by Krista | Oct 16, 2011 | Bootstrap Monday
Hello dear ones! After 33+ hours of travel I am home at last in my beloved Queensland, Australia. 🙂
I can’t tell you how good it is to be home. To wake up knowing I get to stay here, that I don’t have to catch a train, bus or airplane, that I can stay in my pajamas all day if I want to. 🙂
I am dead tired but so happy.
This week I’ll be moving in – doing laundry, stocking my kitchen, painting my rooms, setting up my office. It’ll be heaps of work but I’m so excited to get started, to carve out my own little niche in this world. 🙂
On the way home from the airport my friend took me to our favorite second hand shopping spot. I found the first few additions to my new life here: three gorgeous colored glass bottles that will be just perfect for storing flavored oils and vinegars, and an old copy of a Louisa May Alcott book to start my new library. 🙂
I may not be blogging much until I get settled in, but I will try to post pictures everyday on Facebook, so you can follow my little adventures there if I’m not here. 🙂
It’s wonderfully stormy and blustery here today, so I’m off to brew a cup of tea before I start hanging clothes in my wardrobe.
How are YOU doing? Do you have any advice for making a new place home? 🙂
Much love to you, dear ones. Â xo
by Krista | Oct 3, 2011 | Bootstrap Monday
Brilliant blue skies and blazing sunshine greeted me and my friends Margo, Katy, Kathy, and Kate as we boarded the train in Domodossola, Italy bound for Switzerland.
I confess I felt quite giddy about our adventure. As a little girl I read about train travel in Europe and my youthful imagination flourished with dreams of wearing tweeds and jaunty hats, sipping tea in the dining car and carrying a carpet bag as I made my way from one fairytale town to the next.
Our journey was nothing like my British-book-inspired dreams, but every bit as wonderful.
We chugged along past flower-trimmed houses, through lush valleys bordered by soaring peaks, and emerged at our first stop: the village of Santa Maria Maggiore.
It is such a pretty little town with the most delightful alleyways leading off to hidden gardens, quiet courtyards, and vegetable patches picked clean of their summer bounty.
There are so many vividly colored buildings in S. Maria Maggiore, covered with richly detailed frescoes and paintwork. In the morning sun they positively glow.
Behind high walls and wrought-iron gates sit elegant manors with perfectly tended gardens, windows shuttered against the glare of early morning light.
I moseyed down a side street and found a walled courtyard filled with crunchy brown leaves and a window that peeked into the back of a lovely old church.
Before long we succumbed to the lure of mid-morning coffee and found a table at a cheery cafe filled with village men gossiping and watching the passersby. Those men had a good thing going! It was the perfect spot for people-watching and the coffee was strong and delicious.
Fortified and rested we continued our wanderings through town, finding more alleys, homes and quirky townsfolk to delight us.
What is your favorite mode of transportation when traveling?
by Krista | Sep 25, 2011 | Bootstrap Monday
A fat, bewhiskered dog snoozes happily on the floor of my room as church bells ring and roosters crow.
It’s morning at Casa Scaparone outside Alba, Italy.
I’m in Italy with my dear friends Margo and Kathy, exploring the Piedmont area and learning all sorts of things about the history and culture of this amazing part of the world.
My first moments here I could do nothing but happily wander the grounds, inwardly oohing and aahing at the rustic vignettes of life at an Italian agriturismo.
By night the wonderful old farmhouse serves as bed and breakfast for several guests from around the world, but by day it is a working farm. Four families labor side by side tilling the earth, gathering in the harvest, and preserving glistening jars of fruits, vegetables and preserves.
I love every bit of this rambling place, from the amazing bricked ceilings and floors worn smooth and polished to the old wooden crates full of apples and wrought iron lanterns covered with wisteria vines.
But my favorite spot is the dining room, the hub of activity here. It is the center of jolly weekends when it is filled with guests and locals devouring hearty meals and singing along with a piano and kazoo.
