Sunday, July 31, 2011

FINAL TIPS for other Italy travellers ....

Holidays are now over for about two weeks and we still work on the fotos and our reminiscences of this great time we had. The last tips from us for a great trip to Italy.....

If you are interested in Modern Art but you don't understand it (as we do, too), visit the exhibition of Picasso-Dali-Miro: Angry young men in Palazzo Strozzi in Firenze. Its really worth to see and especially experience this exhibition. At the entrance you get a family activity guide ! - these cards give you in almost all rooms a closer explanation of one or two pictures with a lot of additional activitites to play or discuss and at the end you get a better feeling for that what you see..... a breathtaking new didactical concept!!!

OK, it led us also to nonsense ....


Another great "added value" example of the Firenze municipality. There is a fountain with drinking water in front of the Signoria and on the cans (for free!!) there is some advertisement for the city. This is great advertisement with additional benefit for the thirsty tourists strolling around in the city at 40 degrees. It does not cost much but makes the city more kind and is on top another place where you can exchange with others your experiences in the city.

Tagliata is not another word for noodles (tagliatelle). This was an interesting experience as we didn't want to have noodles for starters (primi piatti) and for the main course (secondi piatti).... So we took salad first and for the main course we ordered tagliata with beef..... we got at the end: Salad and beef without noodles. Tagliata does not mean noodles!! Be careful...... (a day without it is also fine)

Italian cuisine with Austrian Sachertorte???????

If you want to get a rebate at the ticket booth there are often good possibilities - sometimes unexpectedly. At the ticket booth of the Biennale they offered a wide range of reductions: for owners of touring club cards and Ikea and so on .... so we tried it ... aaaaand? They didn't take our ADAC card (as it is not Italian origin) but they accepted only the IKEA-Family card as this card seems to be the only one of international interest .... so don't forget this important card ... it's worth alone 3 EUR :-))


Mirrors at a cafeteria at Biennale
Seda on high heels and hat. Another experience of interest. Seda bought for Kathis&Markus' wedding shoes for her yellow dress. Not that easy as low heel shoes is the only thing she normally accepts. At the end we found some nice ones which fit to the new hat and the dress. She looked breathtaking pretty and it worked ... the feet suffered but it was worth the action! 


First foto with the new hat .....
All in all the whole region is great to visit - maybe not only in high season maybe even better to go there when the weather is not that hot and the tourist flows are not that big. The most important thing to consider there: take your time, don't rush and enjoy every minute there - it's really worth, it's simply DOLCE VITA.

We will end now with this blog - maybe we start another one for our adventures in Dresden if someone is interested ... lets see.

Stay tuned.


Friday, July 22, 2011

REMINISCENCES

We are back and the daily routine is catching us. We work the whole day and in the evening we select fotos and we find the one or other (maybe) interesting detail of these wonderful holidays. We will try to tell you now some short stories and maybe there will come some more up in the next days.

ITALIAN BREAKFAST




This picture shows the typical italian breakfast. A short espresso and a brioche (in France they would say  croissant) - thats it. This type of breakfast is quick and giving a lot of energy. Italians are taking this type of prima collazione typically in cafes while standing at the bar counter where it is cheaper than using a table!!


ITALIAN FASHION











Italian people are famous for their fashion! As you might see on this picture a typical man is not wearing black or blue as they do in northern countries - men are colourful!!! Here we see yellow but more often you see red or green trousers!! Courageous, isn't it? After two weeks Gue also bought a red trouser and it looks not bad (the first red trouser with almost 50 years!)! More interesting is in this picture beside the trouser the shoes in pink colour optically fitting perfectly to the dog leash! Great!


BALCONY
Here we are not in Verona (Romeo & Juliet) but in Parma - a typical balcony where normally no balcony should be! Great but it looks dangerous, isn't it?


PARKING SHOES












Without words!!! Only one comment: this foto has been shot by Seda not by Gue!!!!

FERRARI ... CRAZY














In Italy everyone loves Ferrari and Formula 1 - here you see an old Fiat cinquecento! If you look closely you can see the archetype for this car ... it's Ferrari!!!! As we visited Assisi - it was a sunday - a formula 1 race took place and Alonso won driving a Ferrari. In all corners of this lovely city they showed the race with dozens of people in front .... 

