night at the library: Book & Bed in Tokyo | places to ♥ #3

travel, Japan and books are among my favourite things. my kind of raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. 

so what happens if I am travelling, in Japan, and I sleep surrounded by books?  you can say that I am just a lambretta away from my personal version of heaven. and it happened.

Reaching Out teahouse in Hoi An | places to ♥ #1

Hoi An can hardly be considered a noisy town, if compared to the busiest Hanoi or Saigon, but, packed with tourists as it is, it's not an oasis of peace and quiet neither. 

7 things about our road trip to Vietnam we keep telling people

"how was Vietnam?"
"tell me all about your trip!"

as soon as we came home from Vietnam, and started answering our friends and relatives questions, these have been the main topics we go on chatting about:


1. vietnamese coffee, or cà phê

after the third one, you'll be addicted to it.

one of the many coffee breaks during our sidecar road trip from Hanoi to Hoi An

Vietnam on the road on a vintage sidecar motorcycle

vietnamese people, watercolor illustration 

since we've moved in together, we have a coin jar with "Vietnam & Laos" written on it. 

as wedding present, our lovely witnesses gave us plane tickets to a destination of our choice, so after our lambretta honeymoon in Provence, we started thinking about the next adventure in South East Asia. 

when we read on the Lonely Planet guide that riding a motorcycle in northern Vietnam is a lifetime experience, that was it. we remembered an old classic, the BBC Top Gear Vietnam special, watched it for the 100th time and booked a flight to Hanoi. 

June, glimpses of Bordeaux

in june I had the chance to see Bordeaux and the surroundings during a business trip.
here I'm sharing with you some of the (very few) moments I had to play the tourist.
{all pics are taken with my phone and processed with vscocam}

Flanders on the road | Gent & Oudenaarde

maybe the lovelies view on the river, taken from Grasburg

do not be fooled by similar geometry and architecture, Brugge and Gent have different souls. 

the first is a medieval gem, romantic and cozy, Gent is definitely more lively, fresher and vibrant. 

Flanders on the road | 3 things we won't forget about Brugge

Brugge has a timeless charme. every corner screams romance.
there are horse carriages, chocolate, tiny alleys, fairytales-like houses, bridges, canals, pretty doors, flowers, cobblestones, and so on.
besides the sentimentalism though, there are 3 things we won't forget about our visit to the town.

Brugge Begijnhof and the tree huts of Kawamata Tadashi

Flanders on the road | analogue walk in Brugge

Flanders on the road - watercolor map 

at the beginning of May, Marco and i took a few days off to visit the Flanders.

we visited Brugge, Gent and Oudenaarde, moving around mostly by train. we ate too much potato fries and were absolutely delighted by the beautiful flemish light.

here, you can find our first impressions of Brugge {Bruges in french}, the first stage of our little tour, all analogue, exept one.

Lyon #3 city cycling

our last day in Lyon was devoted to explore the Rive Gauche, beyond the left bank of the Rhone. since we already knew how to orient ourselves in the city, we rent a bike to wander around. from the day our arrive we were aware that Lyon is a real bike friendly town, with handy bicycle paths and a developed bike culture that makes cycling there safer than in other part of the world (e.g. Italy). 

Lyon #2 the gourmand side

a detail of  la Fresque des Lyonnais, a trompe l'œil painted wall depicting 31 famous people from Lyon, as the Lumiere brothers and Antoine de Saint Exupéry 

Lyon #1 analogue walking tour

illustrated map of Vieux Lyon
my first attempt to make a ink + watercolors travel sketch 

Transilvania roadtrip. January, 18-20th

after a day in Bucharest, our romanian journey continued with a roadtrip to Transilvania, kindly organized by Anna {green holiday italy} and Dario, who hosted us in Romania.
like everyone i suppose, i had some images of Transilvania on my mind: the land of vampires, with castles, mysterious aura, spooky landcapes.. well, i cannot say it is actually like that, but, as in every legend, there is a grain of truth.