It’s also the scene of quiet mornings when I find a sunny spot to eat my breakfast of homemade cake, home-canned peaches, and delicious fresh cheeses, and watch little blond Swiss boys chase each other on the wooden dance floor set up outside.
Where is your ideal place to stay when you travel? Are you a hotel girl, a bed and breakfast man, or do you prefer pitching a tent in the back country?
(For more information on Casa Scaparone, visit their website here.)
by Krista | Sep 19, 2011 | Bootstrap Monday
My first morning in Tuscany I woke before everyone else and wandered out barefoot onto dew-covered grass.
The air was fresh and cool, filled with the sounds of neighboring pigs squealing excitedly for their breakfast.
The first rays of sunlight streamed through olive groves and vineyards, warming the stone walls of the villa next to us. And I simply had to capture it.
Looking at this picture I can almost feel the warming rays of sun on my skin. I want to close my eyes and soak it all in.
My sis-in-law joined me shortly and we stared in disbelief at chickens leaping straight up in the air like they were on a trampoline instead of sun-baked earth. Mystified we crept over to where they were and laughed in delight to discover they weren’t crazy chickens after all. Plump ripe grapes hung over their heads just out of reach, so they were jumping up to grab the bottom ones. 🙂
I love Tuscany.
Where is the prettiest place you’ve ever woken up?
by Krista | Sep 4, 2011 | Bootstrap Monday
As you read this Monday morning, I’ll be hauling my bags from car to plane to bus to train to a different train to car until at last I find myself (hopefully!) in Montepulciano to start a week of celebrating for my brother’s wedding. I don’t know if I’ll have internet access, so if you don’t hear from me for a week, don’t be alarmed. I promise to take heaps of pictures and tell you all about it when I get the chance. 🙂
Until we meet again, I have to share these shots of beautiful Mummelsee, Germany, a stunning lake high in the Black Forest above Baden-Baden.
My friends took me hiking here after we fortified ourselves at the Mummelsee lodge with hearty slabs of Black Forest Cake heady with kirsche (cherry brandy), Apple Strudel with Vanilla Sauce and rich German Cheesecake.
It is one of my favorite walks in this area, especially on a sunny afternoon. We came here at Christmastime last year and walked on firmly packed snow around the iced over lake.
This time we walked on dry ground, strolling happily as the sun glistened over the water and glimmered down through the trees.
We were joined by crowds of holiday-makers, everyone cheerful and so happy to be outside in the fresh mountain air.
Legend has it that the lake is home to the King of Mummelsee and his water nymphs who remain quiet during the day but rise to the surface at night.
Some say the nymphs are actually nuns who lived in a monastery that was supposed to have stood where Mummelsee is now. The nuns were known for their kindness to local farm families and their children. Unfortunately tragedy struck when a nun fell in love with a farm boy and black water bubbled up from the earth to swallow the monastery and all who lived there.
Apparently we didn’t stay late enough because we failed to see either the King or his water nymphs.
It was a gorgeous walk though, and one I highly recommend to anyone visiting the Black Forest.
by Krista | Aug 29, 2011 | Bootstrap Monday
I confess I have a slight addiction to photographing doors.
Especially weathered colorful ones that make my heart swell every time I see them.
Much to my delight, Malta and Gozo were peppered with colored beauties, worn and aged from winds and sunshine.
I loved them!
I think I must have the most patient traveling companions in the world. I’m still slow as molasses hobbling about on my injured foot, but with all these gorgeous doors I had to slow down even more to stop every few meters so I could capture them. If I had awards for such things, I’d be handing them out on this trip. 🙂
I’d buy fruit from this vendor simply because of the splendid blue door he was parked in front of.
And I dearly wanted a brightly colored Gozo fishing boat so I could tuck it safely away behind one of these lovely doors.
And wouldn’t you love to move into House #24 just so you could enter this door each night after work?
Or perhaps House #141 would do just as well.
I was so inspired by these doors that I already have plans to paint each door of my new home in Australia a different color.
What color would you like to paint your front door? 🙂