Sunday, July 17, 2011

FAREWELL

The last day of our holidays and therefore its a day of farewells.

We meet for breakfast at Cafe Landtmann - one of the most famous Viennese Cafes - the last time with Murat, Esin, Cemre and Cansu as they are on their way to Nicosia by car! We will see them most probably only next year again - sniff. We wish you all the best for the rest of your journey and of course an excellent start in your new environment. We will miss you in Berlin!!

Additionally Ines and Marko joined this farewell also to say BYE to us for these holidays. We will see you hopefully very soon in Dresden or in Vienna! Enjoy the summer time at work and try to get energy for the upcoming experiences at the university and the housing question.

Farewell ... snifff

At lunch time we let all of them go to sightseeing and lunch and we start our last part of our trip - back to Dresden where we then arrive 5 1/2 hours later. We are sad that these holidays rushed that quickly. At the end we drove 3.815 km with our car with an average speed of 69 km. More than two weeks of excitement with excellent music, art & culture, meeting lovely people are coming to an end. Tomorrow work will start and the daily routine starts again.

Don't be sad - in the next days we will try to entertain you again with some more impressions of our holidays. Stay tuned.

And do not forget - from time to time DOLCE VITA is more than important. We enjoyed every second.

We wish DOLCE VITA for everyone

THE wedding of the year: KATHI & MARKUS (Saturday part II)


I don't get many things right the first time
In fact, I am told that a lot
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls
Brought me here

And where was I before the day
That I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it everyday
And I know

That I am
I am
The luckiest

(Ben Folds - The luckiest)

The most important event took place this afternoon & evening! GUE's nephew got married. Here we want to show first paparazzi fotos of this lovely event (before newspapers and other media will show).

Liebe Kathi,
Lieber Markus,

wir freuen uns, daß Ihr diesen Schritt gegangen seid und dass wir an dieser Feier mit dabei sein durften. Ihr seid scheinbar wirklich Glückspilze, die einander gefunden haben und es war berührend und spannend, Euch in der Kirche diesen Bund fürs Leben schliessen zu sehen. Das lag an Euch und natürlich auch an der besonderen Organisation dieses Festes, zu dem wir Euch speziell beglückwünschen möchten.

Den Lebensweg zu zweit zu beschreiten ist nicht immer einfach, aber die Sterne erreicht man nur gemeinsam!

Wir wünschen Euch alles Glück dieser Welt - werdet glücklich und lasst uns gelegentlich daran teilhaben.

Seda & Gue

Kathi & Markus - just married

Proud parents with the married couple
another happy couple
Do you know this lovely person?
A first dance or a signal who wears the breeches?

without words .....

A morning celebration with two crazy girls (Saturday part I)

Breakfast with two crazy girls celebrating ....
The morning is reserved for a breakfast with the two crazy girls on the above picture! Main aim is to pre-celebrate the upcoming birthdays of these two ladies (as they will not meet on their birthdays personally) which will take place end of this/beginning of next month.

We meet at one of our favorite Viennese cafes and we had a lot of fun. Chatting, unwrapping gifts and discussing actual topics like the inscription of Ines for the Winter semester of the Technical University (Architecture!!!!) or the adventures of JoAnne in China and our experiences with art&music in Italy.

Its so lovely when we sit relaxed and have fun.... we should do things like that more often.


Before we start to THE celebration of this day (see part II) we do have time to make a short cabrio drive to Grinzing and Kahlenberg & Leopoldsberg - where you get the best outlook over Vienna. The drive through the Viennese woods up the hill and the spectacular view and  the town seems to be so quiet ...

The waterline of Vienna: Danube, New Danube, Old Danube!

Saturday, July 16, 2011

TAKE THAT WALTZ, take that waltz ...

Our today's waltz ...

The weather during night and the morning showed a different picture: RAIN and thunderstorms. The temperature fell from 35 to 18 degrees and everywhere the trees and the rain smells in such a fresh way ... simply brilliant.






Morning rain in Velden
So we start early our way to Vienna - there is no morning walk through the woods possible. The 350 km ride last slightly longer than expected because the heavy rain of Carinthia follows us almost until Vienna. In GUE's hometown the sun starts shining again - only for us!

After unpacking the luggage we face the drama - our dresses for the Saturday highlight are completely wrinkled up and an immediate ironing-session is necessary. Seda takes over this task under  unhuman conditions. In the (excellent) hotel the ironing room is about 1 m2 big (!!!!). So the heat comes back - artificially!

