The music of Silence

the most beautiful sound on earth... absolute silence and yet, you hear music
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Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Milan May 2018

Milan

Duomo at night
I stopped in Milan main train station on my way to Venice 12 years ago without visiting the city.
Railway station in Milan
 It's great that Li Li and her baby gave me a reason to visit the city again this trip =)
Lunch with Li Li and her baby
Lunch at a traditional Creperia with her
My first impression of this city is utter chaos as landing at  airport at 11pm , having to figure out ItaliaRail, credit card not accepted at the ticket machine, 50 euros notes not being accepted, without a map to the city or anyone to ask for instructions to just know where i'm going is .. not fun.

But thankfully there's a really nice Italian girl who was going the same way as me, helped me find the train to Milan downtown, waited for me after getting out of the train to connect the subway and showed me exactly where to go etc. I am forever thankful to her even though I didn't get a name. But it shows good and helpful people do exist and I am truly grateful for her help in my time of need.

Milan is famous for shopping, the Duomo and The last Supper =)

We end up booking Duomo terraces tickets and it's certainly beautiful seeing all the terraces close by.


View of the Terrace
Madonna in the Duomo
Inside the Duomo
The Duomo square from the Terrace
We had to booked The Last Supper tickets via a tour as official tickets are sold out for months. The most interesting aspect of this is how Da Vinci captured the light and luminescence in the whole painting and how he managed to keep the light away from Judas which give the impression that Judas has a dark face and white neck.
This painting has suffered significant damage, and restoration was very well done. But the result of this was manic control in allowing visits (rude security, rude reception, evacuation of groups after 15 mins, how dare you even breathe in this room!) Certainly not the most pleasant experience.
The last supper

Tickets and restorations done on Last Supper

Also, the most famous shopping center in the world, Galleria Vittorio Emanule
Again, good place to find Prada, LV etc all in one place.
Galleria Vittorio E on the outside
On the inside
But as i can't afford those, we bought Savini ice cream there instead =) and it's yum!


Savini Ice cream with the best pistachio flavour! from Sicily pistachio

We also realized Milan has a canal area and had our aperitivo experience there.
Naviglio Grande area
As far as i can tell, it's to eat a snack with a drink before dinner.
Apertivo moment
The recommendation is cocktail with Campari coupled with homemade snacks.

Aperitivo moment
One interesting site was the Milan main cemetery. It has a lot of interesting sculptures and tomb stones. I enjoyed hunting them down with Cristina on Sunday morning =)
Main cemetery building

Inside the main building
Collection
Collection



The last supper! 

Other sights in Milan and one thing to note is not a lot of food in this trip as the hotel provided breakfast and dinner =) next time!

Milan castle wall
Vertical forest
Colorful everything.. from pasta to candies!


Monday, May 14, 2018

La Rioja May 2018

La Rioja
The wine region in Spain.
La Rioja view from one of the towns
I was surprised by the volume and miles and miles of vineyards but on 2nd thoughts, maybe i shouldn't be =)

Logrono
This is the capital of La Rioja region and we choose to stay there as it has more options for accommodations and restaurants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logro%C3%B1o
Logrono doesn't have a lot of interesting sites but has lots of great tapas restaurants ^_^. They are famous for this 4 square blocks that contains more than 50 tapas restaurants, with a lot of them specializing in one particular tapa.
Calle Laurel with the tapas restaurants
The first night that we are there, there's a pincho specials where you can get 1 tapa and a glass of wine for $1.50. After 7 tapas, i'm ready for bed =) (And no, i didn't finish 7 glasses of wine ^_^)
The first night of tapas in Pincho porto
Wine ice cream in Logrono
Briones
There are small villages/towns around Logrono that we visited just to highlight some of the castles and churches and the views.
The first city that we visited is Briones with a nice church and a medieval city
The church in Brion
View of the vineyards and the famous wine museum in Briones
Haro
This is where we choose our winery Muga. It's a very traditional winery that still age wine only in oak barrels.

 Interestingly they produce their own barrels (the huge tanks and smaller barrels) themselves as they have one of the few barrel-making master in Spain. The maestro will go to France every 5 years to bid on the oak tree that they want for making the barrels
Barrel producing area in the winery
After they made the barrel, they will toast the barrel to produce the different flavours.
One thing that's interesting about La Rioja wine is the aging is what determines the quality and the price of the wine. The grape varietals seems to be an afterthought and frequently not even labelled on the bottle.

