Great moments with friends - Batumi 2013
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Sunday, March 2, 2014
Italy al dente (6)
Student's night
We reached Giulia's place quite late. Our host served fantastic dinner - rice on butter with saffron and cheese and lemoncello (sweet lemonish liquor). After we went for Student's Night. Every Wednesday night students gather in the city, drink and have fun.
We managed to reach the place before bar were closed. We bought two bottles of local wine and drank it to celebrate Giulia's exam and end of out Italin trip.
We reached Giulia's place quite late. Our host served fantastic dinner - rice on butter with saffron and cheese and lemoncello (sweet lemonish liquor). After we went for Student's Night. Every Wednesday night students gather in the city, drink and have fun.
We managed to reach the place before bar were closed. We bought two bottles of local wine and drank it to celebrate Giulia's exam and end of out Italin trip.
Problem in Bologna
Next day we woke up late as we wanted to be fresh after long way home. We ate fantastic fresh vegetables from market and not so tasty bread and we started to pack. How did we manage to place all souvenirs in bags? Easily, we left our towels at Giulia's place :D Oh, Justyna was almost heartbroken to leave her beloved bedsheet.
30 minutes later we were on train station. Unfortunatelly, ticket mashine didn't have change so it printed "ticket" to exchange for money in ticket office. As we had only few minutes till our train, we decided we will take money in Bologna and there we made two mistakes:
1. Instead of exchanging ticket to money immediately we decided to drink coffee first;
2. We forgot to check the time of flight on tickets.
Effects: one hour (!) of waiting in queue to ticket office and stress if we will get on board. (we needed money from this ticked to take ATC Aerobus).
We reached airport 10 minutes before closing the gate and another problem happened at security check. Border guard discovered something during scan of Justynas bag - what the hell? We don't have anything metal there! Wrong! After taking out ALL things from Justyna's bag, border guard saw corkscrew in J's handbag. True, last night we used it to open wine bottle and we totally forgot about it. Shame on us. Well, luckily we were on time to pass the gate, even if with opened bags and clothes hanging on our arms. Probably they saw how desperated we were.
Next day we woke up late as we wanted to be fresh after long way home. We ate fantastic fresh vegetables from market and not so tasty bread and we started to pack. How did we manage to place all souvenirs in bags? Easily, we left our towels at Giulia's place :D Oh, Justyna was almost heartbroken to leave her beloved bedsheet.
30 minutes later we were on train station. Unfortunatelly, ticket mashine didn't have change so it printed "ticket" to exchange for money in ticket office. As we had only few minutes till our train, we decided we will take money in Bologna and there we made two mistakes:
1. Instead of exchanging ticket to money immediately we decided to drink coffee first;
2. We forgot to check the time of flight on tickets.
Effects: one hour (!) of waiting in queue to ticket office and stress if we will get on board. (we needed money from this ticked to take ATC Aerobus).
We reached airport 10 minutes before closing the gate and another problem happened at security check. Border guard discovered something during scan of Justynas bag - what the hell? We don't have anything metal there! Wrong! After taking out ALL things from Justyna's bag, border guard saw corkscrew in J's handbag. True, last night we used it to open wine bottle and we totally forgot about it. Shame on us. Well, luckily we were on time to pass the gate, even if with opened bags and clothes hanging on our arms. Probably they saw how desperated we were.
Back in Poland
Fortunaltelly, that was the end of our problems and we reached home safely. I think that this trip I will never forget ;)
Monday, February 24, 2014
Cat show =^.^=
We love cats, especially Tengo. When I saw ad that soon there will be one cat show in our city, I knew we would go. And we went. Here you can see some photos.
P.S. Sorry for possible mistakes in photos description - we're fans, not professionals.
British shorthair
Norwegian Forest
British shorthair
British shorthair
Sphynx
Main Coon
Sphynx
Ragdoll
Siberian
Main Coon
Bengal
Home cat
Sphynx playing with ribbon
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Closer look on roses and tulips
Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.
Luther Burbank
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Our motivation
Few quotes important for us and songs, which makes us want to pack our bags and take a step on a road to nowhere.
The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sightseeing."
Daniel J. Boorstin
The soul of the journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases.
William Hazlitt
The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see. The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.
Gilbert Chesterton
If there is a nice place, and the place does not come to you - you have to come to the place.
Tony Wheeler
It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ernest Hemingway
Friday, February 7, 2014
Venice on photos
Venice is a city of small streets and many, many bridges.
The Grand Canal
Piazza San Marco - yeah, nothing interesting there...
