Exploring and Sharing the World!
“You may normally see me in bathrooms but here I am among friends in this spectacular piece of architecture with a slightly different coating than my bathroom brethren. I hear the blogger will be re-issuing some writeups about our site, our host town and the neighboring area. You will see me and my buddies in all our glory! Stay tuned!”
– Tile
(Picture taken with Canon EOS Rebel)
In 2006, I visited Oslo for work. As usual, I like going to a place where I can see the locals in their day-to-day. This plaza gave me a great view of folks headed home at the end of a work day…
(Picture taken with Canon EOS Rebel)
Tampa, Florida may not be at the top of your destination list but being close to great beaches and other attractions such as Busch Gardens – and close enough to Orlando – it may be a place you will visit some day. And if you do, do NOT miss out on the great hole-in-the-wall Cuban food places in the city! I have been going to Tampa regularly for over 20 yrs. and I enjoy eating the real stuff.
Masitas de cerdo! (Photo credit: http://necessaryindulgences.com/2010/12/el-ambia-cubano/)
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La Teresita (http://www.lateresitarestaurant.com/) (in Columbus Ave.) used to be the grand dame of Cuban restaurants in Tampa about 20 yrs ago. Grand dame does NOT mean elegant or fancy. That would be all wrong for a Cuban restaurant. But it was the place with the best food and where everyone went. However, somewhere down the road, it became different. Other places came up. And some of us stopped going.
Florida Bakery (http://local.yahoo.com/info-14447698-florida-bakery-tampa) (also in Columbus Ave.) has been a long standing place to go to for typical Cuban pastries, cakes, and sandwiches such as the famous Cuban sandwiches. Of course, Cuban coffee too; nothing like a cortadito (expreso with leche).
But other alternatives have come up so the typical places are not the ONLY ones around town anymore. And the other places are, in my opinion, better.
Arco Iris (http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/30/340198/restaurant/Tampa-Bay/West-Tampa/Arco-Iris-Tampa), also in Columbus Ave. and almost next door to Florida Bakery, offers really good food in a very homestyle environment. It is spacious and I typically haven’t had a problem getting a table.
Las Margaritas (http://www.allmenus.com/fl/tampa/60687-las-margaritas/menu/) in Hillsborough Ave. is a much smaller place and no frills. But the food is delicious – and cheap!
Pipo’s (http://pipos.com/) which, at last count, has 2 locations offers simple choices that are delicious. It has been around for a while and always consistent. Walk to the counter so you see what’s available and they serve you cafeteria style.
Angelito’s Bakery (http://www.cakes.com/bakeries/angelitos-at-la-caridad-bkry-5386/, where the former La Caridad was; the street sign still exists for La Caridad) has phenomenal pastries and seems a lot cleaner than Florida Bakery. And this one is in Hillsborough as well.
Mr. Empanada (several locations http://www.mrempanada.com/), while not strictly Cuban, deserves a mention. The fried empanadas are very similar to the ones I would eat for lunch in high school (ground beef, cheese, or pizza fillings). Except here, besides the ground beef ones, they have fillings I didn’t have as an option in high school such as guava, and cream cheese.
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So if you go to Tampa, be ready to eat GOOD Cuban food and eat well – I do!
Any other favorite Cuban places in Tampa that you like? I am sure there are plenty I haven’t even discovered yet!
I came to Rome in a barrel. Ready to see the eternal city. It was dark all the way. I was in good company. Then we felt a tapping sound. Just twice. Then it went quiet. A day later, I felt pulled away. I saw light!!! I decided to sit and bask in the light. Since I was in Rome, I HAD to have my picture taken. Hope I looked alright after all that travel. I didn’t feel refreshed but I felt refreshing, if that makes sense.
(Picture taken with Canon EOS Rebel T1I)
Rome has an endless amount of sights to see, places to visit, and walks to take – it is near impossible, lest you are a travel guide company, to document all that there is to see and almost just as impossible to cover all the ground. At least not when part of your goals for the trip are to chill some as well. That was me. Here are two places I enjoyed in Rome: a mix of must-sees and places where I just sat and relaxed. Hopefully, this will give you ideas or validate what you have read in the travel guide!
Do you have places in Rome that you like to and relax in? Please share!
Campo de Fiore
I had not seen the Campo de Fiore (field of flowers) before. It was not as great a piazza as I expected but it certainly allowed for two of my favorite things when I am in Europe: sitting in an outdoor café sipping my favorite beverage (house red wine in this case) and watching life go by (read: people watching). The flower and other stands were mostly still there though they began coming down as we were there. The buildings in the piazza and the surrounding streets definitely had character and a walkabout the area is well worth it.
