Captions still need work. But here are the photos, enjoy!
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| Italy 2009 – Rome |
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| Italy'09 II: Tuscany – Florence, Siena, S. Gimignano |
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| Italy 2009 – Napoli, Herculaneum, Pompeii |
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| Italy'09 IV: Sicily – Palermo, Corleon, Syracusa, Ragusa |
The Last Night in Rome
Yesterday was a long day of travel across ocean and continents, starting from 4:40am in a Rome hostel by the train station, and ending in the comfort of our home in San Fran, total of 25 hours in transit.
Turned on my camera this morning and realized the very last photo of the two thousand plus was this one from our last night in Rome: a cello left lying on the piazza of Campo dei Fiori. Seemed a rather fitting ending of the past 21 days. One session of music has ended, awaits for more?
Now i have to go through all the photos and collect my thoughts. Three weeks has always been my upper bound of being away: Europe in 1997, Eucador in 2002, Turkey in 2004, China in 2005, and now Italy in 2009. But this time, I wasn’t as eager to return home as before. We have gotten into a somewhat comfortable pattern during our final weeks traveling in Sicily. Finding a base, then peaking into little towns in the vicinity, deciding on length of stay, checking out the scene, finding our favorite local Trattoria or Osteria, trying out new dishes, new pastry/bakery/sweets, and then move on.
Places we’ve been are: Rome, Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Naples, Herculaneum, Pompeii, Palermo, Corlenone, Syracusa, Ragusa. My favorite places are Rome and Siena…
More to come…
Saw a picture of Pompeii which suddenly reminded me of my favorite place in Turkey: Ephesus. Dug out our trip photo from Ephesus, flood of memory came back.
Library of Celsus, Ephesus, Turkey
Gui asked me which of the two came first. I thought Ephesus was an ancient Greek city. Since Pompeii was Roman, that puts Ephesus before Pompeii.
Or does it?
Wikipedia browsing turned out more detail dates. Ephesus was founded earlier than Pompeii, 10th century BC versus 7th century BC.
Ephesus (Ancient Greek Ἔφεσος, Turkish Efes) was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek period.
But the key difference is the fact that Pompeii was abandoned/destroyed earlier than Ephesus. 79 AD’s volcanic event froze Pompeii in that era. But Ephesus went on living.
After Rome Republic, Rome Empire, Ephesus started its slow decline during its rule under Byzantine Empire. Throug earthquake, Arab invasion, and the silted up receding river, this once great ancient metropolis slowly dwindled into a little village. its past grandeur buried and forgotten.
My favorite structure “Library of Celsus” was complete in 135 AD.
The put Ephesus square in the middle of Roman Empire period. What i saw and what i loved in Ephesus were mostly Roman.
Beautiful Marble Columes and Carvings of Library of Celsus
I wonder if i would see anything as beautiful in Pompeii?
It has been two years since i took a proper vacation, as in go somewhere more than a long weekend.
Ever since I took my first trip to Europe twelve years ago, i’ve vowed to take an international destination vacation at least once a year. I managed to fulfill that plan until last year.
In the months leading up to this upcoming vacation, i felt, for the first time since i started working, really burnt out. I really need this break.
With three more business days to go, just the mere thought of the vacation ahead seems therapeutic. Felt like I haven’t been this mellow for ages.
While i was doing my research, i found out the way of travel has gone through a quiet revolution in the past two years. Here is an idealistic rendition of how one travels in the age of iphone and kindle.
Instead of buying/carrying a stack of tour guides, you can buy/download them onto your kindle. Similarly any books you want to read during the vacation/travel time, take them with you on your kindle.
Instead of printing out your hotel/flight reservation, you save them onto your iphone/blackberry/smartphones, including your pre-checked in boarding pass. In the airport you let them scan the barcode off your phone screen.
Instead of buying audio tours at museum or touristy sites, you can either download pre-recorded audio tours in mp3 form onto your iphone/ipd, and put on your own headphone when you arrived.
Instead of buying maps, you use Google Map for Mobile with my location, you will never get lost again and you can search for anything real time on the go.