Venice is famous for it's carnival tradition and distinctive masks ;)
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Padova one more time
Time for more photos from Padova.
First, Prato :)
marketplace on Prato
Basilica of St . Anthony (Basilica di Sant'Antonio)
Botanical Garden (Orto Botanico)
Friday, January 17, 2014
Italy al dente (5)
Piazza San Marco? Nothing interesting is here...
We woke up at 8:00 because Giulia had to go to college. During the morning coffee we decided to go on a day trip to Venice. Luckily, Justyna agreed to go with me to the station on foot. Great! On the way we passed Prato (of course) and the local market. Lured by the sight and smell of fruits we bought huge strawberries, tomatoes, grapes and ... kumquats. Kumquats are small citrus-like fruit with orange rind. The saleswoman gave us a short course of eating: take fruit in your hand ,wipe it and eat. Skin of kumquats is thin and easy to chew. We took two handfuls, paid and moved on. On the way we passed the Basilica of St . Anthony (Basilica di Sant'Antonio) and Botanical Garden (Orto Botanico). The Basilica is beautiful. In the middle you can find relics of St. Anthony, including its language (that will remain in the memory for long). Basilica was built in the place of burial of the body Anthony of Padua. The only part of his body which does not degrade it the pink tongue.
If someone wants to have a picture of a saint I suggest a walk to the garden at the Basilica (please follow the arrows). There you can find a statue of Anton - a link between heaven and earth.
Orto Botanico is located around 100 meters from Il Santo, however you need to look carefully to find the entrance. Tickets are not expensive. Moreover, school children pay half price and students enter for free. Nice Mr. Ticketer let us inside on our Polish students cards. Maybe Polonia fan? It was end of March and much of the plants lied still in the ground. But what we saw is worth every minute spent in the garden. We really felt spring. Cruising through the alleys you can get to cactus paradise - succulents have there ideal conditions for growth (and Justyna had perfect conditions for photography). On the way back we discovered the green door to the land of great moisture - room for tropical plants :)
As it was almost noon we decided to move towards stazione. We avoided queues by buying tickets (2.95 €) in the machine and this time we knew to validate them. It was really hot in train but fortunately trip was not long. First thing we did in Venice was to eat rest of fruits as we didn't want them to turn into wine ;) This small picnik lasted almost two hours. Yes, we took some time to tan a little bit and then we moved in search of pizza. Memo for the future:never buy pizza in Italy from Vietnamese. Pizza tastes a bit different and is very oily.
Venice has its charm - numerous bridges, a lot of alleys and bizarre passages. And the boats. A lot of boats. Once, I would like to life for a long time in this town and see how is the life of an ordinary inhabitant of the city on the water. Justyna forced me to eat eat ice cream. Blackberry taste was not a good choice. Or maybe it was this pizza ... Well, we moved on. Still, we had to visit Piazza San Marco. Fortunately, it's not hard to find a right way in Venice. Finally, we reached the place. For a moment I was speachless. Justyna commended the view in different way: "Uh , nothing interesting". Nevertheless, we took some photos and went back to Padova.
*** The whole pizza with olives cost us around 7 € , a large scoop of ice cream 1 or 1.5 € .
If someone wants to have a picture of a saint I suggest a walk to the garden at the Basilica (please follow the arrows). There you can find a statue of Anton - a link between heaven and earth.
Orto Botanico is located around 100 meters from Il Santo, however you need to look carefully to find the entrance. Tickets are not expensive. Moreover, school children pay half price and students enter for free. Nice Mr. Ticketer let us inside on our Polish students cards. Maybe Polonia fan? It was end of March and much of the plants lied still in the ground. But what we saw is worth every minute spent in the garden. We really felt spring. Cruising through the alleys you can get to cactus paradise - succulents have there ideal conditions for growth (and Justyna had perfect conditions for photography). On the way back we discovered the green door to the land of great moisture - room for tropical plants :)
As it was almost noon we decided to move towards stazione. We avoided queues by buying tickets (2.95 €) in the machine and this time we knew to validate them. It was really hot in train but fortunately trip was not long. First thing we did in Venice was to eat rest of fruits as we didn't want them to turn into wine ;) This small picnik lasted almost two hours. Yes, we took some time to tan a little bit and then we moved in search of pizza. Memo for the future:never buy pizza in Italy from Vietnamese. Pizza tastes a bit different and is very oily.
