OMG The Food

No Go Once More

We should have purchased our train tickets in advance, because when we got to the station this morning, the early trains were completely booked, and the earliest we could catch a train was at 4:06 pm. Not a big deal, it just meant we had additional time to explore Rome rather than Bari. We had spent four days in Rome previously, so we thought we might go see the Coliseum which we did not see on the last trip. However, once more, the line-ups were miles long, and we just did not feel like spending our morning standing in a line. 

Great Italian Food

Instead we decided to walk around, and find the restaurant suggested by the host at the Dreamstation (our hotel), and sample some more delicious Italian food. Last night we found the place too late, and had to enjoy a meal across the street. So, instead of reading about a tumble-down Roman ruin, you get to hear about some of the amazing Italian food we have found. 

Beer in a wine glass - an Italian thing?

Last night I had spaghetti, but it was unlike any spaghetti I have ever had. This was sea bream fish with tomato and zucchini in a light sauce. I do not know what they call sea bream on our side of the Atlantic, because I have never seen it available in the stores, but it was one of my favourite fish when we visited Portugal. I was not expecting to see it mixed with pasta however, but my adventurous side prevailed and I ordered it. Absolutely amazing; the best pasta dish I have had in a long time. Little chunks of the fish, mixed with halved cherry tomatoes and shredded zucchini. I allowed Regis to sample it, although it was not a dish I wanted to share.

Regis' Ravioli

Today, Regis pasta dish was the amazing one. She decided to order the ravioli, but did not even ask what was in it. Served with a light basil and tomato sauce, the ravioli was stuffed with another fish, this time grouper, but again she started raving about it on the first bite. My delicious pasta with meat sauce paled in comparison with her ravioli. 

I think she liked it.

Today, as we had time to spare until our train, we ordered an appetizer, and it was equally delicious. Imagine battered deep fried stuffed olives, artichoke blossoms in tempura, and fried vanilla cream. Oh, there was also a couple of pieces of an Italian salami, and this was one occasion where I had to say that the meat was completely overshadowed by the vegetables. 

I cannot wait to see what other surprises the Italian chefs have for me. 

Italy Again

Tired, but still time for wine

Well, after a few glitches, we are off on our latest adventure. While exploring the Internet for possible places to visit I found the Puglia area of Southern Italy. They had these unique conical roofed houses called Trulli, and I thought it might be interesting to rent one of these. I mentioned this to Regis and she was immediately researching the idea.

The first “glitch” arrived when we discovered that these Trulli were in fact originally grain storage barns, but the locals discovered that the tax rate on barns was WAY less than a house so they built these trulli and lived in them. This meant that the majority of them were country houses, and since we try to travel “Car-free”, this was a problem.

A nice Italian beer

Next we discovered a nice interesting historic city in the area where we could find a good selection of apartments to rent. So the trulli idea was discarded in favor of this city called Lecce. We discovered a good selection of apartments that met our requirements. After narrowing it down, we inquired about the ones we liked best. Although most were listed as available, once we actually attempted to rent them they were not. One owner said that he had been renting to a friend who decided he wanted to stay. It seemed that this was the standard; these rentals are given to friends until someone else wants to rent it. They probably give the friends a “deal” until some tourist asked to rent. We ran into this problem so often we almost decided to look elsewhere. Finally we received a positive response and found a nice apartment for a great price. Then we tried to pay for it. Paypal would not accept our payment, nor would the listing company. It seemed that since the owner turned us down once, the system would not allow us to pay. Finally after a phone call to Italy the apartment was held for us without deposit and we could pay upon arrival.

Our Room in Rome

The apartment out of the way we decided to look into renting a car to drive from the airport in Rome to Lecce. This was downright scary. Reviews of most of the car rental agencies reported completely shady and dodgy activity. People reported being charged hundreds of Euros extra when returning the car for strange reasons, and one company routinely called the local police when anyone complained. We decided to take the train . . . .

Then Regis’s mom took ill and was hospitalized two weeks before we were to leave. Although all of Regis’s siblings insisted they were capable of managing their mother’s care while she took her well deserved vacation, she was hesitant. Finally our children offered to come home and help out and her mother rallied (As she usually does) and although will still need care, Regis felt comfortable with leaving her in everyone else’s care. My point is that by this time she NEEDS a vacation.

One Piece At A Time

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Johnny Cash wrote a song called “One Piece At A Time”, (Click if you want to hear the song) where he brought one piece of a Cadillac home from the factory each day in his lunch box and assembled them all into a Frankenstein Cadillac based on a number of models and years. Walking along the roadways here in the city, I think the same thing is happening in reverse, with cars slowly falling apart “One Piece at a Time”.