It was at Campo de Fiore where I met the golden beer who told its story…
The Trastevere Area
This part of town, across the Tiber from old Rome, as the name suggests, is trendy, charming, and chock-full of places to eat, drink, and walk around. The southern part of it has some really neat alleys and buildings. We ate at a place called Caccio e Pepe in a pedestrian part of the area (http://www.osteriacacioepepe.it/). We called ahead since there were 6 of us and our table was ready and waiting. We enjoyed the food and the casual atmosphere of the Osteria. The Trastevere also has a couple of churches worth visiting.
Of course, this walk around the Trastevere ended up in food… There is always good food in Rome to be found whether on your own or with a food tour!
(Picture taken with Canon EOS Rebel T1I)
I discovered a hidden gem in Chicago: The Palmer House! After the neat architecture boat tour of the city that my fellow travel bloggers and I did in our tweeetup, and after walking through Millenium Park admiring the Cloud Gate, the water statues (whatever they are called), etc., one of our local tweetuppers suggested that we headed to the Palmer House to give our legs a rest and have a drink in a unique place in Chicago.
Of course, that sounded good to all of us so we said yes not fully knowing what to expect (blessed ignorance!). We were in for a REAL treat. The Palmer House has one of the more elegant hotel lobbies I have seen in a while! Sitting there to have drinks (and people watch) was a nice break from the more visitor sightseeing we had done that day. It was elegant, magnificent, and alive – tons of people either for the wedding receptions going on, guests of the hotel, or short-term visitors like us. It is the third reincarnation of the hotel originally built by someone rich for his bride-to-be. The first building burned down in the famous Chicago fire days after opening…
The ceiling of that lobby area is a delight to look at and, to me, the centerpiece of the place. It reminds me of the ceilings around the Vatican Museum or The Hermitage in St. Petersburg. I wish I knew where exactly the building’s architect/designer got their inspiration from. I felt a little inspired myself…
… so I ordered rye Old Fashioned. No, the drink is not on the ceiling but on a mirror-top table – it made for a great contrast with the ceiling as well as for some neat pix of the folks around the table.
While it was definitely great to discover a gem like this without any research (thanks Pola from @jettingaround!), it does highlight a couple of things:
1. Serendipity can lead to great experiences – not having hard plans for every hour of the afternoon, we allowed for opportunities like this to come based on the mood of the moment; or serendipity in other cases can be just simply meandering the lesser streets in a city and pop in to any establishment that catches your eye!
2. Locals can give you some of the best insights on those places off the beaten path!
I don’t know that we found this gem. I certainly didn’t find it. But it “found” me! If you ever go to Chicago, put this on your list of places to sit at and chill – and admire.
Read more about the good times we had in Chicago and how I got to high places.
Do you know other gems like this in Chicago? Please share!
These pictures are not going to enter any contest nor get used for wallpaper anywhere (including my own laptop). But they are very significant. At least to me. See, they represent the first time I got a used camera from someone to use and likely the first pictures I ever took as a 7-8 yr old.
The choice of B&W was not intentional. I don’t recall if my Mom went to buy me the film. I think it is more likely the film was with the unused camera and I just took the film that was there. Color photography had existed FOR YEARS, for the record, when I took these pix 🙂
The pictures are of what seemed the world to me at that time, before I realized I would live to travel (or even that there was much of anything outside of MY world). The pitures are from the world around my home. I lived in this house (in Jardines de Caparra, for those of you who know PR) probably 3 or 4 yrs, about 6 houses away from my grandparents and one of my aunts/uncles. And in the same neighborhood as 3 other aunts/uncles (if I recall correctly).
So, they are not going to do anything special in this world. They only have real value to me (maybe my sister or Mom if they remind them of something from long ago). But they show my first steps of discovery and wonderment at the world out there – worth capturing with an old camera…
Looking to the right of the front porch towards where Skippy, the dog, lived
Of course, I wanted a picture of the sun across the street from (us facing west and towards the river in front of the house). I didn’t know a ring would show on the pic!
A picture of the back of Skippy’s house, notice the bars on windows that have been ever present in the Puerto Rico I knew…
I believe this is the house 4-5 houses down from us towards the corner where one of my buddies lived.
The front of our house. Not sure why I didn’t do the whole facade!
