing at all. Today is one of those days, we were all waiting with anticipation for 4:30p.m. to have dinner at Thanh Thanh. This is one of two restaurants that we really missed when we were in Europe. On the agenda today is a […]
There are many different things we all miss about being on the other side of the pond. From the simple narrow and twisted cobble stone streets we walked in the old town Nuremberg to our friends and our favourite coffee shops and stores, the amazing gelato and the atmosphere of the old city, the history and […]
You will have to take my word for it, even though the pictures don’t show it, there really were 14 pizza on the dinner menu tonight – each different than the last. Twelve of them were consumed on site and two went home with us. There was also bread pudding. There was a lot of […]
Today we finally got a chance to get together with our good old neighbours we first met in our first house in Pleasantview some 15 years ago. We have been friends ever since. In his yard, Jeff built an amazing pizza oven, a project like no other! The pizza is all home made with love, […]
Yesterday we received the last 20 kg parcel I sent out from Germany. Today we are starting our day off with some fine Java grown in Brazil, roasted in Warsaw, delivered to Nuremberg and brought back to Canada. Posh-Nosh!
It is finally time to make the landing post and say goodbye to Iceland. I have been home for a couple of weeks now buried in work. Not the business work but house work. There is a seemingly endless list of house chores that need doing, some due to what appears to be plain neglect, some […]
Just boarding for Edmonton.
Here we go, the last drive on a beautiful summer morning – off to the train station.
After some noisy Porsches trashing around the track it was time for F1 qualifying. The crowd cheers, for Ferrari of course, and to improve the odds and feel better, for any previous Ferrari driver, in which case Masa got a lot of cheers. On the way back to the car Red Bull is giving away […]
Well the wheels are on. Now for a test drive and a bill and hopefully I can get on with it.
This is what happens to ZR rated tires on the Autobahn. I think our highest speed was around the 230km/h mark and in the last 16 months there was only one time when we did not go over warp speed which is 200. Before setting out for Monza I stopped to check tire pressure which […]
Today at 8am I was set to go to Monza. Yesterday at 6:30 pm while driving home I thought the breaks were feeling funny. Since a lot of the drive there is through the Alps I decided to get them checked out this morning. As we speak the back brakes are getting replaced hopefully I […]
Today is a huge, exciting day in our household: it’s the first day of school! Evelina is starting her last year of elementary school at Mount Pleasant and Boris is starting high school at Scona. Where does the time go? After a pretty smooth morning and a typical yeg commute, they were dropped off. I […]
Today, as of 11:34 am we are officially homeless in Nuremberg. The apartment keys have been returned, furniture moved out, cleaned and locked up. Goodbye Emilientstrasse 7 – we loved it there!
When it is all said and done, this is what nostalgia will look like. An evening out in Nuremberg on a beautiful summer’s day.
At the Imperial Castle, in the lower gardens – I have no ideal what this is…. Red Bull is doing something in town this weekend, perhaps this Cos play has something to do with it.
I am officially on the threshold of packing vs clean up. This mining the last bit of shopping with a s quick stop for breakfast at our favourite cafe La Violetta.
Today, I think is the last shopping trip I will be making. Just a few small things we still need to bring home. I say small because there simply aren’t too many things we need and there is no room in the suitcases. I am already starting to miss this town. It is had to […]
The two young ladies are taking the zip line at the end of the challenging obstacle course adventure, or as they see it, Hunger Games obstacle course.
Here are two more videos from the Sound and Light Show at the Rouen Cathedral. Simply amazing.
I think these smiles say it all, or they are just posing for the camera. In Frankfurt at the airport just waiting to get bows all wrapped up and set off.
The lag gauge has arrived – all of these 12 suitcases came with me in a car with room for maybe two or there more. Now they are waiting for the family to help me push them to departures.
This is how you get 12 suitcases and 2 bows into a car with room to spare. That is one very loaded car!! The drive should be fun..
We are at T – 15 hours before we pack the car and the family takes the train for the trip to Frankfurt. Family from Poland stops by for a quick visit to say hello! We send the kids off to town in the early afternoon to visit at least one museum, and to have as much […]
The Rouen Cathedral Sound and Light show was great in pictures. Here are a couple of videos and a couple of more coming in next week since Vimeo account limits what can be uploaded. It looked far more spectacular in the video – enjoy it.
This again will be filled under “Christ what were we thinking” category which is the predominant theme of ours when we go out to eat. After a wonderful dinner at the Golden Horn we rolled out of the restaurant, and rolled down the hill from the castle side, across the main square and to 4D our favourite […]
Tonight we are seeing Volker and Kasia for the last time on this trip. It is largely because of them that we are here, it is because of them that this trip has been such an amazing journey and it if was not for their help with everything we would most likely speak a bit […]
This is our favourite go to coffee shop. Always busy always good and always relaxing.
It is Saturday today which means it is our last chance to go to the shops and buy anything we still might need. Our goal for today was to get some suitcases and a poster tube. We did not find a suitcase we liked, we forgot about the poster tube but we bought a few […]
We are slowly coming to the end of this great adventure and while we are not quite thinking about home yet, here is an updated map of places we have visited. Hopefully tomorrow, I will get a chance to catch up on the blog – so stay tuned! The map in detail
After a busy and eventful day we are finally home, a bit later than we thought and tired but home at last!
The building is based upon the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, a primarily wooden construction; it was consecrated in 942 by Transmarus, Bishop of Tournai and Noyon. Traces of this original structure are evident in the cathedral’s crypt. The chapel was subsequently expanded in the Romanesque style in 1038. Some traces of this phase […]
Ghent started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Leie and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of northern Europe with some 60,000 people in 1300 AD, 70,000 in 1400 growing to 175,000 Shortly after 1500 AD. Today it is a busy city with a port […]
Our stay at the B&B has ended, we are going to be stopping in two cities for a quick visit on the way to Nuremberg. After packing the car which took about 25 min we settled in and off we went to see a WWII museum and then to Ghent.
While we were tying to get the car packed the kids were enjoying themselves on the trampoline – I think they are happy that we are finally going home. Except we are not, as we still have some stops planned on the way home.
Instad of taking a boat tour today, we decided for something more elegant and private – a horse drawn carriage. We have not done this yet on this trip so we though it would be a great opportunity to see a bit of the city from a different perspective. The tour is about 35 min […]
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