I started noticing car parts along the sides of the road as I walked, and one day I took my camera and started taking photos of all the bits and pieces I saw.

Some items you see are pretty obvious, such as the assortment of hubcaps. It was the hubcaps that first got me looking at the side of the roads. Alisha had complained of loosing

one of her hubcaps and I found a perfectly good Toyota hubcap sitting leaning against a guardrail. I picked it up, brought it home and sent a photo to Alisha to see if it matched her car. She felt it might, so I actually took it all the way to Ottawa with me only to discover that it did not fit. I’m still looking for a match for her car . . . .

One day I found an obviously newly deposited large bolt sitting on the sidewalk in the freshly plowed snow. It was shiny and new, so I picked it up and put it in my pocket (Never know when you might need a good bolt to MacGyver something). I had to give that nice find up as I found a tractor up the street clearing the sidewalk and the operator quickly switched the machine off to check where it belonged when I showed it to him.

Some of the other stuff I have found has obviously fallen of cars speeding by with their drivers oblivious to the slow dismantling of their vehicles. Body panels, trim pieces, exhaust parts, and even brake pads. Perhaps after years of doing my own auto maintenance I’m more aware of the health of my cars, but I have to wonder if they even noticed the feel of the brakes change when the whole disk brake pad fell out. As well it is amazing how many large nuts and bolts you can see lying on the side of the road. You would think that a large bolt was probably

holding something important together. I have even seen the entire plastic front body section of a car sitting beside the highway, obviously the result of an accident, and the easiest way to get the car home was just to remove the damaged parts – haven’t these people ever heard of Duct-Tape?

 

I’m still on the look-out for Alisha’s hub-cap . . . .

Walking Backwards

No I do not actually mean walking backwards, what I mean is walking a route that you know

Shube at its best

well only doing it in the opposite way you normally do.

Since I discovered that I need to control my blood pressure I have found that walking is particularly effective as keeping it down. I therefore find any excuse to go for a walk. We have a lovely city park within a pleasant walking distance and I enjoy walking a loop of the park every second day. I have one route that takes me in on one end of the park and I walk a loop that takes me almost all the way around the park. Another enjoyable walk which is also a loop takes me through the park and then all the way around Lake Micmac. Both of these loops take around an hour and although Regis teases me that my walks are “boring”, I love seeing how the park changes with the seasons and the weather.

Fall in the park

Because both of these walks are loops, I normally walk them in the same direction every time. However I have discovered that even though I know the routes very well, if I walk the route backwards – starting where I normally end and exiting at my regular starting point, you see different things or see familiar things in a different way.

A family walk in the park

On one route, there is a large rock at one side of the trail, and I walked by it many times, but walking backwards I discovered that it was not just a ordinary rock. Coming upon it from the other direction I could clearly see that it was a failed attempt to cut a shape from the rock, either for a mill stone or perhaps a stone for lining one of the locks in the Shubenacadie canal system. As well there is a particularly attractive section that I have photographed under different lighting and conditions with intentions of painting a picture of it, but coming upon it from the opposite direction you hardly notice it; looks ordinary from the other direction.

Snow and animal footprints

Out of the park is the same; walking in the opposite direction forces you on the other side of the street and I suddenly noticed that although I had passed the houses on that side many times, you do not really take note of the details of the houses on the other side of the street.

Want to make a routine walk a bit more interesting? Try walking it backwards.

Gears & Levers

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Train Parts

I love anything mechanical. Give me gears, cogs, levers and any sort of engine and I love it. I love cars, motorcycles, boats and trains. If it moves with an engine I like it. So when we discovered a museum of transportation here is Glasgow, it was on my “must-see” list.

Glasgow has always had an image problem, seen as a working town with its neighbor Edinburgh being the “interesting”  city. As a result Glasgow is trying to improve it’s image for visitors. One way it has done this is to make most of the city attractions free. Most of their museums do not charge to visit them.

A wall of cars

The Riverside Museum of Transportation is one of the best and most interesting museums I have ever visited. It is in a beautiful setting right on the River Clyde in a beautiful modern new building. Although a ways from our hotel, it was on our "Hop-on-hop-off” tour bus route, so getting there was easy.

The most interesting thing about this museum was how they presented things. For example I have visited many excellent car museums with impressive collections of vehicles, but here the cars were displayed on a wall or parked on an incline two stories long. In addition there was a special display of a Mini, an Anglia, and an Imp There was a whole room devoted to engines including a Beetle that children could climb under to see the engine. There was a display of a new Mini used in safety testing and a Ford Cortina that was sold as original, but was really two cars welded together.