Venice has its charm - numerous bridges, a lot of alleys and bizarre passages. And the boats. A lot of boats. Once, I would like to life for a long time in this town and see how is the life of an ordinary inhabitant of the city on the water. Justyna forced me to eat eat ice cream. Blackberry taste was not a good choice. Or maybe it was this pizza ... Well, we moved on. Still, we had to visit Piazza San Marco. Fortunately, it's not hard to find a right way in Venice. Finally, we reached the place. For a moment I was speachless. Justyna commended the view in different way: "Uh , nothing interesting". Nevertheless, we took some photos and went back to Padova.
*** The whole pizza with olives cost us around 7 € , a large scoop of ice cream 1 or 1.5 € .
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Kazbegi - amazing nature
Kazbegi is a northern side of Georgia. This place is 1740 meters above sea. Winter there is cold and summer is cool. The name of a town - Kazbegi was called in 1925 in Soviet times and in 2006 it returned its original name Stepantsminda, from saint Stephan, Georgian Orthodox monk. The town is located among huge mountains. One of the most famous peak is Shani and the height of this mountain is 4451 meters above the sea. The nature of course is very beautiful. You can enjoy here horse ridding, paragliding and rafting but this last will be a little bit dangerous because the river Tergi is very fast and rocky. Here you can enjoy some traditional food like Khinkali. If you like climbing this is a nice place to feel some adrenaline and extreme. There are plenty of guest houses, hotels and hostels in the town in which the locals will treat you with a warm Georgian hospitality.
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Doggie time
I just couldn't stop myself to post those videos :) Yes, I have two crazy dogs. Rico, rusty one, is 4 years old, Tobi, salt-peper Schnauzer, is 3 years old. Usually they make a mess. They like to come back home dirty, to rip their plush toys and to eat doggy snacks.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Italy al dente (4)
Prato!
We could sleep at will 'cause S. didn't have to go anywhere in the morning. We used this opportunity to sleep off our travel and night in town. Finally we got up and went to kitchen for a coffee, polish coffee. Simone didn't have a kettle so we boiled water in a pot, and poured it into glasses (S. didn't have cups either). S. didn't say anything, just smiled and gave us a croissant with jam - typical italian breakfast. Till noon we were sitting in kitchen talking to our host. Then we packed our bags and in the company of our new friends (who managed to return form work), we went to stazione. We took few commemorative photos and bought tickets to Padova (about 8 €). Unfortunately, our fantastic friends forgot to tell us that we should VALIDATE our sbefore entering the platform. Luckily, conductor of the train explained us whole procedure and didn't give mandate for our mistake.
Two hours later we were taning in one of the many parks in Padova, waiting for a message from our new host - Giulia. She took us to her home despite of a serious exam she had the next day. Not wanting to disturb her in learning, we went to Prato della Valle.
Prato is a big green square with a fountain in the middle. It is surrounded by a small 'moat' and two vertebrae of famous figures' statues. It makes great impression. We were siting there with Justyna until late evening. In the end, we moved in search of pizza. We found one nice place near Prato. We also ordered spritz (;)) - the flagship drink of Veneto region. Difference in taste between original spritz and bolognan one is big.
Munching olives we returned to G.'s flat.
*** Tickets for the train can be bought in vending machines at the train station. They have a bilingual menu, you can choose Italian or English laguage. WARNING! Tickets must be validated before boarding.
*** In Italy is no student discounts for travel on buses and trains, even for holders of ISIC card.
*** Italians probably have the lights just to make world colorful. :D
*** Ticket for 75 minutes ride in tramp costs € 1.10 and can be purchased at vending machines at bus stops.
Munching olives we returned to G.'s flat.
*** Tickets for the train can be bought in vending machines at the train station. They have a bilingual menu, you can choose Italian or English laguage. WARNING! Tickets must be validated before boarding.
*** In Italy is no student discounts for travel on buses and trains, even for holders of ISIC card.
*** Italians probably have the lights just to make world colorful. :D
*** Ticket for 75 minutes ride in tramp costs € 1.10 and can be purchased at vending machines at bus stops.
*** Quite large piece of pizza is a cost of 1 - 2 €, also 2 € per spritz or small beer.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Closer look on Bologna
Bologna can be called with three nicknames:
the wise, as one of first Universities was created there;
the red because of special colour of roofs;
the fat because of its cuisine.
Great thing about Bologna are arcades. They will protect you from sun or rain and look fantastic.
It's easy to get lost in the small alleys of Bologna.
Palazzo d'Accursio (or Palazzo Comunale)
Fountain of Neptune (Fontana di Nettuno)
Basilica of San Petronio
Two Towers (Due Torri)
padlocks' bridge on Via Malcontenti
You can also find very fashionable shops there ;)
or go up through forested hill and reach Sanctuary of the Madonna of San Luca and see great panoramic view on city.
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