When: 22 – 25 April 2011

Who: me, Rebekka

Type: Bicycle tour

How long: 4 Days

Fotos

We started by car from Bern, tandem-style with the tandem: me driving, Rebekka in the backseat behind me, and the tandem on the right, from windshield to trunk.

First night in a nice B&B in Nuits-St-George, where we left the car. The next morning we started by tandem and the first stop was Beaume, while in the afternoon we kept going west and visited the Chateau de Sully. We spent the first night in Saulieu at the hotel La Poste, where the escargot dinner did leave some consequences….

The next day we went to the UNESCO world heritage site Vezelay, before starting heading north-est to start our way back. The only hours of bad weather caught us while nearby Noyers. We stopped at a beautiful castle turned into a Bad & Breakfast, Château d’Archambault, where the owner, Madame Sylvie Bouisset, was an extremely nice lady with a passion for Marilyn Monroe. They didn’t have any room available, and calling around they didn’t find any also at nearby hotels. Feeling bad leaving two young souls under the rain on a yellow tandem, Madame Bouisset offered us one of her private rooms, which was anyway perfect, and we were saved.

The next days we went to visit another stunning UNESCO site, the Abbey of Fontenay. From there we kept rolling through the picture perfect countryside of Burgundy, between yellow colza fields, passing by Semur-en-Auxois, to stop for the night in Flavigny, which is the village where most of the Chocolat film was shot. 3 B&B in the village, all of them full, and again a very nice lady started calling basically every house in the village to see if anyone could offer us a bad. As usual with the ones who take risks, luck was on our side and a lady hosted us in one of her rooms in a beautiful old house filled with all sorts of objects in the middle of the village.

The last day we cycled through some medieval villages, among which also Cheateauneuf, to make it back to Nuit-Saint-George where we loaded the tandem and started our way back to Switzerland.

When: 10 September 2011

Who: me, Rebekka

Type: Hike

How long: 8 Hours

Fotos

I am since 6 years in Switzerland, and the usual pattern I have seen is that the odd years bring a beautiful autumn with them, while the even ones are usually miserable. 2011 was an odd year and the weather in fall was constantly absolutely beautiful. Never a drop of rain.

Flying over the alps I had  noticed several times a like close to the border with France, somewhere between Martigny and Chamonix. And, as I need a like to enjoy the hike, we thought to explore the region. It turned out to be one of the most fascinating alpine landscapes I have seen, with lunar- or vulcano-like mountains, the Mont Blanc and two beautiful blue lakes. We started from the parking lot nearby the Emosson Dam (at 1930 m), and we hiked up to Cheval Blanc (2831 m) which is right on the border between France and Switzerland, and we came back walking by le Lac d’Emosson Vieux.

Here you can find some descriptions of hiking trails in this area.

I highly recommend this hike.

Tour

When: 29 December 2011 – 10 January 2012

Who: me, Rebekka

Type: Roadtrip

How long: 2 weeks

Fotos

It’s been almost one year since I wrote the last time, but coming back from Morocco and having a lot of people asking for pictures, I thought to select a couple and add a new post.

This was the second time in Morocco for me, and, as during the first time that I went, I remained greatly impressed by the amazing beauty of the landscape. This time the advantage was the complete independence, having rented a car and being able to go wherever the wind blows and staying as long as we wanted. 

We started from Casablanca heading south to Mirleft. We then started our way back north spending a couple of days in Tafraoute, before going to Marrakesh where we had to fight for a couple of days  with the hasslers there. Then again some nature, with Ourzazate, the Dades and Todra Gorges. From there up north to Fes and Meknes before completing the loop and flying back home from Casablanca.

When: 5 – 6 March 2011

Who: me, carlo

Type: City tour

How long: 1 weekend

Fotos

Meeting Carlo for the first time after more than 5 years, and considering everything that happened to us in between, was already excellent. Meeting him for the second time was awesome! And then for some reason Boston, where I had never been before, always threw my imagination to a white Red Sox hat, to my childhood and the extraterrestrial tales from Federica in the US. She was not even in Boston but it was a weekend destination, and for that reason it seemed to me the place beyond the end of the world.

