Category Archives: Interesting Places

Shopping, Shopping and More Shopping

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….after our long walk this morning we decided to go out and buy food for the weekend

Not any old food, mind you. We were shopping for food for our family get together on Sunday. Four of us are driving to Hamilton to celebrate Family Day at G’s and B’s home (parents of Winnie). I suggested that we do a pot luck lunch and everyone quickly agreed.

Our contribution is going to be a charcuterie platter and then some smoked pork chops, German style (Kassler rippchen). To get all the ingredients we needed we drove out to Mississauga and went to the Brandt Meat store. What a treat for all the senses.

We left with 5 different meats and three cheeses for the platter, 8 smoked pork chops and meatloaf for tonight’s dinner. As we got back into the car we decided that potato salad would be a nice addition to the chops so I went back inside and bought a few containers of ready to eat salad.

Hard to imagine that I couldn’t find everything that we needed in this one amazing store but we did need milk, cream, fruit, vegetables and dog food so we made another stop at our go to No Frills grocery story just down the road from our home. I love the produce aisles in this store. It is so bright and colourful and everything is very fresh.

After we loaded up the car with more groceries than we had planned to buy my husband thought of another thing we forgot to pick up. Batteries. Instead of going back into the same store he suggested that I go over to the Dollarama which was next door.

Here’s another store that appeals to the eyes. Bright and colourful and kind on the pocketbook. The line-up was pretty long so I decided to take a quick look around and took a few more photos of some of the merchandise. You can tell that St. Patrick’s Day and Easter are just around the corner.

The teacher in me wanted to buy numerous items for my classes but I resisted temptation. Besides my husband was waiting in the car and if I had returned with anything but batteries he would have given me a questioning gaze.

As soon as we got home we put away the groceries and I started dinner. For those of you who know me well I did it voluntarily and without any coercion from my husband. Once in awhile I still like to cook.

Hope you’re all having a fantastic weekend. Mine is just beginning. Hopefully I’ll have more photos and stories about our Family Day get together tomorrow.

Cheers!

Thursday Doors – February 2, 2017

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…thanks to Norm from Norm 2.0 for hosting Thursday Doors

Last weekend my husband and I took a drive to Niagara Falls to meet up with our daughter and granddaughter. It was a cold and grey day, not the nicest for taking pictures of the Falls. When we arrived at our daughter’s hotel room we decided to get in the car and drive along the Niagara Parkway towards Niagara on the Lake.

We stopped at the Old Winery Restaurant and enjoyed a very nice lunch. Winnie enjoyed her bread and some of her mommy’s soup and her own macaroni and cheese.

After lunch we decided to drive around and take in some of the sights from the car. We were hoping that Winnie would nap and luckily she did. My husband grew up in the area and he decided to take a stroll with the car down memory lane. We headed towards St. Catharines, where he was born and he pointed out to our daughter the first  place he lived in as a young child before moving to Niagara Falls. Not too far away was Rodman Hall which is now an art gallery.

The Thomas Rodman Merritt House was built over 150 years ago on a beautiful hillside property and is the perfect venue for special events, parties and weddings. The mansion features stained glass windows, 11 Italian marble fireplaces, patterned inlaid hardwood floors and ornate plaster mouldings. Today it is part of the University of Brock and hosts the visual arts students from the Honours Studio course.

The Rodman Hall Art Centre features the work of artists from Niagara, Ontario, Canada and the world. It houses a permanent collection of over 1000 objects, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints and drawings. While I was there they were featuring a special show called A Sublime Vernacular: The Landscape Paintings of Levine Flexhaug. I could also hear the sounds of workshops going on down the hall from the entrance. Throughout the year the hall hosts a variety of studio programs for children and adults, art camps and thematic family programs.

I would love to go back in the summer when I could enjoy the gardens and the interesting sculptures that are scattered throughout the property.

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Share Your World 2016 – Week 45

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….thanks Cee for hosting Share Your World

Describe your own outlook on life in seven words or less. (NOTE: does not have to be a sentence.)

Make the most of it. Enjoy it.

Where do you like to vacation?

I like to vacation at the cottage but when travelling abroad I enjoy going to Ireland, the Netherlands and Italy. I’d like to take a trip to Iceland, England and Germany in the near future.

Candy factories (sweets or treats including chocolate) of the entire world have become one and will now be making only one kind of candy. Which kind, if you were calling the shots?

It would have to be dark chocolate with marzipan or nuts.

