It's been almost two years!

Breathtaking view of the 13th-century Alhambra Palace from the Mirador San Nicolás. Behind La Alhambra you can see la Sierra Nevada (Snowy Peak) that is only 30-something minutes away by car.

... since the last time I posted here. A lot of things have happened, of course, I moved countries, about three times... maybe four. I started a new job. I visited cities that I've never knew before like Athens, Brest and Granada. And I started a new project called Minimaps. I've been meaning to come here and tell you. And here I am. Better late than never.

I'll illustrate this post with the photos of my latest trip to Granada, that I just posted in Minimaps blog. Please enjoy, have a look at Minimaps and get involved if you want, it's a collective placemaking project, and if you have a couple of free days coming and you have no idea where to go, book a ticket a to Granada, it's an amazing place.

Super happy new year to all!

Going up the Albaicín neighborhood: houses and the little orange trees you can find everywhere in Granada.

They are SO beautiful.

Food, food, food. Granada and the whole south of Spain is very famous for their delicious and ver generous tapas. Also, being Granada very close to the sea it's fish dishes are delish!

Santa: What happened last night?

Cartes postales de Normandie: la randonnée

 

This is French Normandy, a little bit north from Le Havre. It's not easy to put into words how wonderful this place is... for me at least, I wish there was a little more of a poet in me.

These photos were taken during one of the walks we made from Vaucottes sur mer to Etretat and back. Etretat is one of the most famous little towns in Haute-Normandie because of its cliffs, les falaises. I'll post photos of the town (:

That little rock in the middle of the sea (third and last photo) we discovered that it was the switch that turn on the sun. Seriously.

Canal Mini-Stories

 

Change is indeed the only certain thing. I'm recycling old photos that I didn't have time to share in the blog in 2014. Because why not? 

For three months last year I lived in Clapton right next to the Canal. This was the road I walked from Clapton to Hackney Wick(ed) to have brunch with my friends or just because the day was lovely, like this one, almost a year ago.

Le week-end et le ciel bleu

A lot bigger, cuter, and filled with more surprises that I expected, Lille just made me enjoy a perfect autumn weekend with a visit to three great museums (*), a Marché de Nöel, hot dogs and barbe à papa, pot au feu, Meert chocolate, and the loveliest communist café with a really nice honey beer.

Perfect and imperfect in magical proportion. I'm starting to think that might be true of all French cities. That balance between warm welcome and bluntly mockery, arrogant beauty and intermitent stench, between what is lovely and despicable, what makes them so unpredictable and therefore attractive. Or maybe I am the only one attracted by bipolarity. I'll start paying more attention to this.

Anyway, Lille je t'aime and I hope to visit you soon again! In the meantime, I promise to make a minimap of Lille very soon! (:

-

(*) The museums are posts to follow, but since I don't trust my posting-self anymore, just in case you want to look for more info, they are: La Maison de la Photographie, where there was a great Martin Parr exhibition; the LAM, Musée de l'art modern, l'art contemporaine et l'art brut in Villeneuve-d'Ascq & La Piscine, in Roubaix, one of the most amazing spaces for a museum I've seen.

Sometimes / Coincidencias

I inhale great draughts of space,

The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought,

I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me...

 

 

Song of the Open Road

Walt Whitman.

 

 

Bright On

                                          Another day chasing the Californian sun, this time in an Artic Pole excursion mode.                      Let the memories of this day last forever.

“Let us again pretend that life is a solid substance, shaped like a globe, which we turn about in our fingers. Let us pretend that we can make out a plain and logical story, so that when one matter is despatched—love for instance—we go on, in an orderly manner, to the next. ”

― Virginia Woolf, The Waves.

Kew Gardens

The begining of the Intoxication Season at Kew Gardens with the promise of discovering the stories of the mind altering plants, along with the "final countdown" feeling that we are experimenting these days brought me and my friends to visit for the first time the wonderful Kew Gardens.

I think we are going to remember this Sunday forever, because the place was absolutely magical and we were high in happiness and fresh oxygenated air,  amazed by cactus, orchids, algae (!) and by the wild fragment tropic contained in the Prince of Wales Conservatory; surprised by the discovery that the word "canvas" comes from "cannabis", and other fun facts of other fun plants; delighted because the Thames was shinny, the people were jogging, riding, standing paddling, sunbathing or drinking along the bankside, and because afterwards we had a delicious Sunday roast with an improvised whiskey tasting and because apparently it was the last warm, sunny day of the year... and we were in the best place to enjoy it!

Yes, I'm probably exaggerating, but as the song say: if you happy and you know it, clap your hands. Days like this don't happen often enough, so this is me clapping my hands and being grateful for such amazing weather, company and location.

If you have the chance of visiting Kew Gardens, please DO IT. You'll love it.