Childhood stuff. From now on Boston will remind me of one of the highlights of my culinary life, witnessed by the attached pictures of the BEFORE and AFTER. Going through the pics, you’ll understand what I mean.

Boston is a cool city that literally dies at 2am. Only the legend of one bar in Chinatown that sells beer after 2am, but which is never to be found, still runs around the city after that time.

I am sure the weather did not give justice to the colors that it has to offer, so we’ll surely have to go back in 6 months to fully appreciate it.

When: 24 – 28 February 2011

Who: me, Ale, Ismail and a few others.

Type: City tour / road trip

How long: 1 week

Fotos

I think that sometimes ephemeral and short lasting pleasures are alright: landing at SFO, picking up your shining red convertible Mustang, a popular song at full volume on the radio, and simply let the shops on Market and the bars on Broadway, the Big Sur and the Golden Gate bridge slowly slide outside your window.

Then there are lots of memories connected to very relevant moment of my life with setting in this city.

The first time I was 18 and I came up with a school trip from Phoenix.

The second time I was 22 and it was for that first big California road trip with Ali, Simone and Don from Irvine.

The third one was for the legendary winter break road trip Los Angeles – San Francisco – Cabo San Lucas – Los Angeles with Don, where we spent one week in a Berkley’s girls’ coop.

The fourth was when I started working for my first company.

And finally this one, where I could meet old forgotten friends by pure chance, see that my cousin is growing up and doing very well, appreciate a few sides of the working life here that I could not value when I was younger, and notice the slightly broader offering that San Francisco has compared to the capital of the Confederatio Helvetica

When: 27 December 2010 – 11 January 2011

Type: sightseeing / road trip

How long: 2 Weeks

Fotos

Expectations from the Canary Islands were very low, due to several people telling me that it is pretty average without any major highlights. Well, I have to say that I thought it was absolutely great! 3 days Gran Canaria, 6 Lanzarote and 4 Tenerife left me with the idea that at least 4~5 days more would have been needed to cover at least the highlights in Tenerife. Moreover the weather was really good with every day sun and temperatures around 22~24 degrees. Everything (accommodation, food, car rentals, inter-islands flights, surf gear, etc) is very affordable and it is a great winter Holidays destination from Europe.

Here are some recommendations:

1. If you are climbing a 3700 m mountain, when you are almost at the top please stay far away from any old German lady who wants to talk to you. She will be the cause of you going back coursing without having made it to the summit;
2. If you are in the water and some surfers start yelling at you that you are a looser and show you an L on the forehead, don’t take it personal. It is just about the material of the board that you are using. Please carry on with a smile like if you are about to make the most crazy trick in the world flying 30 meters on the next wave.
3. Once you reserve on-line your room for 30 Euro per night don’t run to the supermarket to buy some insecticide. The accommodation will really be 100 % ok.
4. Try to understand why in Switzerland 1 Liter of 100 % orange juice (made with Spanish oranges) can cost as little as 1 Euro in the supermarket, and there is about 150 % more expensive. I couldn’t understand.
5. Serious one: wake up early at least 3 days in Tenerife to hike around the Faro de Anaga, around El Teide and along the Barranco de Masca

Where: Suwon and Seoul, South Korea

When: 11 – 14 October 2010

Who: me and Raphael

Type: sightseeing

How long: 3 Days

Fotos

It is 7am and, as I am writing, I am on my way to the airport. If I manage to catch the flight to Shanghai it is honestly a miracle. The week in Korea is over and it was actually very positive from a work prospective, and with the Lonely Planet for Korea on one hand, and Raphael (a very small man) under the other arm I could also see and learn more than I usually do during business trips. I also found out to have an unexpected weapon to charm people: I could talk about the one Korean film that I have seen, “the host”. A couple of them went totally nuts for that! During the week we went almost every day in direction south as far as 150km from Seoul. The landscape was never especially interesting, but it was curious to notice the almost absence of one family houses also in the countryside. Even there, there are huge apartment complexes that can host 5000 people in the middle of rice fields. After the first day of customer visits I had to review my sox selection as we needed to take off the shoes every time, and I have also learned that in Korea even business people do not speak English.

