Lemony Zest :: Kim Lewandowski

Posts Tagged ‘Travel’

My contribution to this week’s Photo Friday photography challenge, with the topic Stand Out, is another photo from our trip to Ireland in 2003.

This is part of the cemetery around Corcomroe Abbey in County Clare. It was a misty, overcast day, as it tends to be in Ireland. Of course, the benefit is the brilliantly green grass. We had a great time there and would love to go back.

I got these photos ready for the Photo Friday challenge last week, and then completely forgot to post them. So the Heavy theme is over now, but I’m posting them anyway, because I think they’re so perfect for it

A few years ago, Dan and I spent a weekend in Jim Thorpe, Penn. We took our bikes and kayaks, and the plan was to go kayaking the first day and bike down a railroad bed converted to a bike trail the second day.

We had car trouble on the DelMarVa Peninsula, so weren’t able to kayak, but we did the bike trip, and had a great time.

Jim Thorpe is a beautifully restored Victorian-era town with gorgeous Painted Ladies and fabulous views of the mountains. It’s an old coal-mining town that is now a tourist attraction for the history as well as the outdoor activities available. And they have amazingly delicious pierogies stuffed with mashed potatoes served with caramelized onions. Yum.

As we were wandering around downtown, we came across this giant lump of coal, aka anthracite. According to the plaque in front of it, it weighs 15,100 pounds and consists of 99 percent carbon.

Really heavy lump of coal

Plaque in front of lump of anthracite

I visited Turkey with my mom, my aunt Betty and Uncle Ray, and some friends of theirs, in May 2001. While there, we took a tour of Ephesus, an ancient Greek and Roman city that, in Roman times, was the second-largest city in the world, after Rome.

The tour guide told us that these symbols – a heart, a woman’s face, and a footprint – carved into the street, pointed the way to the town brothel. One’s foot had to be at least as large as the footprint in order to be admitted to the brothel. More Turkey pix are here: Turkey 2001

This is my entry in the Photo Friday Challenge. This week’s theme is Symbols.

On our last night in Florence, Italy, in September 2009, Dan and I went for a walk across the Arno River bridge near our hotel, to get a view of the river and the city from the other side. Such a beautiful city.

This is my contribution to Photo Friday, the weekly photo challenge. This week’s topic is Blurred.

I’m going through my photos from our trip to Ireland in 2003, and came across this one, which is perfect for this week’s Photo Friday challenge theme: Distant.

The Cliffs of Moher on Ireland’s western coast are 800 feet high at their highest point, and five miles long. We were walking up a slate staircase toward a guard house on a hill near the cliffs when I took this picture. Over a hundred years ago, the property owner built a wall of slate there as well, to prevent people from being blown over the cliff by the downdraft.

We were pretty amazed that people were permitted to walk around that hill to go out on that ledge, though. Below is a closeup showing cracking in the rock under his feet.

Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland

Fractured Rock, 400 feet up

When we were in Florence, Italy in September, we happened upon the Mercato Centrale, or Central Market. Between Via dell’Ariento and Via San Antonio is a building about the size of Norfolk’s Waterside Festival Marketplace (I’m not great at spatial awareness, so don’t hold me to that), filled with row upon row of booths selling an amazing variety of fresh and preserved fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, herbs, spices, wines, oils and vinegars, flowers and prepared foods I think I’ve ever seen. I wished I could buy a week’s worth of groceries and start cooking, but we were staying in a hotel with no kitchen in the room (it had a great breakfast buffet and I stuffed myself on prosciutto, but that’s another story…)

The City of Norfolk, Virginia, is looking for a new concept to transform the aging Waterside Festival Marketplace on the Elizabeth River in downtown Norfolk. Dan and I were talking about this recently and he said, “They should turn it into a food market like the Mercato Centrale in Florence.” There’s lots of easy parking, and it’s close to I-264, not to mention the ferry from Portsmouth, to bring shoppers from all parts of Hampton Roads. The Buy Fresh, Buy Local movement is taking hold here with more and more consumers interested in purchasing fresh, locally grown and raised groceries, and the cruise ships that dock nearby bring tourists interested in taking home Virginia-grown products.

What do the rest of you Hampton Roads residents think? What do we need to do to help make this happen?