București. January, Friday 17th

Stavropoleos monastery | mănăstirea Stavropoleos

Bucharest could be a beautiful city. my friend Anna {the pen behind green holiday italy} warned up with these words, when M. and i arrived in the capital of Romania {flew there with Wizz Air, about 2 hours from Treviso}, where she and her mate hosted us for a lovely weekend. it could be indeed. such a culture's crossroad, with one foot in europe and the other still in the former soviet union, with a latin language, russian words, balkan food and middle eastern influences. but not yet.

there are charming corners, as the Stavropoleos monastery. all that remains from it is a little church, which looks lovely from the outside {first picture} but is way better inside: velvety atmosphere, hand paintings lit by candles, dark and gold. it was the first thing we stopped to see while sightseeing in the historic centre.

Lipscani district

Lipscani is the heart of the city centre. it used to be the most important commercial area of the city. many streets still bear the name of their trade, as can be seen in many european cities. looking at the old buildings {a nice mix of art nouveau, neoclassical, near to medieval memories}, it seems clear why, in the interwar europe, Bucharest was nicknamed little Paris. nowadays Lipscani is recovering from a long period of degradation and neglect. most of these buildings need to be restored, but the whole recovery of the district seems to be going towards the creation of a modern noisy area of bars, strip clubs and cheap shops, without any vibes, any traditions. i think it deserves better.

neoclassical building detail

women near Biserica Curtea Veche

the best moment of our day in Bucharest was a visit to the old princely court church {Biserica Curtea Veche}, the oldest of the city. it started like a normal visit of a tourist site, but we soon realized that there were a few tourists, and most of the people was in the queque, waiting for praying in front of holy icons. with fervor and emotion, they lit up dozens of votive candles, kissed the icons, then went away, in silence. the most authentic moment of the day. 

we had just one day to visit Bucharest, and i'm sorry we didn't have the time to see two museums which seem quite interesting: the museum of the romanian peasant {muzeul tăranului român} and the national village museum {muzeul naţional al satului}, but our weekend continued with a roadtrip to Transilvania, which i can't wait to share with you!

p.s. good news! i diari della lambretta has been shortlisted for the Italy Magazine blogger awards, category best travel ♥ so, if you like it here, that's the link to vote!

souvenir de voyage. 2003 - 2013 November 23rd

today is my 10 years first flight anniversary. i know it's not a real occurence, but i'm still in a celebration mood. my passport has expired a couple of months ago. i remember the thrilling of having it in my hands, imaculate, dreaming of the flight i was going to take, for the very first time, to Brazil, on november 23rd, year 2003.

since then, i have taken every chance i could to travel. so, i have been collecting memories, pictures and a lot of little objects that i love to use and have around in my everyday life, my souvenir de voyage.

last summer i went to an exhibition {andata e ricordo, souvenir de voyage} at Mart museum in Rovereto, dedicated to the art of travel souvenirs. it was a colorful and funky collection. it made me pawing to get home and open my box of memories: a magic box full of boarding cards, metro cards, train tickets, pamphlets, maps, museum tickets, postcards, notes, concert tickets, sketches. i could fill a wall of that exhibiton, too.

so, i want to show you some of my dearest travel mementos, and i hope you'd tell me what yours are.

a teapot from a roadtrip across Morocco, with three dear friends. i use it as a pen (and masking tape!) holder. i'm glad to have something to remind me of that sweet mint scent, on my desk.

the beatles matrioska! bought from a stall in St. Petersburg, just outside the church of the savior on spilled blood.

a bowtie i love to wear on special occasions. it came from Koenji, my favorite suburb in Tokyo. i bought it in a little shop, near the cutest Hattifnatt Cafè. i don't know if it still exists, but the address is 2-18-10 Koenji Kita, Suginami ku, Tokyo. {the ballerina, horse and little bell in the back are from a shop in Berlin. they were meant to be put on a necklace, but in the end i never did}

shoes i bought in London! it's been years but i still think they're gorgeous.

miss swallow, who flew home with us from Lisboa and now lives above our bed. and a hat from Tallin{made by emma leppermann, a local designer}, in a old picture with my beloved ice. while travelling, i usually buy hats, this is just one of my collection!

do you like souvenirs? while travelling, do you have any objects in particular that you love to take home with you, like hats in my case?

post scriptum
this is what happened to the beatles matrioska after that picture. and now you've met bice, kitten who is about to become the new oreste's best friend.