Complete this sentence: Something that anyone can do that will guarantee my smile is…

….show me a photo of my granddaughter.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I’m grateful for a wonderful weekend with my daughters. On Saturday I went to the Royal  Winter Fair with both my girls and my granddaughter. I hadn’t been to the fair since I was a little girl. I loved seeing Winnie’s reaction to all the animals. I forgot how massive this fair is, especially if you go back into the barns where all the farm animals are kept.

On Sunday we had the whole family at the house to celebrate my oldest daughter’s 37th birthday. She wanted a pizza making party so my husband made the dough from scratch and we cut up a variety of toppings for people to choose from so that they could design their own pizza creation.

This week I’m looking forward to unpacking all the books that I purchased at the book vendor’s fair today and attending a party for a good friend. I’m also hoping to finish reading The Nest and starting on some art projects for myself.

Cheers!

In the Hills of Assisi

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….my favourite part of my trip to Italy took place in Assisi

Part 1

I’ve saved the best part of my trip for last. As some of you know my son was married this summer. The family part of the wedding took place in the hills of Assisi. In June, B and A were officially married in the registrars office in London, England and the guests that  attended were mostly friends and work colleagues who lived in England.

In July friends from Canada, England, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy and family from Canada, Germany and Iran came together to celebrate the union of our son and his beautiful bride in a traditional Persian ceremony.

The family stayed in a beautiful hillside resort, Casa Rosa, above the town of Assisi. Originally all the cottages had been farm buildings. The cottage we stayed in was formerly the pig barn and then later the horse stables. The view from our patio was breath taking and the property was surrounded by olive groves, lavender, fruit trees and rosemary.

Our accommodations were very comfortable and you would never have known that some of the cottages previously housed farm animals. We were warned to watch out for scorpions, yellow spiders and asps but we didn’t encounter any of these creatures. We kept looking over the hills in hopes of seeing some wild boars but we didn’t see any them either.

We took a walk along some of the trails that surrounded the farm. The trip out was pretty easy because it was mostly downhill but returning was a little more challenging. We passed numerous pieces of abandoned farm equipment along the way.

On our first evening in Assisi we took a taxi ride into the town of Assisi and had a wonderful meal on the patio of a local restaurant. It was our first real introduction to the family of the bride. We pretty much took over the restaurant for the evening. I tried to take photos of all the entrees that were placed before us but sometimes they were so mouth watering that half the plate was eaten before I remembered about taking photos. All in all it was a great evening and a good start to the wedding festivities that followed the next day.

More about the Persian ceremony in a few days.

Ciao!

Rome’s Top 10 – Part 3

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….as promised here is my account of Trastevere, the Roman Forum and the National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II.

The Roman Forum

The Roman Forum is a rectangular plaza surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. At the height of the Roman Empire the forum served as the venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches and the centre of commercial affairs.

After the fall of the Roman Empire the forum fell into disrepair and in the Middle Ages it was used as a cow pasture. During that time the buildings were plundered for their marble and stone. Excavation of the area began in the 18th and 19th centuries and continues today. It seems as though every time the city undergoes a new construction project it comes across a new archeological find and construction is halted while a new dig takes place. Today the ruins attract 4.5 million tourists a year.

National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II.

This national monument was one of the first impressive buildings that we saw as we were driving to our apartment in the outskirts of Rome. Our taxi driver described it as a war memorial but it was much more than that.  Il Vittoriano was built in 1925 to honor Italy’s first king, who is credited with creating a single Italian kingdom in 1861. It has come under much criticism for being too showy with its thick, gleaming white marble that stands 230 feet (70 meters) tall and is visible from several points across the city. Again we only saw this building from the outside but its immense size and opulent sculptures are a feast for the eyes.

The Trastevere

The Trastevere is a neighbourhood that literally translates to “across the Tiber,” and was once considered the outskirts of Rome. In the three days that we were in Rome we spent two evenings in this Bohemian gem. On our first night we enjoyed authentic Italian pizza in a popular, crowded restaurant close to the Piazza Santa Maria. The cobblestone streets are narrow and windy and one can easily get lost in this quaint medieval neighbourhood. I was glad that my girls had their GPS devises with them. On our way back to the apartment that evening we happened to come across a parade of local residents celebrating one of their Catholic saints.