After the wine visit, we made our way to more tapas bar hopping in Haro, with Bar Benigno and Meson de Berones
Lunch at Haro
Bastida, San Vicente & La Guardia
After lunch, we made our way for more sightseeing.
View from La Bastida church
View of the Ebro from San Vicente
La guardia medieval town
La Portico de Santa Maria del Reyes in La Guardia
Mini Gugeinheim hotel in Elciego
For dinner, we made our way back to Calle Laurel in Logrono and had more fun tapas bar hopping
Bar soriano for grilled mushroom, Bar CID for grilled setas, a bar for patatas bravas that's crazy crowded, Tio Lorenzo for grilled lamb, pulpo tapas and torrecilla for grilled foie
Tarazona
On Sunday, we stop at this town on our way back to Barcelona and saw a very impressive cathedral.
The streets of Tarazona, with the red bricks
The cathedral in Tarazona
It is a mix of Gothic, Renaissance and Muderja architecture which is quite wild.
Beautifully restored as well.
Altar of the cathedral
side chapel
Bull ring in the city re-purposed as housing

Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Lisbon and Sintra day trip May 2018

Lisbon
The city of Lisbon from the hill top
Woo hoo.. finally i got a chance to visit Portugal.
This has been on my to-do list as one of the country that i haven't visited in my life =)
I am pleasantly surprised by how nice and helpful everyone is in Portugal, and also how easy to get around Portugal with English.

What i learned about this trip is Lisbon really got reborn after the 1755 earthquake, rebuilt by the 1st Marquess of Pombai.
The statue of the 1st Marquess
As i'm curious about Portuguese food, I decide to start the day with a food tour of the Mouraria area and was pleasantly surprised by how many places we stop and the amount of alcohol that was served! They certainly knows how to party!
Food tour group. There's 2 groups of English (one bride-to-be with her bridesmaid group and another housewives group). First step: Port wine at 1030am
While the tour guide is not the most dynamic or talkative about the history of Lisbon, she is certainly very passionate and proud about her country and their food.

2nd stop : Bifana (Portugese pork sandwich cooked with wine and garlic) with a glass of beer
3rd stop: Charcoal grilled cod fish with chicken sausage and salad. Free flow of house wine
4th stop: Cheese and Jamon from Portugal, together with tasting appetizers, Free flow of red and white wine AGAIN! this is in a lovely restaurant inside the Independent palace
5th stop: dried fig with walnut, accompanied by sour cherry liquor  (Ginjinha)


Finally, Portuguese egg tart.. yum
The Mouraria area is getting gentrified in Lisbon whose real estate value is going off the chart. I can certainly imagine a lot of pressure trying to reclaim those land and rebuilt the area. But in the meantime, it's certainly interesting to walk around the streets and look at the street art.
Great street art
I also learned that Lisbon is made up of 7 hills and hence there are a few secret elevators =) the locals actually avoid climbing the hills by knowing where all the secret elevators are and taking them from hill to hill!
One of the secret elevators
After being stuffed full of Portuguese food and wine, I'm certainly not motivated to rush to any other places =) I saw Tram 28 and decide to hop on it and see where it takes me. It's certainly interesting that it really ends at nowhere and all the tourists just took it back to the starting line again! A good way for the tram company to earn 6 euros and yes, i feel like a dumb tourist =)
2 of the 28 tram side by side
Aquaduct of Lisbon
Sintra and Cascais day tour
My 2nd day in Lisbon, I I wanted to see the Portugal Riviera. So I decide to a 8 hour day tour to Sintra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintra
The city of Sintra and the coast from Pena Palace
It turned out to be a great trip with Patricia as the tour guide and 7 other tourists and everyone is punctual, polite and really nice on the trip.
Going up the coast, i can see the beautiful waters that stays cold all year round as it's Atlantic Ocean.
The beautiful coastline of Portugal Riviera
First stop is Caiscas is an interesting village.
The harbour area
It mean shell and was meant to be a throw-away town. But the Portugal king like it as a holiday destination and developed the village. It has a good mix of local fishermen and the rich & famous.
There's a casino in there where Ian Fleming started thinking and writing about James Bond!
The town of Caiscas
After Cascais, we went to Cabo da Roca which is the most western point of Europe.
OF course i need a picture of this =)
And i'm at the end of the world!
Beautiful wild flower season, with the Atlantic ocean backdrop
Pena Palace is up next, which is a really cute and colorful palace. It reminds me of Aladdin's land!
The best picture of the castle.. colorful eh! 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pena_Palace
The rooms and furnishing inside the palace
19th century stain glass on display in the castle
After the Pena Palace, we went to Sintra town and I had a great lunch at Tacho de Real with a grilled seabass and a scallop gratin.
My yummy lunch
After that, we went to this park Quinta de Regaliera which is quite spooky.
It has a very dracula-like castle that won't be out of place for Halloween!

Spooky castle
Pretty furnishing of the chapel and the castle
Choir singing in the amphitheater
There's some mystical masonry affiliation and the reborn of the person after going to the 7th level of hell =)
Climbing through the stone levels signifies a reborn of the person

7th level of hell-hole
Exiting from the hell-hole into water


Pastry that's typical in Sintra

My usual captures of fun things in the city