{taken with VSCOcam}

Lisboa. October, 16th-20th.

we have a new love and its name is Lisboa.
we had just 4 days to explore the city and of course we did not see everything we wanna see, but it is a good reason to pay another visit. it was my first time in Portugal, so i can't give any advice as an expert. i'm sharing a list of what impressed us about the city instead, along with some analogue shots.
enjoy a ride through this vibrant, nostalgic, decadent, colorful, capricious, relaxed and tangled town. 

collage of azulejos. which one is your favorite?

11 things we love about Lisboa

l. the azulejos
i think you've already figured it out from the pictures! it was something that i was longing to see, and i wasn't disappointed at all. they are poems, of various shapes and colors, that give style and personality to the old houses. i'd spend hours photographing them. and oops, i did.

2. the food is incredibly good
we had eleven meals in Lisboa and it has been a great experience, every time. good food at good price, this is one of the best things that can happen while travelling. i bet they have a special way to marinate the meat before grilling, because churrasco was delicious. and i ate the best pork ribs ever.

arco de Rua Augusta | elevador de Santa Justa

3. tram 28
an absolutely non-touristic service, but an actual means of transport used by locals, that has become a must in every Lisbon trip. why? because it is charming and vintage looking; it makes an adorable sound; drivers are an endless source of anecdotes and tips; it takes you to the most interesting places of the town; sometimes it is scary as a merry-go-round {when you know that you're not going to crash, but are still worried} when it passes through the narrowest and steepest streets; you can observe the daily lisbon-life; it is relatively cheap. why relatively? one-way ticket costs 2,85 €, which is not cheap, but the daily Viva Viagem card costs 6€ and it's valid  for unlimited trips on tram, bus and metro lines for 24h. 
n.b. taxis are (relatively) cheap, too. 

miraduro de Santa Luzia

stairs

4. free art

there are some museums with free-entrance, like the Museu do Design e da Moda and the Museu Colecção Berardo. and, on sunday morning, all Lisbon museums are free entry. isn't that wonderful?

5. drinks are good, too!

porto, ginjinha (com!), sangria, coffee. portugueses have good taste when it comes to drinks, too. 

doors | left: mosteiro dos Jerónimos | right: the front door of our airbnb's charming flat 

Rossio

they said goodbyes at the door and now she watches him going

6. pasteis de nata in Belem
we're talking about food again. street food, to be precise. pasteis de nata are delicious pastries filled with custard. they can be found in every bakeries of Lisboa, but eating them at the fabrica dos pasteis de Belem  {founded in 1837, next to the mosteiro do Jeronimos}alone is worth the trip.

7. changeable weather
the city is moody. sometimes she's punding and puffy clouds thicken over the Tejo. 10 minutes later it's raining. 15 minutes later the sky is so blue you want to sing.
unpredictable and whimsical, like a girl.

castelo de São Jorge

near the miraduro de Santa Luzia

8. the language

 i consider portuguese as the language that taught me to love foreign languages. i was seventeen, i had been studying english for years, but i used it just at school, i had never taken a trip alone, never had the need to actually use a foreign language to understand or be understood. then i spent one month in Brazil, discovering the beauty of meeting and getting to know a different culture. 

of course, the Portugal's portuguese is very different, but hearing that was music to my hears. 

street in Alfama

9. lively people, streets, cafès
it may sounds as a cliché, but people are actually nice. even if they don't speak english, they know the universal language of smiles and gestural expressiveness. or maybe we have just been lucky.
the city is teeming with life, but still relaxed and informal. it seems a beautiful place to live.

10. different neighborhoods with different souls
Belem, Graça, Alfama, Estrela, Castelo, Chiado, Bairro Alto, Baixa, Rossio, Alcântara: every neighborhood we visited has its own personality. explore and understand them is a challenge! 

mosteiro dos Jerónimos. i love the light on this one.

