Stomp, stomp, stomp...in my new shoes

Sick of oweeee feet on the pebbly "beaches" around these here parts we finally succumbed to buying beach shoes. Unfortunately for me, they only had pink ones left in the women's stock, but I guess I'm lucky that they aren't covered in sequins and sparkles (both of which are wayyyy overused in women's clothing here). I feel slightly ridiculous wearing then, but maybe not as ridiculous as these fellows feel....

...actually, who am I kidding, I would love a pair of bell shoes.

Anatra and Norberta

I finished knitting Norberta a couple of weeks ago and she is now destined for a life with my nephew (if I can let her go). To be fair, I thought I should make a toy for my niece as well. Quizzing my sister I found out that she is obsessed with ducks...so Anatra was born and I spent a weekend quacking. Norberta has been spending a lot of time in the cupboard of late because we've seen a lot of these guys around the place lately, and a dragon can never be too careful.

Ham, ham, ham, ham

We went to La Festa del Prosciutto di San Daniele last week courtesy of Sam and the "Little Car that Could". San Daniele is famous for its prosciutto and with good reason...it's very tasty. As is the way with Italian festivals, since this was a festival for prosciutto that was pretty much the only item on the dinner menu. You order a serving of prosciutto and it comes with a bunch of bread sticks which you wrap the prosciutto around (bascially a ham-pop) and munch it down...best accompanied with some fine German beer.

Schengen schmengan

We found out today that Italy is suspending the Schengen Agreement (free-for-all border crossings) from 28 June 2009 to 15 July 2009 during the G8 shenanigans in the Trieste area. This means that all border crossings in and out of Italy will be manned, just like back in the day. This made me wonder if the crossing in the photo will be manned. This is one of the only border crossings from Italy that can only be done on foot.

This border crossing with Slovenia can be reached from the Val Rosandra on the Italian side. The hut is on the Slovenian side and is not in the best nick if some poor sod is going to have to camp out there for a week. On the Italian side there is a small village called Botazzo where said poor sod could get some bread and cheese for his lunch...in between checking passports...

Ferries and food

We started last weekend's food fest with coffee and croissants at a bar near the Trieste train station. We actually splashed out the extra few euro to sit down and enjoy our breakfast - normally we just stand at the bar because sitting down can inflate your bill by quite a bit at some bars. We then caught a train to Cervignano and a bus to Grado. Grado is a lagoon town that used to be an port for ships heading to the once important Aquileia, and is now all about fishing and tourism.

On our way to the beach we couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy half a kilo of cherries for 1.83 Euro (~ 3 Oz dollars, yes, that's right $3, not our first born child). The beach at Grado is very long and divided into the paying section and the free section. You can probably guess which part we chose to swim in. We still can't get past the idea of paying to visit the beach, sure you get to sit in a row of people on identical beach chairs under identical umbrellas but the benefits seem to end there. Actually, I lie, the sign above is a warning for swimming in the free beach area, the English version reads "Danger - bathing not safe for luck of lifesaving service". No that's not my typo. We're not sure if this is an observation on the success rate of the life saving service but with the water only up to belly height for at least the first 100 metres, and not a wave in site, we felt that we'd be ok.

For lunch we chose one of the many fish restaurants. I demolished a delicious plate of spaghetti con vongole (clams) - I think I could taste the sea water, they were so fresh. Marito had calamaretti fritti - these were lovely and tender and fried in a very thin batter. We washed it all down with the vino bianco della casa.

Walking around Grado after lunch, we soon found ourselves at a gelateria. I usually take the Gelato Challenge (randomly trying a favour I've never heard of or tried before) when purchasing a delcious icy treat, however this time went for the never fail option of lemon and strawberry sorbets. We caught a ferry home from Grado (this also would have been a good option to get there, had it been on any of the tourism 'How to get there' sites for Grado). Putting into Trieste, we stopped near the Pelorus - Roman Abramovich's 115 m, $US 3 million yacht, sorry one of Abramovich's yachts...note the helicoptor parked on board...


For dinner that night we made a delicious insalata caprese with ciabatta on the side. With a high yummy to effort ratio, I suggest everyone makes this salad and eats it up (tomatoes - cherry tomatoes are good, fresh buffalo mozarella, fresh basil, a good splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar)...make it now!

Green Cheese

The past few weeks have been rather busy with my mother (Madre) and sister-in-law (Cognata) visiting and literally sleeping under the kitchen table (our apartment isn't very big!). While they were here we went to the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia, Skocjan Caves in Slovenia, Val Rosandra in Italy and Valence in Budapest. We also visited the airport carpark in Vienna...stupid car hire rules...

On the first weekend with our visitors, Trieste kindly put on the event Piazza Europa, a festival celebrating all things European...mostly food! We sampled pork knuckle, pastries, cheeses, salami, biscuits, more pastries, breads, strudels...so many tasty treats. Madre and Cognata found this delicious pesto cheese - delightfully tasty and green.

Weird and wonderful things

We went to the Trieste aquarium the other weekend (and randomly managed to pick a day of "liberta entrata" - yay free stuff!). The funniest animal in the aquarium was the "Jackass penguin", I think named appropriately given the ass wiggling this penguin was doing. Upstairs there is a collection of snakes; being European most of the snakes are quite civilised and harmless. The ones that will give you a decent bite are generally cowards and will slither away. Also upstairs there was an exhibition dedicated to Darwin called "Nature Anomale". Basically a whole lot of stuffed deformed animals on display - two headed sheep, one eyed rabbits, four legged chickens.

After looking at such weird and wonderful animals, I decided to buy the giant bag of stuffing to stuff Norberta and make her a real dragon. Here is Norberta working out how to attach her limbs and wings...and a little while later, giving up and getting stuck into the limoncello!