Marseille is the oldest continuously inhabited city in France, it is a second largest city in France after Paris and the centre of the third largest metropolitan area in France after Paris and Lyon. Humans have inhabited Marseille and its region for almost 30,000 years, it was the first Greek settlement in France. It is […]
After the city folk found their way of the forest, we immediately stopped in the first available town to have some well earned gelato. Lourmarin is a small village of 1000 people which has been settled for at least a thousand years, and was probably a Neolithic campsite before that. A dominating fortress was first […]
On the outskirts of Bonnieux village is a massive cedar forest that began with trees imported from North Africa during the Napoleonic era. It sits opposite Mont Ventoux, know as the windy mountain where winds in the summer reach 320km/h but on average over 240 days out of the year go at 90+ km/h. We decided to […]
The original bridge on this road was built in 3BC and it was a wooden structure which was swept in one of the floods. The bridge was part of the Via Domitian road which was a quick way to connected Rome with the southern France. The bridge was eventually replaced with an arched stone bridged with two […]
Roussillon is a tiny but a picturesque village of about 1300 residents. It is famous for the rich deposits of ochre pigments, mostly red, yellow and orange, found in the clay near the village. The large quarries of Roussillon were mined from the end of the 18th century until 1930. Roussillon is located within the […]
Today, after lazing around after breakfast, and then lounging by the pool for a couple of hours, we decided to take a little lavender drive through Provence. As it turns out we are a bit late to the lavender party as the first harvest has already been taken and the new flowers are not going to […]
The cathedral is located on the route of the Roman road, the Via Aurelia. A fragment of a Roman wall and the columns of the baptistery seem to be the origin of the legend that the church was built on top of a Roman temple dedicated to Apollo. According to the Christian tradition, the first […]
Aix-en-Provence name comes from a Roman consul, Sixties Calvinus, who gave his name to Aquae Sextiae, “the Baths of Sixties,” a site of thermal springs in 123BC. Aix-en-Provence has about 140,000 residents and is generally considered a university town. There are great many sights to see here. The Cours Mirabeau is a wide thoroughfare, planted with […]
The origin of this town dates back to 800 BC. More importantly though the town was taken by Romans in 123 BC and as Romans do they build a lot of cool buildings. The Gallo-Roman theatre, the arena or amphitheatre, necropolis, Arles Obelisk and Barbegal aqueduct and mill to name few. Most of the old Roman buildings are being […]
Chances are that if you have ever seen a picture of a lavender field in France with a large building in the back ground it most likely was Senanque Abbey. The abbey was funded in 1148 and rose to an enormous prominence and wealth in the 13 to 14th century then lost it all when […]
Today we are taking easy after a long drive yesterday. After a late start and a lazy morning breakfast we are out for a short drive. First stop, Bonnieux, a small hill-top village dating back to the 6th century.
Musee d’Orsay is located in an old converted railway station right across the river from the Louvre. It holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, […]
So another busy day in Paris. A bit of shopping, a lot of walking, a lots of snacking but generally relaxing. Today we climbed 24 floors, mostly getting up to the Pantheon and walking up the hill by Sorbonne, and walked about 23,600 steps which is about 13.6km. Good workout!
The Luxembourg Garden and Palace was created at the beginning of 1612 by Marie de’ Medici, the widow of King Henry IV of France, who at the time was building a new home that was to mimic her home in Florence. Today the gardens are owned by the French Senate, which meets in the Palace. It covers 23 […]
The Pantheon, roughly translated from Greek means “to all gods”. Originally intended as a church to the saint patron of Paris, it was later converted to a mausoleum to honour the great men and women that brought honour and respect to the nation. The motto on the Pantheon reads ” To great men, the grateful homeland” […]
The Sainte-Chapelle or “Holy Chapel” was constructed to house Louis IX’s collection of relics of Christ, the crown of thorns, a piece of the cross and others. At the time the king paid 135,00 livres for the relicts, which were put in an ornate silver chest that cost further 100,000 livres. The entire chapel in 1238 […]
One of the largest buildings you can see from Centre Pompidou is the church of St. Eustache. The building actually dates back to the 13th century. The current church, a gothic masterpiece, was built between 1532 and 1632. St. Eustache was prominent enough in Paris to have Louis XIV take his first communion there and Mozart has […]
Centre Pompidou is an interesting building – it is sort of inside out building. We visited Pompidou in Metz a while back which looked like a giant tent. From the roof top you can almost see all the major landmarks in Paris. A very nice Passion women pointed out all of them to us, all […]
Today is an easy and relaxing day. First, we sleep in, so we were off to a great start. Once we got organized and managed to get to the centre we decided to go shopping. First stop at the Louvre then to one of favourite stores BHV then a stroll through Marais for some sweets […]
Today is our first day out after a long day of travel yesterday. On the agenda for today is what started of as a little village in the 11th century then became a hunting lodge with a bit of forest to what today is simply know as the Palace of Versailles. When you are the […]
Finally we are setting off on our summer vacation. It has been a long time coming.