11. similarities with Italy

yes, we travel to see something different. but sometimes is funny to see something that is, in certain ways, familiar. many features of Lisboa reminded us of Italy. old people gathering at the bar, playing cards or watching football, the omnipresent coffee (espresso), a capital city built  on seven hills, the glorious history, lots of churches and greengrocers, hanging laundry. have you noticed other?

vespa 42L2 {marco insisted on showing this one}. we saw many vespas, and just one lambretta. unfortunately, it was too dark to take a picture of the lambretta, but we were lucky enough to meet the owner, a lovely girl who speaks perfect italian. we chatted for a while but didn't exchange contacts. too bad. 

playing cards

marco and azulejos

address book
this is lisbon hostel | rua da costa do castelo 63 (entrance from escadinhas marquês ponte de lima 1)
cozy hostel in Castelo, friendly atmosphere. clean and quiet. amazing terrace. we loved our breakfast with a view on the rooftops!

airbnb flat in Estrela | travessa peixeira
a cute flat in a quiet neighborhood, well connected, on the tram 28's route. clean, nice price, lovely details. our hosts were the kindest!
{there is a beautiful bookshop nearby, called Palavra de Viajante, that sells travel -and travel related- books}

a vida portugesa | rua anchieta, 11
best shop in town. make sure to buy your souvenirs here.

fabrica dos pasteis de Belem | rua de Belém 84-92 Belém
see point 6.

churrasco da Graça | largo da Graca 45
see point 2. delicious churrasco.

museu Nacional do Azulejos | rua da madre de deus, 4
beautiful museum to learn more about this art form

mosteiro dos Jeronimos | praça do império
stunning. UNESCO wolrd heritage site. make sure not to miss it.

taberna ideal | rua da esperança 112
loved it. delicious sangria, vintage hints, eclectic menù, super kind staff. the don't accept credit cards.

museu Colecção Berardo | praça do império
huge art collection that covers the entire 20th century. free entry, free wifi, ok to take pictures. wow!

lx factory | rua rodrigues faria 103
pure creativity. hip place with cozy cafes and restaurants, nice shops in a former textile factory. sunday market from 11am.

fragoleto | rua da prata 61
creative ice cream flavors. try the one with goat milk.

street musicians in largo do Carmo

{nikon em + kodak color plus 200 | fujicolor 200}
to see some other pictures, visit i diari della lambretta's facebook page or my flickr.

we went canyoning, i got proof. July, Friday 19th

i don't feel comfortable in the water. when we go to the seaside (and it does not happen so often), i'm the one who keeps an eye to the clothes and bags while everyone goes swimming.
so, i wasn't excited at the idea that the major activity around the Raganello stream is canyoning {or canyoneering}. well, i was wrong.
this is the brightest memory from our days in Calabria, and i'm really glad we did it.
canyoning means to explore a canyon from the inside, to follow the waterstream walking, swimming, climbing, sliding down the smooth rocks, diving.. not to mention falling. all enriched by an amazing view. 

i did not dare bring my camera, but thanks to the bravest Flavio {thinking nomads} i can now show you some pictures. 

Civita's lower gorges are perfect for canyoning. the waters are not that cold ant you can choose your route from different levels of difficulty.
squeezed into a tiny wetsuit and wearing an helmet, we followed our guides down in the gorges for about 3 kilometers {the entire route is 7 km}, surrounded by high walls and roaring waters, to reach the devil's bridge {first picture}. bruises, scratches and goose bumps are part of the game, but also are breathtaking dive, rush of adrenaline and laughs. 

having a guide is important not just for being safe, that is clearly the priority, but also allows you to take the water path that best suits your ability. in our case, it was simple and sometimes tricky, with small waterfalls that i would have avoided if i had been alone, but turned out to be fun when approached with the proper equipment.

info & tips
to stay in Civita, take a look at the lovely b&b Il Comignolo di Sofia. Stefania, the volcanic landlady, is more that happy to give all the infos on the Pollino national park, Civita, where to hike and of course where to go cayoning.
i highly recommend Roberto De Marco as a guide, you can contact him at +39 3471776569.

the Raganello Valley

our days in Calabria were intense. a endless stream of new words, flavours, skylines, gestures.
we explored a valley located in the biggest italian national park {Parco Nazionale del Pollino}, the Raganello Valley. Raganello is a stubborn stream that carved its way out of high limestone rocks, so the valley's landscape is a mosaic composed by vertiginous rock walls,  great reddish promontories, five small villages {Civita, San Lorenzo Bellizzi, Cerchiara, Francavilla Marittima and Alessandria del Carretto} and the fierce and cold watercourse.