Beside the countless dishes of fatty pork meat that I have grilled, the bottles of Soju that we drank and which made pretty quickly Raphael turn red and very funny, and the cups of pre-cooked noodles eaten in the convenice stores in the night as you go to the “porcaro” in Italy after drinking a couple of beers to much on Friday night to get the greasest hamburger made on planet earth, I had time to visit the “Korean folk village”, a complex of traditional Korean buildings, and the imperial palace Gyeongbokgung.

PS: in the meantime I arrived to our office in Shanghai. I am expecting the police any time as they find out that the first thing that I do arriving here is updating this well-known subversive blog full of propaganda (this is a joke, but for real I do not want to  write any word that the 30,000 internet-policemen, which are supposed to be constantly scanning the internet in China, could detect)

PPS: I cannot get in facebook from broadband connections here so please check directly on the blog if you want to see the updates

Where: DMZ and Seoul, South Korea

When: 10 October 2010

Who: me and Raphael

Type: city tour

How long: 1 Day

Fotos

I started my 3 weeks Asia tour with a night without sleeping on the Frankfurt – Seoul plane and consequently all day long falling asleep every time that I was sitting down.

Landed at the airport, the good Raphael, who is in one of the pictures at the restaurant, picked me up and we drove immediately to the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. There is not too much to see there but it is anyway interesting hearing all the details (seen from the South Korea side) about the whole story. Just one note worth mentioning: arrived there I told Raphael that I was a little bit hungry. He came back with a cup (you can see a picture) full of something which I didn’t want to know what it was before tasting it. I did taste it and vomited it without any interruption between the two things, before learning that I had just eaten a silkworm. But no worries, nothing was going to be wasted. Raphael drank the cup of warms like if it were a Chinotto (lets say Schwepps for the ones who don’t know what it is).

In the evening we went to a restaurant where I had some excellent chicken cartilage, before heading to the downtown area. One pretty funny thing to notice. When I was in Japan I have always heard the story of the Japanese-Korean long-standing conflict from the Japanese side. Useless to say that since one day I am hearing the exactly same story, which however has to have happened in a  parallel universe considering that everything is the same but turned around 180 degrees.

PS: please note today’s date, 10-10-10

When: 3 September 2010

Who: me and some work colleagues

Type: city tour

How long: 1 Day

Fotos

Having changed the job at the beginning of July this was the first overnight business trip since a long time, about 6 months, and this has been by far the longest period without travelling since I have started working almost five years ago . I spent eight days in Valencia and three in Amsterdam. In Valencia the biggest attraction in town is the ciudad de las artes y ciencia (the city of the arts and siences), a complex of modern buildings designed by Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, inaugurated in 1998 with the last large building finished in 2005 . It stretches basically from the city center to the port in a wide park . In the buildings there are museums, theatres, aquariums, etc

When:  7 August 2010

Who: Dodo

Type:  bicycle trip

How long: 1 Day (237km, 12 hours)

Fotos,

Tour,

Last Saturday I set my new limit of physical endurance: 237 km with two mountain passes. The first one was the easy Brünigpass (here the climb) while the second, the Grosse Scheidegg, with already over 150km in the legs, did give me some more troubles (here this climb). Moreover I took a much steeper road for the first 200m of this climb compared to the one which you can see in the graph, and the whole day I had a 10km backpack which did cause at some points my back to hurt.

Anyway it was a great tour which I would recommend to anyone, maybe splitting it in two with stop over in Meiringen. The weather was also excellent and the feeling of getting on the top of the grosse Scheidegg with the warm 6pm light of a clear summer day shining over the whole Jungfrau region is indescribable.

It was almost 9pm by the time I passed Thun, and it was getting dark and I had no light. So I did the last 40 km at my maximum speed after so many kilometers, which means that I was at about 35~40 km/h. While riding I pass another cyclist at double speed, but shortly after there was a very small climb where I slowed up considerably. Immediately after the climb I start again at full speed as before, and after a while I realize that the guy that I had passed caught up with me during the climb and was using my wind drag to keep up with my pace. After a few kms I turn around and he tells me that I was going too fast for him and he was sorry but couldn’t give me the change in front. I say “no problem” and he says “you know, I’m 75 years old…” !!!!