The other neighbor’s house with the “sauce llorón” (weeping willow, I think). Where Meiling lived (she was not Chinese, not sure why the parents chose the name).
If ceilings of The Hermitage or the Sistine Chapel are of interest, may not the cats of B&H equally be of interest to someone out there? OK, technically these are Herzegovinian cats as I didn’t go to the Bosnia part of the Federation of B&H (and I pray they don’t split or I will have to add another country to the list of not visited countries!).
Anyway, these are really just 3 cats I saw in Mostar and Pocitelj. Cats were everywhere though. Everywhere.
Enjoy these feline models! (Click on any picture to enlarge and you will be able to step through all.)
When I was looking for a place to go after my trip to Rome with friends, I literally went online and looked at the possible tours available in countries in the area that I did not know or know well. Not many of those left in that region for me except east of Italy. I look at the tours because it helps me understand what are the key places to see.
I had pondered making Dubrovnik that next place after Rome because it seemed beautiful in the pictures I have seen and some folks in Twitter travel world spoke highly of it. As I reviewed the tours that were possible, I learned that there were 2 UNESCO World Heritage sites in neighboring Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro that were possible as day trips. I would say my ears perked up but it would really have been my eyes, not my ears!
That caught my attention as I have wanted to see more of the former European Communist block and those countries seemed a little less, what’s the word, westernized? modernized? than, say, the Czech Republic for example. I have been to Bulgaria and Poland and the former definitely gave me the best feel for how things may have been in the old days (though, certainly, these countries have made good strides to leave that past behind).
The country is more often than not just called Bosnia but there really is a region of the country called Herzegovina so, at least in this section’s title, I will call it by its full name. But it is too long to type throughout so from now on, Bosnia it is.
Bosnia has had a VERY difficult and horrible recent history. I will not get into that except to say that people seem to get along well enough in the small part of the country I got to see. I will also mention that pockmarks of the violence are still evident in buildings around (that’s also true in Dubrovnik).
Damage from the war
Damage from the war
I ended up signing up through Viator for the day trip. It was to be a long day (about 12 hrs). But it didn’t feel long and drawn out. First, though, an interesting geographical fact is that to get to Mostar (Bosnia, or “B”) from Dubrovnik (Croatia, or “C”) you have to do some border crossing paso-doble. You leave C to enter B and about 9 kms later you leave B to re-enter C, and then you leave C again to enter B and then proceed on to Mostar… See, back when there existed the Republic of Venice (“RoV”) and the Republic of Dubrovnik (“RoD”), the RoD got along better with their Ottoman neighbors than with their RoV neighbors. So they (the RoD) sold a tract of land between RoD and RoV to the Ottomans to serve as a buffer. As history moved on and these 3 players disappeared or morphed or blended, that tract of land remained in what became Bosnia. The first 2 border crossings (C to B, and B back to C) were pretty easy – barely anything happened. But the last one (C to B the 2nd time, you following?) was a lot more formal and slow (almost an hour). The same would be true on the reverse, the initial entry into C from B was long but the last 2 crossings were cake.
We stopped at a hamlet on the way to Mostar called Počitelj (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocitelj). It has a citadel at the top (which I didn’t get to visit) and overlooks the Neretva River which we followed most of the way from entering Bosnia until Mostar. It has really neat stone buildings and the town was of strategic importance back in the day. Besides the architecture, what caught my eye were the stray cats that I saw – they were tempting me to photograph them!
The hamlet of Počitelj
Mostar is an old town across the Neretva river (in Herzegovina!) where a very important Ottoman sultan asked for this bridge to be built (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostar). Most = Bridge. The bridge lasted until it was bombed during the 1990s wars in the area but it was quickly rebuilt using the debris from the original bridge.
The re-built bridge
Steps up the Mostar bridge
On the bridge – a happy traveler!
Looking at old town from the bridge
Old town from the bridge
The old town is very charming and, by now, has the usual range of tourist shops but yet it retains a different air from its unique position geographically and in history near important crossroads across different cultures and temporal kingdoms. It is hard to describe but you do feel it is a land with connected yet different circumstances throughout history than Dubrovnik.
Along a shopping street in old town
Café
Faded but beautiful colors
Around old town
Around old town
Outside of old town
Nearby mountains
Mostar was held a lot of charm even if it did not have such an iconic and laden-with-meaning bridge. Check it out if you can!
One of the most pervasive sights during the day trip!
Pin this image to your travel board!!