You will travel light and have the world of information at your finger tips.
In addition, you will be twittering, blogging, uploading photos about your trip real time. Everyone in the world gets to watch.
But in reality, a reasonable data plan is still not available. Kindle has a limited book supply. I was this close of ordering one over the weekend, then i found out none of the latest travel guidebooks can be bought. There is also no way for me to get the books i already own onto kindle free of charge, not to mention the books i want to read are not always available on today’s Kindle database.
Alas. Here is my poor man’s version of an upgrade travel, not perfect, but still better than two years ago.
Book reader app Stanza on iphone allows me to download any old classic that’s current available through Project Gutenberg: The Moon and Six Pence, Frankenstein, and even some Chinese classics!
Google Push Gmail was just released onto iphone which allows me to store email/attachments onto my phone, which i could read later without a data connection. So i could email myself all the hotel/flight reservations, maps, research bits, to-do list and download them ahead of the trip. Only need to make sure i have the proper power charger plug.
I still have to carry the travel guidebooks. Oh well. Reading a physical book has its own charm. I don’t mind the luggage.
And i will be bringing a pen and a little notebook, attempting at scribbling messy and typo-rich (cuz my little paper notebook doesn’t come with spelling checker’s little red squiggle under the alphabet soup i will be making up).
Off we go! Italy, here we come!
A co-worker shared this hilarious cartoon with me, and it confirmed Gui’s comment earlier, Italy is very similar to China!
Europe Vs. Italy
Watching the fog rolling in over the hills behind Glen Park, we are still in the sun. Walked three sunny street blocks to the nearest public library, and cleaned out their Italian travel shelf. Came back with six books on Italy, plus one for Croatia thrown in for good measure.
My favorite part of travel just about to begin… planning and research…
So excited!
Italy! Italy
1. San Francisco
Seat warmer becomes my favorite feature of our car in the summer time. Only in San Francisco.
It was rainy during the week. Soft gentle drizzle, you could hardly feel it. Rain in July. Rare.
2. Plants
Woke up to a sunny morning! Glorious! Watered plants in the backyard. The Angel’s trumpet now sports TWO flower buds. Still very small, the bigger one is only an inch long. Can’t wait for them to materialize into the glorious giant “trumpet” bloom. Imagine the mysterious scent in the evening. Ahhhh!
Followed Mom’s advice, dug out the three barely alive cyclamen, which have been under continuous snail attack. Transferred them to a window box and moved them up to the balcony. Lined the window box against the wall under the windows, hopefully it is not too windy nor too sunny for them.
The sun was warm and inviting on the balcony. The lone window box with the cyclamen amplified the emptiness of the space, all that wasted sunshine! When we first moved in, i put a a giant pot of hydrangea on the balcony, and it was blew right over by the strong wind. I quickly gave up the idea of leaving any plants on this wuthering spot.
Today i decided to give it another try. Need to find things that’s wind resistant, sun loving and a pot that’s heavy enough that can stand firm in the gusty wind. I quickly took some succulent from the backyard and the central patio. Since i used sand to fill the pot, it would remain heavy even in between watering.
Our balcony immediately looked more cheerful with the new additions. We will see how that worked out.
3. Midnight in Sicily
Midnight in Sicily: On Art, Food, History, Travel and la Cosa Nostra by Peter Robb
Planning a trip to Italy in October, and Gui spotted this book at Greenapple last night. I took it home and started reading this morning.
Fascinating read so far. Italy/Sicily sounds horribly corrupted/violent, yet extremely intriguing at the same time. Greek speaking origin, conquered by the Roman then the Arabs then back to the Christians. Sun bleached hills, olive groves, orchards, mouth watering seafood, beautiful ocean, half ruined Palermo, politics and organized crime. assassination, murder, heroic effort by “the few honest Italians” to chase down la Cosa Nostra and their government backer(s).
I was horrified and hungry at the same time.
If we really ended up going, then we would have traveled “Roman Empire” backwards. First Turkey-Byzantine-East Roman Empire, now Italy-Western Roman Empire. 