Civita and the timpe. "timpa" is the local word for the hilly rock formations

as my senses were wide open and almost overwhelmed, i want to try to tell you what i experienced through sensations, hoping that from many small details you could catch a glimpse of the whole life and traditions of this little piece of Calabria, still untouched by the mass tourism.

a list of nice sounds

Albanian flag in Civita

- arbëresh language and songs. arbëreshë people are a linguistic minority that settled in some southern Italy villages in 15th century, after the ottoman turk conquest of Albania. i think it's amazing that they still are able to speak their native language, cook the dishes of their own gastronomy, know how to dance and sing their traditional songs and keep their ethnic spirit alive. preserving customs for so long in a different country with such a strong identity and long history it's hard. in Civita there is an ethnic museum, bilingual signs and Albanian flags are everywhere. arbëreshë families still speak arbëresh language at home. 

popular Calabria melodies, played with the accordion, are frequently mixed up with arbëreshë songs. 

a shot from our popular music night 

 - the roaring water stream. it seems that the name Raganello comes from the latin word ragare, which means to drag. when it rains it is said that you can hear noises  in the river gorge, similar to those that make barrels when they roll along a cobbled street downhill.

Raganello's lower gorge, in San Lorenzo Bellizzi

- the silence at the Porta del Pollino. after we hiked in the national park's woods for a couple of hours, we reached a plateau with a wonderful panorama on the surrounding timpe. the silence was made solemn by the presence of  bosnian pines {pinus heldreichii}. the majestic trees watched over the horizon. some of them were dead, and just lied there like great sculptures, or oversized fossils.

bosnian pines in Pollino national park

a list of nice tastes and smells 

short premise: we ate way too much. be prepared if you go there.
- goat milk and goat ricotta. okay, i was an easy target, i love goat cheese. and cheese in general. and milk. but these were insanely good. the goats that graze on the timpe eat lots of aromatic herbs which makes their milk and cheese so rich in flavors.
drinking a glass of warm milk at breakfast made me feel like i was lying on a meadow, with herbs, flowers and a stunning landscape.

ricotta making at Azienda Agrituristica La Grotta, San Lorenzo Bellizzi

- real homemade traditional meals. from tagliatelle to the amazing salami, i loved that everything was local, made at home or in small farms. prosciutto, capocollo, soppressata... and you're still wondering why i said that i ate too much?

making pasta at Azienda Agrituristica Grampollina, San Lorenzo Bellizzi

- spice up your life. small, hot, red peppers are kings. as an ingredient, like inside the nduja {a spicy sausage}, or served by itself as a side dish, you'll meet it at any meal.

hot peppers in a small shop

- smell of oregano. walking on the timpe, we could smell it everywhere. fresh, fragrant oregano. we harvested two big bunches, and used it to make an infusion in the evening. it was relaxing and really helped our overstressed stomach. {thanks to Anna from green holiday italy for having this brilliant idea!}

a list of nice sights

- frank and proud faces. usually, it's the people we meet that make our travels special. even if we barely know them and just exchange a few words.

an old lady, an agriturismo owner, a view of a small square in San Lorenzo Bellizzi. the old lady talked to me in a very incomprehensible Calabria dialect, but i understood that she told me it was going to rain soon (i was very proud of myself). guess if she was right.

- small details of a simple faith. i like when faith is showed in a humble way. i could catch some details that can testimony the spirituality of the places we visited. a bell and a madonna icon in Santa Maria dell'Armi sanctuary; a crucifix in a bakery {did i mention that the bread was delicious, too? try the Cerchiara bread!}; a stone church surrounded by mountains.

- moving landscapes. here my favorite landscape shot of this trip. it was about to rain, just like the old lady  had said.

the view from Sant'Anna