South African Steam Locomotive

There was a wall of motorcycles, four massive steam locomotives including one that had been built in Glasgow, shipped to South Africa, returned to Scotland 100 years later and restored, A tiny trailer where hippy protesters of Nuclear war lived, a presentation on the first ship sunk during WWII, a room about subways, a revolving carousal of model ships, a number of displays about bicycles and many other different topics and displays. Outside docked on the river was a three masted tall ship also open for exploring.

Although I walked through the entire museum and saw everything (I think . .), I did not have time to spend the amount of

Part of a steam engine

time I would have liked with all the displays. I spent a lot of time with the old steam engine from South Africa, and I spent a lot of time on the wall of motorcycles, but the police pursuit vehicle could have used more time, as could the Hillman Imp.

You can see why this museum appealed to me, but Regis also said it was the most interesting one she has visited as well.

Glasgow is not Chester

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The New Glasgow

After spending a week in the quaint city of Chester, arriving in Glasgow came as a bit of a shock. Our Hotel is right in the city centre, and is old but very nice. However when Regis asked for a “City View”, she did not realize that the view from the front of the hotel mostly consisted of two derelict buildings. Our first walk around the area was not any better.  Finally finding a pub called “Hootenanny” (Seriously . . . in Scotland?), we discovered good beer

Glasgow Streets

and food and friendly people. We met a couple of locals from Italy and Poland (Yes they did live and work in Glasgow) who’s advice of things to see in Glasgow was the train to Edinburgh.

Regis and I however always find the best in any city or situation. The next day, after wading

Making the Old Look New

through hoards of runners (The Great Scottish Run), we found the tourist information centre and set out to explore Glasgow. By the end of the day, our hiking shoes had about five more hours of wear on their soles, and we had explored another cathedral, visited the necropolis, climbed to the top of a lighthouse (In the middle of a city), discovered a really cool art deco architect, rode the subway, and had supper in a pub in the catacombs under the city.

We Also Visited a Brewery

As we normally find, once you dig a bit you can find the soul of any city and there is usually lots to see and do in any city. Glasgow was an industrial city. The Lucitania, the first Queen Elizabeth and many of the early Cunard ships were built here, and the city’s shipyards are currently building the next generation of British warships. Some of the best steam locomotives were shipped all over the world from Glasgow. It never was a “Quaint” city it was always a gritty merchant and industrial city, and is very interesting as such. It has a rich history in Industry, business and architecture, and explored with this in mind it is fascinating.

The Inn Deep Pub

We spent the day today at the Riverside Museum Of Transportation (I feel a blog post coming on . .), and loved it. There is lots to see and do here. Oh BTW, on our city tour today we discovered that those two derelict buildings across from the hotel are a priority to renovate, restore or replace.

Glasgow is not Chester, it is however, a cool interesting city to visit.

Visiting the Dead

Walking up to the top

Arriving in Glasgow we decided to take a city tour to give us a better idea of what to see and do during our days here. We quickly had doubts about the tour operating today however, because the city was filled with runners. No one told us about the “Great Scottish Run”, and many areas and roads were blocked for this event. Sure enough, finding the tour office we discovered that indeed there would be no tours today. Another “Go to Plan B” day.

The Tallest . .richest?

Instead we decided to walk to the “Old Section” of Glasgow and visit the Cathedral and the Necropolis. It was a bit of a walk but after all we had a day to waste.

I have visited the “Cities of the Dead” in New Orleans, and the “City of the Dead” in Cairo, so the Necropolis sounded interesting. It is a cemetery built on the top of a prominent hill. Built in 1832 to solve a serious overcrowding problem in church graveyards, the Glasgow Necropolis was built as a business and a for-profit burial ground. Over 50,000 people are buried here but most have no markers. There are however over 3500 stones and monuments.

The hill is behind the cathedral and is accessible via a raised walkway crossing a road to a very ornate entrance. From there pathways in a garden-like setting wind up the hill to the top and gravestones and markers line the pathways.

Cast Iron . . Really?

Now, Glasgow was an industrial city with many self-made merchants, who wanted to be well known, and so the more important you thought your family was, the bigger the family plot and monument was. As you walk up the hill, you notice that the bigger grander monuments sit proudly at the crest of the hill, with the tallest and grandest for a man named John Knox, who was actually buried here in 1825, before the Necropolis was built. Most of the old monuments still stand proudly but it is kind of sad to see some fallen over and neglected. And there was one who ordered his memorial to be made of cast iron; I guess he had not heard of rust . . .

Fallen & neglected

There were lots of common names such as Miller and Brown all over the Necropolis, and I was surprised at how few “Mac . . .” and “Mc . . .” there were, although I did find one “Hill”, but it was on the way up, not at the top.