venezia
italy - the country of the best wine, the only pizza, passionate temperament, captivating architecture, and creative people. one could say that i like it, and indeed i do. so it was in nervous anticipation that i was going to venice to engulf myself in delaying splendour in the week before christmas, and despite the cold this proved to be a perfect time to go, as it equalled to a sparse number of tourists. renate’s invitation and company, who booked a lovely hotel for us right behind piazza san marco, made this trip even more special... man what a present... one that lasts for 4 days, that is 96 hours, or 5760 seconds, and i loved every single one of them.

our arrival on monday afternoon was greeted with rain, which scared us greatly, yet the promises of the hotel staff that the next day would be sunny became a true prophecy and so i found myself at sunrise on piazza san marco taking pictures of sleepy pigeons and not tourist obscured buildings. the next days passed like in a dream. renate and i walked through nearly every street of the old quarters, from san marco to san polo, santa croce, and cannaregio, taking in as many piazzas as cappuccini – after all it was cold, real cold, and one has to rest the cobble treading feet and warm the filled core in regular intervals, doesn’t one? and then there was the shopping, the stylish leather bags in black/red which of course i could not resist, the black/golden mask, the clothe and of course the woolly hats that i purchased in seemingly regular intervals in order to keep my ears from falling off. the latter proved to be a marvellous idea when i decided to take a boat to s. giorgio and take the lift up the campanile di s. giorgio maggiore. now in case you have no idea what i am talking about i give you a hint, despite a crystal clear sky the temperatures where rather low, especially for someone who just popped over from the tropics, and the on top of the campanile was proportionate to the height of the tower. but it was worth it, because who would want to miss the view?

in short it was brilliant, i loved every canal, every house, every gondola, every meal, every, well everything. but if i had to list the absolute highlights i would have to say the top favourite would be the osteria “sora al ponte” right behind the fish market, which had not only the friendliest staff but also the most amazing food at even more amazingly low prices. another memorable moment would be the first sight of the ponto di rialto at night and the late evening baroque concert in a converted church building which are in a head to head race with the taxi boat rides along the canale grande in dazzling sunshine.

i think these were my absolute highlights, but of course i cannot speak for you, so there is only one thing for you to do right now, go and see for yourself, before the lagoon swallows the entire town.

Hanoi Hanoi
as part of their septemberal visit to asia, katja, tarik of the wondrous age of 20 months, and i ventured on a 10 day trip to vietnam. a choice that seemed appropriate thanks to super-cheap tigerairways rates, and the millions of tours on offer in the country. both adults of the team usually prefer individual exploration over organised tours, but with tarik around tours became a rather enticing option. so of we went to the northern capital of the indochina country; drawn by the renowned beauties of ha long bay and the prospect of shopping, and shopping, and some more shopping, and... well... more.
the hotel we booked online turned out to be not only nice, helpful, and friendly, but also super conveniently located around the corner from a wonderfully cosy local caffee, and next to a local beer hoi place. these places sell locally brewed beer at rock bottom prices, provide you with a free flow of peanuts in shells, and offer local food, in our case fantastically yummy local food - trying that tofu in tomato sauce means remembering it forever.

the fist two days we spend wandering around the thousand little streets of hanoi's old quarters, looking at a million shops, with xillion things to offer, hoping that the typhoon that blew in from the east would not hit us, but stay instead in the central parts of the country. but with ha long bay as the main drawing factor we decided to check bbc weather hourly and to book the tour anyway. and it was worse taking the risk! the typhoon stayed in central vietnam, bringing chaos and distraction, but we only got a bit of rain. in a way it made me feel awkward; here am i on a great holiday while only a few 100km south people are loosing their lives and homes to a typhoon – it made me feel very privileged and gave even more meaning to finally seeing one of the most spectacular world heritage sites. and man, if ever there were ever places of stunning natural beauty ha long bay is for sure one of them! we spend 3 days on a boat going around the million little islands, rocks, and outcrops, and every minute was as spectacular as the next.
but let me tell you our passport story:

in vietnam one has to surrender ones passport on check-in into the hotel. we left it at that and considered the passport more safe in the hotel then in our bags while cruising through tourist country, but when we came cat ba island - the major island in ha long bay where we spend the first night of our trip in a hotel - they told us that we needed our passport to get permission to sleep on the boat the following night. now, nobody mentioned this to us before, and, with the boat being a local vietnamese junk and it sailing vietnamese waters one would not exactly expect a passport control, would one? well i asked the guide for help and he did a phone call, on my expense of course, to the hotel, shouted a bit, and then gave firm directions: bring the passports to the agency, they will put it on the next morning’s mini-bus to ha long bay, the guide will give it to our boat’s captain, and we will get it on boarding the vessel! i thanked him, and was happy, while all the other tourists considered me mad. the emotional difference was initiated by the fact that our fellow travellers had great doubt in the organisational skills and trustworthiness of the locals, while i knew from experience that such seemingly crazy schemes work like clockwork, because nobody who is a link in the organisational chain will want to loose face by being responsible for the loss of the passport and therefore make 1000% sure that it reaches the next link. and, voila, on stepping onto the boat the next day we were unceremonially presented with our passports - problem solved :)