On our last day in Rome, my son and I ended our whirlwind tour of Vatican city back in Trastevere. After walking over 23 000 steps I needed to take a break and we stopped at a small outdoor bistro where I enjoyed a glass of Proseco while my son walked to the tram to pick up his sister, her daughter and his father. There was no way that they would have found the location on their own. B’s wife joined us as well and we had a lovely final evening together on our last day in Italy.

There are many other wonderful sites to see in Rome. I have mentioned only a handful of interesting places to visit that I experienced first hand. Many of these places I would go back to and spend more time exploring the interiors. Do you have any favourite places to visit in Rome? I’d love to hear about them for my next adventure to to this great historic city.

Ciao!

Rome’s Top Ten-Part 1

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…..seeing Rome’s Top Ten in three days is not impossible

When we planned to stay in Rome for the final three days of our trip to Italy I never imagined that we would be able to see so many of the famous sites of this ancient city. To be honest some of the sites were under construction so we only did a quick pass and for others we only saw the exterior.

My top ten sites included:

The Colosseum

It was a very hot day when we finally walked to the Colosseum. We were accosted by dozens of vendors selling selfie sticks and tours. My husband and daughter took refuge in a caffe next to the Colosseum and enjoyed a cool drink while the rest of us including the baby took a closer look at the exterior of this ancient structure. Unfortunately we didn’t see the interior, partially because the heat was too much for the baby.

The Pantheon

We arrived early and there was a mass going on so we had to wait to get in to see the Pantheon. We wandered off to get a coffee in a nearby bistro but when we returned there was a line-up to get in. My husband hates line-ups so he passed on seeing the inside of the Pantheon. Luckily the line went pretty quickly and there was some very high quality entertainment on the street in the way of musicians.

Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain was a bit of a surprise for me. It’s a very large fountain but it’s crammed into a very small space and the crowds were huge. It’s almost impossible to get a camera shot that takes in the entire fountain. You just can’t stand far enough away. I would love to see the fountain at night when it’s all lit up.

The Spanish Steps

The Spanish Steps was the one attraction that we didn’t spend much time at because it was under construction. I understand that it is now restored and open again for the public to walk on.

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In my next post I will share more photos of the following attractions in Rome:

Vatican City

Piazza Navona

Castel Sant’Angelo

Trastevere

Roman Forum

The National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II

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Till next time.

Ciao!

 

 

Culture Days – Sept. 30, Oct. 1-2

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…..last Saturday I attended a ‘culture days’ event at Humber College

Culture Days was founded in 2009 and raises the awareness and  participation of Canadians in the arts and cultural life of their communities. Hundreds of thousands of artists, cultural workers, organizations and groups, volunteers and supporters host free  public activities that take place in hundreds of cities and towns throughout the country over the last weekend of September each year.

Culture Days offers a wonderful opportunity for Canadians across the country to explore and participate in the cultural communities that exist in their neighbourhoods that they may have not even be aware of before.

The event that I was most excited about was the Tunnel Tour. Humber College by the Lakeshore took over the old psychiatric hospital which closed in 1979 and restored the original facades of all the the cottages and main buildings. The buildings were connected by an underground tunnel that were used to transport food and laundry to the patients. The tunnel itself was dug by the patients and a cross section cut out of the wall shows the primitive technique used to cement together the pieces of slate that were probably found on the property.

The tunnel is still used today to house gas, water and sewer pipes and to transport supplies from one cottage to another. Part of the tour included talking about the history of the psychiatric hospital and how the different cottages were used. Cottage D housed the detox patients and K cottage was home for the children who lived at the hospital. That was the saddest part of the tour. Apparently when children suffered from epilepsy and/or ADHA they were admitted to the hospital where they spent the rest of their lives. Nurses used to walk up and down Lakeshore Blvd. looking for children that had been deserted by their parents because they thought their seizures were signs of being possessed.

I also learned that a ghost lives in cottage G. She’s been seen by the care taking staff and security. Apparently she’s friendly and is a former nurse who worked at the hospital. Cottage G is the last cottage to be renovated. Our guide kindly took us inside. It certainly didn’t look haunted.

After the tour I took a walk over to the Assembly Hall and watched the dancers in the Pow Wow.

Later in the afternoon I took part in an art workshop. We were a very small group. First we took a walk through the grounds towards the lake and picked up natural materials off the ground. When we returned to the classroom we were presented with old nature books that were being discarded and numerous art supplies to create our nature inspired piece of art. It was very relaxing and I walked away with two samples that I can use in future art classes at school.