Seda with weapon in the huge 1m2 ironing room

After all clothes are ready and prepared for the next day we start strolling around in the center of Vienna. Lovely weather, good atmosphere, good mood everywhere (especially after the best ice-cream in town). 

We end up at the Rathausplatz - a big place where in summer Viennese people celebrate another tradition: a classical music film festival which is held every evening (when the weather is fine) after sunset. In front of the lord-mayers house a big screen shows interesting music films and the audience of about 2000 people can find place to sit and listen. Behind these open air arena a lot of restaurants have their booths selling excellent food and almost all Viennese people are meeting there when the weather is fine.  The screen shows again the Easter Concert 2011 - Spring in Vienna - by the Wiener Symphoniker.

Finally we meet there with Esin, Murat, Cemre and Cansu who are on the way from Berlin to Cyprus!!! We planned first only to have a farewell breakfast on Sunday (we will report) but it worked out that we also could have some Kaesekrainer, Asian and sweet Austrian food together. Lovely!!! See the fotos ...

Kaesekrainer ... Cansu & Seda like it!

Sweet specialities: Marillenknoedel, Kaiserschmarrn
Rathaus - open air concert atmosphere



Thursday, July 14, 2011

Arrivederci bella Italia, Servus Österreich

yammiiiiiii
Yes, we are heading to north....to home...we have an important, beautiful duty to fill in Vienna...Driving back from Venedig to Wien has its own traditions. The first one is going to a supermercato to buy some prodotto tipici before leaving the lovely country. The tradition is to shop in Trecisimo. Yes, we overdid the shopping as if we are coming from a land which has nothing in the shelves for cooking. And the car is now looking awful. We cannot drive cabrio. The second tradition is to have a last Italian coffee in Tarviso, 10 km before the border. The coffee and the weather were sooooo nice. Finally the temperature is below 30 degrees!!!!

Between these two traditions, we started a new one. Having a pizza picnic on the highway between two tunnels (out of ten) and enjoying the mountains around with a lot of turkish trucks : ))

Early afternoon we reached our today's final destination Velden which lies on the lake called Woerthersee. A very famous and noble area. The palace there was the "star" of a TV-series many years ago (Ein Schloss am Woerthersee). Our hotel doesn't have a view to the lake but we are very close and directly located at the border of a wood. It smells fresh, clear and it is totally quiet - what a contrast to the last days and weeks. Lovely!!!

Ein Schloss am Wörthersee - where is Roy Black?
Our excursion downtown to the lake is a middle thing between relaxing and discussions about Marketing methods of local restaurants. First we keep our feet in the warm and clear water of Woerthersee. You must know that the water of this lake has the quality of drinking water. As all ships stop touring around the lake at 5pm we decide to rent a boat on our own to discover the area ourselves. We rent an electro-boat and with the rapid speed of 18km we are faster than all other e-boats. Again its quiet and the soft breeze and cooler weather makes us happy.
Mrs. Daisy-Seda & 
her chauffeur


We finish the day with the wish for a nice dinner. The first restaurant seems to be "fully booked" despite the fact that all tables are empty - are the guests really changed their eating-timing?? In the second one we have the same picture - all tables empty. We ask if this can be true and the answer is: we can take any table we like!!! So we have a nice dinner with direct lake-view and the interesting discussion how this marketing-joke works? To be honest - we didn't find an answer. Further possible guests partly sat inside, some left again and after 1 1/2 hours we left and only 5 table were occupied. The other 30 empty. Can that be true???

After this interesting but crazy marketing efforts we sit finally again directly at the water looking at the other guests like an odd couple watching whats going on in the world.

A relaxing day ends and we are getting our energies back by joking around (see first picture of today)!



ART in every corner - VENEZIA


Not romance is bringing us today to Venice but the Biennale. This exhibitions all over the town should show the acutal status and development of art in the world and we want to be up to date - so here we are!

We go by public bus and vaporetto from Mestre directly to the main exhibition center in the Giardino. After  one hour we pass the ticket corner and then we are in the center of Art of this summer! Interesting to see what things are called art nowadays. We participated from time to time a guided tour and learn more about the things we see and suddenly our picture changes: to understand the installations, pictures, objectes you need always explanation and then it makes sense. Definitely it is not as simple as looking to a picture of the old days. The whole exhibitions here and in Arsenale are filled with things we only partly understand but we see that everything is filled with the wish to activate our brain and to make us think of the world, the politics, the living conditions in some areas ...!!!