after a spectacular sunset in ha long bay and a night on the boat we returned to hanoi, and rested a day before planning further excursions into the nearby tam coc and perfumed pagoda. both daytrips included a boat ride along the river, but while tam coc is sporting high cliffs and caves, the river journey to the perfume pagoda is set in a far more gentle landscape. tam coc has been made famous in the ever so boring film indochine, but unlike the film the landscape is truly breathtaking, with the river flowing in between rugged cliffs, before going underground, only to appear again at the other end. the second boat ride brought us to the hill that hold the perfume pagoda, which is a cave-pagoda, and a place of true spiritual energy. to be honest it is hard to say which of the trips was best, i would not want to miss a single one of them ...

back in hanoi we used the last two days to eat as much of the yummy food as we could, including mooncake in our personal celebration of the mid-autumn festival, wash it down with huge amounts of vietnamese coffee and beer hoi, visit the mid-autumn festival market, and to shop until we dropped, or better to say, until tarik got too bored to bare :) but because we are also culturally interested people we visited a fair few temples and concluded our trip with the matinee show of the otherwise totally booked out water-puppet show, and what a finale to a truly spectacular trip.
The summary:
- tarik does not like to be rained on
- a plastic bags on your head is as good as a raincoat
- the southern Vietnamese are warmer than the northern ones
- the north has the most spectacular landscape
- Hanoi offers the world-best shopping
- beer hoi is great
- my advise, go and see for yourself...

Summer in Europe

now - that the european winter is trying to push open the gateways, a bit late, or so i am told, but still pushing, trying to cool down the entire country until it is dazzling in snowy white - i am finally adding my european summer story to this trip.

august 2006 saw the wedding of my younger sister, kind of funny to think about her, my little sister to get married, and in some way it is still a strange thought to me. i still see her as the little girl that she once was, at a time when i was also a little girl, maybe a bit bigger, but still small, and now, wham bang shebang, she is married... ups, where did this come from... well presumably from meeting the right guy at the right time... and he certainly is the right guy, or so i think. so here they are the newly weds, or by now not- quite- so- newly- weds- anymore, my granny dancing her pants off, renate, girls-disco-gallore, 99 luftballons, the bride maid and best man, and... well just go and have a look :)








but, now to something totally different: abruzzo
making most of my trip to europe i decided to go to italy with uli, and with moltepulciano d'abruzzio being my favourite wine and ryanair going to pescara i decided that this might just be the place to go. and as the region is one big wild places with wolves and bears and the lot the decision was an easy one to make.... so there we went on a 5 day abruzzo galore.
now here the abruzzo story in short:

uli and i flew to pescara, landed 30min after a major hailstorm that left all the rental car at the airport dented, persuaded a rather cute italian to rent one of them to us anyway, got a blue turbo diesel fiat panda - my dream car - and off we went riding into the sunset in hot pursuit of a room, which we eventually found long after nightfall, asking in many dubious places and by following a pick up truck to a lone guesthouse in some remote village somewhere in the mountains. at this time location mattered little, neither did price, all we needed was a bed, and we got it, together with a good meal and a bottle of the above mentioned vine.

the next day saw us driving across la maiella region in hot pursuit of the, for me, long awaited parco nationale d'abruzzo, where we had another afternoon fun trying to find a room. somehow we forgot that the very week in august was the busiest in the italian travel calendar, with a public holiday and school holidays all in one, resulting in a rather competitive room search situation, featuring two germans versus the entire population of rome and a third of italy. but, because we were persistent, positive and shrewd we managed to get a fantastic room in a fantastic village in a fantastic location, right smack bang in the middle of the national park, away from the huge tourist hype, for a decent price and with a village that held the cheapest and best pizzeria, offering the local wine (see above) at ridiculously cheep prices, of which we made ample use, of course :)
making most not only of the wine and pizza, we went on a superb walk into the mountains - the information officers in the park told us that bears are not to be seen in august, because they are too scared of all the tourists, so we opted for scenery and horses as the decorative big mammals which turned out to be a superbly beautiful choice. then, after another night of wine and pizza, off we went to the northern mountains of the grand sasso and santo stefano, a beautiful medici stronghold on top of the mountains, full of low archways, round towers, little nukes and corners, and of course a brilliant restaurant for us to indulge in… ah what culinary pleasures! pleasures that furbished us with enough strength to take on the gigantic landscape of the campo imperatore the next day, which we traversed before slowly returning to pescara via the medieval town of penne. now as me if abruzzo is worth a visit and i will ask you what are you waisting your time with? go! go! go! go! go!