It all started with a friend telling me: “I am going to visit my cousin in Trinidad & Tobago over Thanksgiving, do you want come?” Well, the answer to that question is always “yes” (it is like a genetic thing with me) though then I have to check: can I, really. My parents would be in the midst of a move. Work was not in a hectic period. I could use points for more than half of the hotel stay. But my hometown airline didn’t travel to/from the destinations. My friend told me the relative was a foreign diplomat in T&T and that Curacao was also being thrown into the plans for a couple of days. After checking out flight cost, with this other new info, I thought this would be a good opportunity to go to places not in my top 20 but worth checking out nevertheless.
So, following my gut, like I did with the Greece opportunity, I went for it with less than a month’s notice. Phenomenal!
The flight Port of Spain was about 3.5 hrs from Miami. It was later in the evening so it was a mellow flight. We landed and the airport was pretty straightforward and on we went. I was dropped off at my hotel (my friend was staying with the relative) and deep sleep based on the late hour (around 1AM, if memory serves me right). The plans were for me to be picked up around 2PM since said-relative had to work part of the day. I did what came naturally to me: sleep in. After that, I unpacked, grabbed coffee, and relaxed outdoors in the pool area. I was picked up a little earlier (around 1PM) and we went for lunch.
Before talking about lunch, let me say I loved the variety of architecture around town. From old houses to modern office buildings, you can find a little bit of everything in Port of Spain!
Now to lunch… the place our local hostess picked offered local cuisine. I guess I need to be more specific since some may say there are two types of local cuisines in T&T… Stepping back, T&T had slaves brought over as most islands in the Caribbean. But, after slavery was abolished, the Brits (so civilized…) brought Indians as INDENTURED workers (read, slaves with pay). I will reserve further opinions on the topic… Anyhow, there is a more traditional Caribbean cuisine with fruit sauces, etc. but there is also Indian cuisine that is fully Trini. So, this first lunch place was more of the Caribbean cuisine but different than the Greater Antilles’ cuisine with which I am more familiar (rice and beans and some meat). The place was called Veni Mangé (come eat in some sort of French) (http://www.venimange.com/) My friend’s cousin (I will call her “the cousin” going forward!) has been there many times and rents a place from a sister of the owner. The place is located in a former house so the architecture appealed to me. The decor seems to be Haitian art (for sale). And the food, oh, the food! We ordered 3 dishes to share so we could try them all. Oxtail with dumplings, fried flying fish, and creole beef with eggplant. Plus side dishes and some tropical red juice from a fruit I didn’t recognize (even if I did grow up in the northern Caribbean…)
The rest of the day we drove around various parts of town. Had some drinks by a yacht club a little north of town (I think by Diego Martin or past it, at least), hanging out at the Hilton outside terrace, and even a stop at a shopping mall (I could have been anywhere in ther U.S.)!
The beach to go to in Trinidad seems to be Maracas Bay. It is a short drive from Port of Spain that includes driving through a beautiful forest and the views of the sea from up high. However, due to some recent rains, the area of Maraval on the outskirts of Port of Spain had sustained high waters from the river and traffic moved slowly through part – however, we counted our blessings because the road had been closed earlier that day.
At some point we stopped on a roadside stand where among the things they sold as various fruits soaked in chadon beni, a delicious mix of cilantro and garlic (sometimes with black pepper too). I tried the mango and it was outstanding (though at first it wasn’t appealing to me).
Maracas was very empty on this weekday and we thought it was due to people avoiding Maraval, not being sure if the road would be passable. But after a little bit, people started appearing and the beach was a little more animated. It was a beautiful setting, not as cove-like as the beaches we would see in Tobago. Locals flock to this beach on the weekends and I can imagine it is a good place to be.
Finally, the thing to do in Maracas is eat bake and shark, a sort of sandwich of shark topped with any number of toppings you self-serve on it. Richard’s is the most famous and I hear they can have long lines. Much to our chagrin, it was closed as they were tiling the floor of the table area (upgrade! they must be doing well). We ate at another one in the area and the bake and shark lived to its fame!
Our hostess suggested we spend a day in Tobago, known for its beaches and more geared to tourism than Trinidad (they have not invested heavily in tourism since they have lots of oil – though you could be forgiven for thinking it is a poor country; where do oil profits go?!). A ferry would take a few hours so we decided to just fly over there in 20 mins. Our flight over was at 8AM and the return was at 9PM. We decided against staying overnight the night before or the night of because we had such limited time in Trinidad & Tobago. Oh, and the day after, we had a 7AM flight to Curaçao! We planned to rent a car and drive around and also our hostess got a hotel room so we could shower before heading back to Trinidad.
