Month: November 2014
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The Cathedral of Asti, Piedmont
The city of Asti is 40 minutes drive from Torino and one hour from Milano. Asti was founded by the Ligurians who named it ‘Ast’ meaning ‘hill’ or ‘high-ground’ in 49 BC. After walking around downtown Asti, looking up at the medieval towers (see our earlier post here), we found the city’s cathedral. The cathedral…
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Città delle cento torri, Asti, Piedmont
Continuing with our vacation in Northern Italy … in Piedmont where we were staying, the nearest big town is Asti. Asti has the largest late medieval architectural heritage of the region, in memory of what was once the most powerful town in Piedmont. There are numerous towers, fortified houses, churches, and palaces. The area north-west of the…
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Terredavino, Cantine in Barolo
Continuing with our visit to Northern Italy – Barolo – one of the best-known Italian wines – are made in the village of Barolo in Piedmont. Partly because of time-constraint, we did not visit any of the famous winery, like Conterno, … and not even Renato Ratti, owner of the villa where we were staying…
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Brasserie Bahnhof Basel
When it comes to finding a place to eat at a train station, the Brasserie at the Basel train station is hard to beat. I stumbled into this place recently. This brasserie is located in the Basel SBB train station on the Swiss side of the border and not the Basel Badischer Bahnhof which handles the German…
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Mont d’Or, France
Let’s talk about cheese. Mont d’Or. Like most cheeses, it is named after where it comes from. This place is named Gold Mountain because of the cliffs in this mountainous area which reflect the golden light of the setting sun. By the way, the mountain range is named Jura which gave rise to the name…
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Random photos #121 – #125
These are the photos I (Chris) took and posted on Facebook. The series was started in March of 2013. There is no theme – just something random and visually interesting. We gave each a title and noted where it was taken (to the extent we could remember the city). random photo #121 – red –…