Blogs from Brindisi, Apulia, Italy, Europe - page 3

Ok...here goes yet another effort to post pictures. With Beth's technical assistance I think that the problem may be resolved. Eureka! Success. The problem was that I was trying to post high resolution photos and the file was too large. I bought a new camera to take photos with more pixels (those little Tinkerbelle creatures) for the travel book I am working on. Trying to post those photos wasn't working so Beth did some technical stuff and it worked. Solution: use two cameras. One for blog posting and one for the book project. I can't be bothered with that technical crap!!! Next up, the long awaited Daytrip to the Gargano Peninsula. After that, a trip to London! Yep, we have a three day weekend coming up and we will head to London. That will be ... read more

It took a while to get this posted. We went on spring break the last week of March. Just as I started to download photos my last battery went dead. We went through the futile exercise of trying to find batteries for the camera in town. Life here ain’t about convenience! Prior to our departure, out good friend Muhammed at Piazza di Vino told us that the USA is the most convenient place to live in the world. He wasn’t kidding. So anyway, I went online and ordered batteries from a place in the UK. Our trip went off without a hitch. We would have liked to have departed on Friday evening, but flights are limited out of Brindisi. We flew Alitalia to Rome then to Torino and then drove to La Thuile. The flights ... read more

We had given up hope of finding a wine shop where I could make myself at home. Wine bars in the manner of those found in the USA aren’t in vogue here in Italy. We had resigned ourselves that such a place didn’t exist and so I had given up that ambition. Then the wine gods smiled upon us. A couple of weeks ago, our good friend Vincenzo suggested that we go get a pizza at a salumeria (Italian deli) that he liked. By sheer coincidence, our favorite grocer, Antonio had also told us of the same place. Antonio had words of praise for the owner’s wine collection. Serendipity smiled that day. It turned out that not only did this place have fabulous wines in stock, they make the very best pizza in all of ... read more

This means “a snack” in Italian. And in Italy and many other cultures, if it walked, ran, galloped, waddled, flew, burrowed, swam, etc. etc., it is fair game for eating. Well, I was recently introduced to the fine art of eating ricci or sea urchin; Italian style of course. Since I hadn’t ever eaten sea urchin, our good friend Vincenzo wouldn’t stand for this shortcoming in my life and insisted that I must have some ricci. So Vincenzo and Sara came over with a couple of dozen urchins in a plastic bag. Sea urchin can be found by diving for them or find them clinging to rocks in the shallows. According to Vincenzo, the best tasting ones are the ones in deeper water. It is too cold for diving this time of year and so we ... read more

I meant to post this earlier but forgot that I wrote it and didn't add it to the entries. Geezerdom is hard on a fella's memory! This is from two weekends ago. No photos on this one. I originally thought about titling this “When Bloggers Meet, Hilarity Ensues.” Beh, Friday night we went out to dinner with Jeff (inPuglia.Blogspot.com) to a restaurant that neither of us has eaten at. We dined at the ristorante Marco Aurelio and concluded that it was about 20-25 euro per person more than it actually was worth. It reminded me of a previous dining experience at a place called La Corniche. We did like the interior, but again it was another one of those brightly lit and the music doesn’t match the décor kind of places. I’m not saying that the ... read more