The Caribbean Airlines flight was efficient and quick. Picking up the rental car at the Tobago airport was pretty straightforward. Our hotel was pretty close to the airport so we stopped to check it out and have breakfast which was pretty nice.
Unfortunately, neither the car rental agency person nor the hotel clerk were terribly knowledgeable about which beaches were better to explore and our hostess only knew the one by the main resort. The only nugget we got was that maybe Charlotteville and Englishman’s Bay were probably the ones to check out. Charlotteville was on the other end of the island and, given the island is so small, I suggested we go and that we go there first to do the longer drive first and then make our way back to the hotel making stops anywhere we wanted based on the time left.
It took us about 1.5 hrs to make it to Charlotteville driving on a coastal road (the highway) which, though small, was in good condition (this was to be true almost everywhere!). Right before getting to Charlotteville we passed a nice beach which the map had marked with many a SCUBA flag which must mean it has good snorkeling/diving going on. However, it was the morning of a rainy weekday so we didn’t see anyone at the beach.
Charlotteville seemed like a quaint town or village facing the beach. I was to learn many of the beaches here were in cove-like settings which were beautiful but which are very different from the expansive beaches in places like PR, Florida, etc. Again, the weather was not favorable so it was empty. I wish I had seen it with a little more life…
From Charlotteville we started off to Englishman’s Bay halfway back to where we started from. However, a piece of the road was sort of broken up due to rains, I suppose. So, off the car I got to find rocks to cover up the mud. With a deep step on the pedal and an almost empty car, the car passed and on we went. We stopped at Bloody Bay where a school bus full of kids was playing at the beach.
After a quick stop, we kept on going back but somewhere missed a turn. After driving through a beautiful forest-like area (it was a national park, we found out), we surfaced on the other side of the small island so we decided to just keep on going as we were starving. We stopped at a place right before Scarborough called Café Havana. It wasn’t really Cuban but was nice and open and just what we needed. It was next to a beautiful hotel overlooking a small cove. It would certainly be a place to stay at should there be a repeat visit.
Trinidad and Tobago was not in my top 20 of places to go. But this was a good opportunity that offered me seeing some of it through the eyes of a resident which is always better than just being a visitor. And I liked what I saw! I hope to return. Who would have told me at the start of 2011 that I was to see Trinidad & Tobago and Greece in the year? Living with spontaneity brings these happy surprises and new discoveries. Do you have any similar travel destination surprises?
Many moons ago I resumed skiing after a long hiatus. Friends’ parents decided to invite me to their annual family ski trip AS A SURPRISE to my friends. I arrived first in Salt Lake City and made my way to the awesome house at the foot of the Alta ski resort. Their surprise was a great moment and I thank their parents for creating the opportunity.
But I loved re-kindling my enjoyment of skiing and no better resort than Alta since snowboarding was a no-no! My friend’s brother worked at the resort and got us to go on one of the monster machines they use to groom the slopes at night for a beautiful sunset ride. We brought wine and cheese as he drove us up – a thrill ride for sure given the size of the machine and the slopes. But we were rewarded with the view below which I have played with a lot. Check out the view and some of the results of my playing. I would love to hear what you think!
The Magnificent View
Playing with B&W
My Favorite
The Himalayas sound remote and far away? Well, the Andes are ALMOST as tall and with spectacular views too.
You can take a VERY short flight from Santiago, Chile to Mendoza, Argentina (for peanuts if you buy the ticket in Chile) and you get this impressive view. I fell in love with the view in 1991 and it took 19 yrs to see it again. But I did. God’s wonderful work on display!
Barranco Wall – A Great Challenge | Kilimanjaro Day 4
Preparing to Hike Kilimanjaro: More than Training & Gear
Descending from Kilimanjaro’s Summit | Kilimanjaro Day 6 and 7
Jordan’s Wadi Rum: Not Just for Lawrence of Arabia
On the Machame Route | Kilimanjaro Day 1
Tanzania’s Lake Manyara: A Cool and Easy Safari
Gear for Climbing Kilimanjaro | Clothing
A Fourth of July Celebration – Atlanta’s Peachtree Road Race
A Few Good Things to Do in Willemstad, Curacao
Photo Essay of the Center of Moldova’s Capital: Chisinau
