Italian Memories

What to do on a rainy weekend in Oslo? I feel a slight inclination to fall into an early autumn depression – but let’s find something more positive to do :)) Though the rain doesn’t promise to stop, and this weekend seems like a copy of the previous one. We live now in a quiet area, just outside of the city. Between fields, forests and fjords. Which is all lovely but… But I don’t have all those rain clothes needed to go walking in such weather.

So I sit inside, sip coffee and go through my photos from our short vacation in Italy. Where we went in June to visit the friends’ wedding on the Amalfi coast. It was the most beautiful wedding ever. So if you want to have something special for a wedding, I give you this advice for free :)) Amalfi coast.

The wedding was in a little fisher village Erchie, and we stayed in a neighbor village Cetara (pronounced Che-tara, oh how I love the sound of it! :)) It was just a couple km away, and looked like a short walk. Little did we now about the only road on Amalfi coast, on the cliff, with cars, scooters, buses and pedestrians all together on one narrow street… But that would make another story 🙂

Cetara and the harbour

One Day in Palamos

Palamos is a small and colorful town on the Costa Brava, the northern coast of Catalonia. It is a bit more classy and less touristic than other towns. It is not easy to access it from Barcelona, there is no train, only buses along the curvy roads – so the tourist masses choose another destinations, while Palamos enjoys some peace 🙂

While I am still enjoying Norwegian summer in Oslo, I wanted to share some colorful images from Catalonia. Partly, due to the lack of up-to-date photos 🙂 I forgot for a while about photowalks – though I relived my Instagram. I stopped using it last summer and was pretty happy without it. But now I felt like opening it again. Maybe, because the life in Oslo is much quiter than in Barcelona, and I miss the daily dose of being bombarded by impressions :))

Or maybe, because sitting down and writing a thoughtful post feels like more work than sharing a photo with almost no text to it. I like to use Instagram as my visual journal, though not daily and without getting too obsessed this time (@marina.exploring is my name there, if you feel like visiting). And since I’ve started teaching again (I teach the language course of Norwegian in my old school), I have so much of self-expression during the day, that there is no need left to express myself in pictures and words. I do it every day, in pictures, words and exaggerated body language :))

So, let me take you to this colorful and peaceful paradise on the Mediterranean coast!

Oslo Summer To-Do List

While the summer happens (as it is not something given here in Scandinavia, but can only happen once in a while), there are always many things to do. We all rush to experience and enjoy.

Then this idea popped up in my mind: to write a list of things I like doing on a summer day. Maybe, when it suddenly happens, I am better prepared 🙂 Or just to express my love for Oslo in summer.

So here is a simple to-do list. This can be done another place too, of course.

Postcards from Rome: the Doors

The Easter weekend has seen us flying to Rome. To get some sunshine, eat some pasta, get some culture and history. We should have known better. We should have known that Rome gives not in “some” measures like a frugal Scandinavian, but in the passionate manner of a Latin lover. We, the locals of Norway, got at times overwhelmed by this generosity. Along with the sun – the storm was given to us. Along with some life – the crowds were given to us (it was, maybe, a stupid idea to go there for Easter. But I am the kind of person who better regrets what I’ve done than what I haven’t done :)). Along with some pasta – the almost religious food experience was given to us. And along with some history – the whole city gave itself to as like a living museum. On every turn and every corner there would be: another beautiful church, another ancient monument, another glamorous shop and another tourist ice cream parlor. Really, Rome was not saving on its welcome gifts.

As I am still full of different emotions and few eligible stories to tell – I will share pictures. Another word can be said about taking photos. I took some thousand of them – and it was just a tiny fraction of what I could take. Next time, if I want to take all the photos I want, I need to go there at least for a month – and spend it walking alone some hours a day. I wonder: how can you live in such beauty? In the end, you must get used to it all and stop noticing, no? Anyone here with the experience of longtime living in a beautiful Italian city? How does it feel?

a perfect match

hello, cactus!

Tarragona: Roman Flirting in Catalonia

Last Monday I posted a guessing game of doors and windows – and here is the right answer to it: a city in the South of Catalonia with a pretty name of Tarragona. I was surprised of how fast the right answers popped up in the comments – and of the smart strategies some used to find out 🙂

Tarragona got my heart and I cannot keep silent about my love. The town is only a 1,5 hour away from Barcelona and is a perfect destination for a day-trip from the Catalan capital. So when you are in Barcelona and want new horizons to explore – go to Tarragona! In a way it resembles Barcelona – but it also has its own distinct history dating back to Romans, its own style and atmosphere. So you get some kind of deja vu, but Tarragona has its own power to enchant you. Here are my reasons to visit this pretty place.

Benvingut!

on a winter afternoon

Dreamer in Rovinj

Once I had a dream to rent a flat in Italy and pretend I live there. Just for some weeks. Cook pasta, open a bottle of white wine and eat my dinner on the balcony. And just now I realized – I don’t need that anymore. Here I am – back in Rovinj, melting with happiness. Renting a flat. For some weeks. Cooking my pasta. A bottle of local liquor stored. No balcony though, but there is an amazing sunset show just outside of my window. So I open my windows and sit with my pasta on the window sill. Which restaurant has a view compared to mine from the flat under the roof? 

Split, Spritz and Spagetti. Eating in Croatia

In this post I continue telling the story of my “eat pray love” project that I did in Croatia last summer. This is the “eat” part and the rest of the story you can find under the tag eatpraylove on this blog. I know, I have promised my report of the yoga retreat, and it is going to be that last part, just to make sure you are intrigued and waiting 🙂

The week of  salsa festival was over after the Sunday night party. We didn’t sleep that night because my friend was catching a bus to the airport at 7.30 in the morning. So we decided to dance that night away, but no one was really dancing, not us at least. We were wandering from hall to hall, tired after the week of partying, observing how empty the space was getting. After I walked my friend to the bus station, I slept 4 hours, got up and hurried to the last event: the party boat with Cuban music. That was a great end to the week, such an exclamation mark instead of a full stop.

Reasons to Fall in Love with Rovinj

If you ask me about the best time to visit Rovinj I would say the end of June, of course, when the salsa thing is going on 🙂 The energy is unique, it is like a all-night and all-day celebration going on. But in this post I want to share my reasons to love Rovinj, even if you don’t own glittering dancing shoes and don’t tremble at the sound of the Afro-Latin beat.

door into summer

easy living

Romance with Rovinj

Do you know this feeling of falling in love with a place? Yes, you do, I am sure. And do you know that the same feeling is still there in your heart and it is easy to get in touch with it? I’ve just discovered that going through my last year’s pictures made me nearly as happy as when I was there. I used to watch my old photos with a sigh “I wish I were there now”, and there would be a taste of sadness in this activity. But today, maybe, because it is a sunny day in Oslo, or because I know I will be there this summer – revisiting the photos of my beloved Croatian town made my heart beat with joy and love, no note of sadness in it.  And I just cannot keep this love to myself! So let’s share it!

Rovinj and its most famous view of the old town