Even the walls in the cafeteria are ART: a broomstick on the wall
It didn't work with the Austrian and the Turkish pavilion (too abstract for our minds) but some we understood better. All in all it stimulated us for our own work, we had a lot of fun e.g. in the Spanish pavilion where some actors made a performance and at the end you didn't know who is actor and who is visitor or the special effects of Korea were surprising, the Japanese entertained with some cartoon oriented work or even Greece with showing nothing but water with the tittle Sold Out (what a political statement). Even the German pavilion where they built up a church to render homage to the late Mr. Schlingensief.

After more than 6 hours art and again more than 35 degrees celsius we are exhausted and tired but it is our only day in Venice - so what to do. We decide for a longer Vaporetto tour and finally we stranded in Murano - the island of glass art. Nice atmosphere, many shops and workshops with interesting objects and also art - art of the past and centurylong tradtions.

cloth hanging art in Murano
As this is our last evening in Italy we have our last dinner at the Canale Grande close to Rialto in a hidden place with direct view to the water and this finally fully relaxes and makes the romantic feeling everyone sees in combination with Venice. Also the food is art (as we expected) - big plates, little food, high prices but the most breathtaking view you can have in this city.  Due to technical problems will will be able to show you fotos of that evening only in few days - but we will!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

e BASTA .....

...a 2 years old lovely Italian girl knows what she wants...."Gelato", even the type of the gelato "pistacchio", even the right amount  "e BASTA..." This is the Caterina : )

due to the privacy we choose the picture : )) 
Today was a different day, today we were not only the tourists, we were also a little bit local. We visited Patti in Faenze... (and our navigator had no more energy) meeting her again after so many years in Italy and to meet her lovely daughter Caterina was really nice. Not to mention we had a perfect lunch at their countryhouse and perfect time, which passed quickly, while trying to summarize the years in few hours.

Coming from Turkey, Istanbul, we did not miss the chance to compare the mosaics in Ravenna on the way to Faenze with the ones in Istanbul. San Vitale Basilika is famous with Byzantine mosaics. It is really impressing and gives also the feeling "being at home". Next to San Vitale Basilika is the masolleum of Galla, the daugher of Theodosius I, again with wonderful mosaics.

San Vitale-Ravenna
Today our final destination was Mestre  and this trip was not easy for us. It was almost 40 degrees, we had 1 hour traffic jam on the highway, the ipod connection of the car is not working anymore and the way to our hotel by car is like a puzzle. But you forget everything while eating a nice pizza on the lovely piazza looking to the clock tower.

Mestre

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

LAST DAY IN PERUGIA

Our last day is filled with Jazz again. We start at lunch time again in Teatro del Pavone with the concert of another rising star, the singer Simona Severini! This (lovely looking) lady performs with her trio and brings us closer to her first solo project the interpretation of french music, mainly based on compositions of the young Gabriel Faure. Lovely to listen, a very nice start in the last dedicated music day of this holidays.


Simona Severini and band
Later that day we saw on top the Allan Harris Quartett - Istanbul friends might remember the CD this singer made together with Kerem Görsev few years ago!!! After the sightseeing tour of today (without words: this breathtaking city is really wonderful ... some of the fotos at the end of this day should give you an idea) we finished the music day with another interesting group: Renato Sellani and Massimo Moriconi. Renato is now not a rising star anymore - this pianist is an institution with his 83 years but showing the power of a twen!! Great swinging piano supported by bass.....

wonderful Renato Sellani

What do we want more. We saw free jazz - rising stars - great stars and legends!!! Perugia we will come again in one of the following years (if anyone wants to join - just let us know).

Finally - before you can see more fotos of Perugia, a little tip for romantic jazz hours: listen to Paolo Fresu/Uri Craine's interpretation of "Si dolce  il tormento" of Claudio Monteverdi !!! What a great song, what a great interpretation!!!!! We love it!
Typical outlook of the old town of Perugia

you must be top fit to live there! (or you can use the escalators)
Fontane Maggiore at Piazza 4th Novembre

typical nightscene in side roads