“The essence of travel was to slow the passage of time” – Rober Kaplan “The Ends of the Earth“
Spent the long weekend up north with Alice and James. All of us are into good food, and we were non-stop feasting throughout the holiday. Yum.
Perfect Meal #1: Basque Tapas in Seattle
Harvest Vine @ Seattle
When i first told Alice that we are coming to visit during July 4th long weekend, she started planning the “feeding menu”. She said Seattle has the best tapas she has ever tasted. Friday evening we tried out her 2nd favorite restaurant (Her number one favorite closed after we made a detour at REI flagship store) – The Harvest Vine. I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually a Basque style restaurant. Because the best tapas in ZM and my memory was from in a little Spanish town – Girona. That was also Basque style tapas.
The food was delicious. Our favorite was the last course – grilled lamb loin with garlic, and caramelized onion. We finished the dish in mere seconds.
During the day, A&J took us to a cute little store called Paseo for lunch. Alice’s order was the best – seared scallop.
Paseo
4225 Fremont Ave N
Seattle, WA 98103
(206) 545-7440
www.paseoseattle.com
Hours: Tue-Sat. 11:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.The Harvest Vine
2701 East Madison
Seattle, WA 98122
Reservations: (206) 320-9771
info@harvestvine.com
Hours: 7 nights a week from 5pm to 10pm
Perfect Meal #2: Dimsum and Crab Rice Pot in Vancouver
Feasting in Vancouver
We told the Canadian custom officer at the border that “the purpose of our trip” was to eat because Vancouver has the best Canton style Chinese food on Westcoast of the American continent. He just laughed and waved us in.
We had dimsum at Fisherman’s Terrace. It is the 2nd best Dimsum place on Alice’s list. The number 1 dimsum place -Kirin Restaurant- told us that the wait was 3 hours and we should have made reservation 2 days in advance.
Fisherman’s Terrace. is located in a shopping center called Aberdeen: a 100% replica of a HK mall. It was filled with Chinese style shop/brand. Dimsum was excellent. I don’t usually eat chicken feet. But these place’s chicken feet is really sensational. Tripe and Seafood dumpling in soup were also very yummy. The only disappointment was the duck tongue and taro cake, everything else was delicious.
We started the “crab count down” since mid-afternoon. Because Alice and James loved their crab rice pot dish – Ho Yuen Kee – they had it everytime they came to Vancouver. it was very very delicious. We made the right decision to call in and made a reservation too. Crab was better than the lobster, ROI-wise.
We also had good coffee at Caffe Artigiano(Hornby, because they have a special coffee press that’s hard to find) and good cocktail at the Cascade Room.
Fisherman’s Terrace
4151 Hazelbridge Way #3580
Richmond, BC V6X 4J7
Tel: 604-303-9739Ho Yuen Kee
6236 Fraser
Vancouver, BC V5W 3A1
Tel: (604) 324-8855Caffe Artigiano
763 Hornby St,
Vancouver, BC, V6Z 1S2
604/685-5333The Cascade Room
2616 Main Street
Vancouver, BC V5T 3E6, Canada
(604) 709-8650
Perfect Meal #3: Ballard Farmer’s Market and Home Cooking at A&J’s
Ballard Farmer's Market & Home Cooking at Alice&James'
Sunday morning, we went shopping at Ballard Farmer’s Market. Bought fresh salmon fillet, raspberry, mint, apricot, lots of cheese. Had brick oven pizza that was baked on location in the market, and blue cheese and caramel ice cream. Alice and James cooked dinner. Everything was delicious, home grown veggie, baked salmon, and raspberry and mint desert that Alice invented on the spot…
The entire weekend was hot and sunny, summer-like weather that’s rare to come by in the Bay area. We sat on the porch, ate and enjoyed the evening breeze and wine, chatted…
Ballard Farmer’s Market
Ballard Avenue, between 22th Ave. NW and 20th Ave. NW
Every Sunday Rain or Shine
Hours: 10-3pmSake Nomi
(Pioneer Square)
76 South Washington Street (btw 1st Ave & Alaskan Way)
206-467-SAKE