Our last tourist stop on this trip is the ancient village of Bagno Vignoni located in the heart of Tuscany, in the Val d’Orcia Natural Park. At the heart of the village instead of the usual piazza is the “Square of sources” – a huge hot springs pool dating back to the sixteenth-century. This spot was […]
If you have ever seen a calendar of Tuscany, postcards or even some promotional material chances are you have seen Vitality Chapel in at least one of the pictures. The chapel of Our Lady of Vitality originally built around 1590 is located on a private property on the road between Pienza to San Quirico d’Orcia and […]
This is our third visit to Siena. We always find something new to see and to do. After two hectic days of driving around and looking at towns and villages today we are taking it easy. This time around in Siena, we decided to climb the Torre del Mangia which is 88m in height – same […]
Relatively speaking this is a large town compared to some of the smaller villages we visited. There are about 10K people living in Foiano della Chiana today. This is also an agricultural town which used to be surrounded by marshes on three sides, and not a hill top town like all others. If it was […]
Monte San Savino is a small town of about 8000 people and it is famous for two things. First, it was one of the first urban settlements in Tuscany, Italy, which originated around 1100. Second Giulio Salvadori a poet and a literary critic was born there. An interesting thing about Salvadori is that he covered to Christianity in 1885. […]
Really we are back in Arezzo for views, wine, food and of course gelato. We found an amazing wine bar with an even more amazing food. Luckily we got the second last table and had a phenomenal lunch. There must have been no less than 25 to 30 people that were simply turned away because the […]
Last on the list today was a town of Radicofani. About 1100 people live in this village with has been restored in the 1990. The village is dominated by a massive fortress on the top of the hill with a 37m tower. There are two sets of defence walls at the fortress one pentagonal and […]
Our second stop is Castiglione d’Orcia, a small town of 2500 residents on a top of a mountain which was mentioned as a settlement for the first time in 714. The town lost it’s independence to the Republic of Sienna in the 14 century and became part of united Italy only in 1861. We did not get to […]
Today we started a medieval tour of Tuscany. First stop a small town of San Quirico d’Orcia located half way between Pienza and Montalcino. The town gain it’s notoriety in medieval times as it was on a pilgrimage route connecting northern Europe to Rome. Today the town is a host to a 3 day wine tasting extravaganza where 17 local […]
Today we went for a drive. This is a typical Tuscan route very reminiscent to the Romantic Road you can take through Bavaria. Basically, you drive through one of the most stunning parts of Tuscany where each hill is doted with a typical Tuscan farmhouse, and a long driveway which in turn is occasionally lined […]
Located about 11 km from Castellini in Chianti is an even smaller village of Radda with 1700 inhabitants. It still takes about 20 min to drive here because the roads are narrow and twisty and suicidal when wet. The town is nice, the views simply spectacular and my shoes are still soaking wet, and I swear to […]
Today we are spending a simple day without a schedule. We got into the car and started driving around from one small town to the next starting with San Gimignano our favourite of Tuscan towns. We did a bit of shopping and had a great lunch and got soaked. It rained on and off all […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
A quick trip around the neighbourhood with a shield and a sword and a smile yielded some great returns. Tomorrow we are going to buy a shed for the back yard to put it all in.
Today is Halloween – it is great many things to many different people. For ghosts and goblins and witches and monsters it is time to freely roam the streets. For little Vikings at heart it is time to get out and liberate the neighbourhood of some candies and for the dentists it is time to pick up […]
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 […]
Perhaps one of the things that Boris and Evelina missed the most about Edmonton was their cousins. The greatest thing in their minds is the fact that our family lives close to us. On a beautiful fall day with the sun shining and leaves blowing in the wind they got on their bikes and went […]
If we are not eating, we are actively thinking about what to make and eat next. Seriously, that is what we do. Today is another lazy Thanksgiving weekend morning. On the go for breakfast are fresh, homemade Belgian waffles! Life is good.
Thanksgiving is great. Three days off, three days of eating and relaxing. It is great to be home for this one. While Christmas has its own charm, Thanksgiving is special. It is time to take pause and reflect, time to be thankful and appreciative. Time to spend with family, time to relax and appreciate everyone […]
It is a Thanksgiving Saturday. A beautiful day, sunny and warm. It is the kind of day you go out for a nice lazy walk around the lake or the little forest that is not far away from our home. Today on the lazy morning agenda I decided to winterize my irrigation system. My shiny […]
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 […]
I finally got around to getting these uploaded, converted and here they are for you to enjoy. While at Villa Medici, this was the Masters of Piano graduating class, with formalities of the evening being done, everyone was a lot more relaxed and the music they got out of that wooden box with strings and […]
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