Once a week Skinnywench dips into the dictionary and picks a word that the page falls open at, the challenge is to post a picture or use whatever genre you prefer to share what your take on the word is.
Here are some of my workers from India, Thailand and Penang:
This week’s weekly challenge was ‘lunchtime’. This one was a tricky one for me since I don’t have a camera phone and don’t usually eat lunch. However, for once DH announced he was hungry and wanted lunch today so I took this photo with my compact camera which goes everywhere with me and is the nearest thing I’ll get to a camera phone for the time being.
a chicken club sandwich served with chips liberally sprinkled with black pepper and the most delicious dipping sauce – a sort of sweet chilli sauce with lots of ginger in it – delicious!
Do you linger over lunch or snatch a quick sandwich on the run? Takeaway or eat-in? What would your ideal lunch be? Have you ever eaten the perfect lunch?
Jake’s challenge is to share something relating to natural resources. Natural resources are materials and components (something that can be used) that can be found within the environment. Every man-made product is composed of natural resources (at its fundamental level.
According to Wikepedia: “The Cascata delle Marmore (Marmore’s Falls) is a man-made waterfall created by the ancient Romans. Its total height is 165 m (541 feet), making it one of the tallest in Europe and the tallest man-made waterfall in the world. Of its 3 sections, the top one is the tallest, at 83 m (272 feet). It is located 7.7 km from Terni, a provincial capital of the Italian region of Umbria.
Its source is a portion of the waters of the river Velino (the rest of the river flows into a hydroelectric power plant), after flowing through Piediluco lake near the community of Marmore. It pours into the valley below formed by the river Nera. Its flow is turned on and off according to a published schedule, to satisfy the needs of tourists and the power company alike. Tourists try to be there the moment the gates are opened to see the powerful rush of water”.
It was obviously a very popular spot with families at the weekend; on the day we visited the falls the car park was soon full and there was standing-room only on the small viewing platform. The water thunders over the ledge and down in the valley far below, sending up plumes of spray with rainbow lights in them.
prickly pear
caper berry bush
yellow courgette flower
bitter gourds – used to cure stomach upsets
We stayed in Passignagno sul Trasimeno for a week, in a hotel at the edge of the lake and used this as our base to go out exploring. It is one of Italy’s largest lakes. There are 3 picturesque islands which can be reached by ferry and there are beaches around the lake. There was a wealth of bird life here too and on several occasions we watched a pair of grebes with 3 chicks as they swam close to the shore by our hotel.
view from our balcony to the left
view to the right
view from our balcony towards the town
view up towards the castle at the top of the town
a very attractive garden close to the hotel
beware of the cats
a jewellery shop whose wares were designed to look good enough to eat
the sausages, etc. on sale in this delicatessen shop were undoubtedly good to eat
and talking of eating ….. on the first evening we dined on the jetty which belongs to the hotel with its restaurant at the end. The hotel boasts that the restaurant had the best view of the lake but unfortunately, as you can see from this picture, the jetty itself was something of a blot on the landscape
with its pool next door
‘though we did see some nice sunsets.
We did, however, find the Trattoria del pescatore on our second night and enjoyed our meal there so much that we ate our way through their menu for the rest of the week. Each night the owner advised us which wine should accompany the dishes we had chosen and they were all excellent. Value for money this was a real find and was so popular that they had to do two sittings most nights. I’m sure it was their meals which were responsible for the extra kilos “luggage” we were carrying around with us!
a selection of starters
a pasta course
chocolate (of course) dessert
Luca, one of the waiters. I’m sure he’s escaped from an icon; he has that dark complexion and those heavy lidded eyes so typical of Greek and Russian orthodox icons.
In nearby Tuoro, we visited the Field of the sun (Campo del Sole Tuoro), a group of 27 contemporary sandstone sculptures made by celebrated artists, which looks like a modern-day Stonehenge.
Jake’s Sunday Post this week challenged us to feature “delicious” photos. Here are some of mine:
edible carved vegetables – delicious to look at but possibly not to eat
definitely good enough to eat
chilli crabs
baked white snapper
delicious-looking cakes but horrible (IMHO) to eat
a good choice of liquid deliciousness here
one man’s meat is another man’s poison ….
this butterfly seems to find the cocktail suitably delicious
this glorious beach-side setting ensured that the cocktail was absolutely delicious
so was this green tea frappe
preparing food offerings during the Festival of Hungry Ghosts in Penang. Hopefully they will be found to be delicious
also spotted in Penang, a poster advertising a different kind of delicious
The next day we set off to drive to Passignano sul Trasimeno. The section between Siena and Montevarchi was called the strada dei castelli del Chianti (Chianti castle and wine route) where I would have wanted to stop off at so many places that we would never have reached our final destination.
Late morning we stopped off for a visit to Arezzo where the duomo was closed between 12.30 and 15.30. Only in Italy (maybe) would a cathedral be closed for lunch and a pity the guide books don’t mention this. Most tourist offices, we discovered to our chagrin, also close between 12.00-15.30 and invariably we always managed to turn up just as they were closing or had just closed – very frustrating.
Arezzo, home of a bronze statue of the chimera (the logo of Agip petrol stations)
was a very attractive town with some interesting-looking art and antiques shops and buildings with painted facades.
looking towards the church of Santa Maria della pieve
pasta shop
truffle-flavoured pasta
highly ornamented facade of the Palazzo Pretorio
It had a large campo with a loggia (arched walk way) running along the top of the square which was home to a number of restaurants and shops.
Arezzo is home to an annual medieval festival called the Saracen Joust (Giostra del Saracino). In this, “knights” on horseback representing different areas of the town charge at a wooden target attached to a carving of a Saracen king and score points according to accuracy. Virtually all the town’s people dress-up in medieval costume and enthusiastically cheer on the competitors.
photo of a photo showing the crowd and the jousters
We visited Santa Maria della Pieve (the church on the right hand side as we looked down the piazza Vasari), San Domenico and San Francesco (no photos allowed in these churches). San Domenico has a curiously asymmetrical façade and is home to the great Christ painted by Cimabue and an interesting series of 14th and 15th century frescoes of the Arezzo school.
San Domenico
view of the countryside around Arezzo
In the afternoon we stopped in Cortona. We managed to find a parking spot near the top of the hill so were saved a long uphill walk into the town itself. We had a late lunch – crostoni (a sort of toasted open sandwich) with tomatoes, rocket and fontina cheese for me and tomatoes and mozzarella for DH.
sgraffito decoration scratched into the plaster
view over the rooftops towards the countryside
dome of the church San Filippo Neri
We visited the museo dell’Academia Etrusca (Etruscan museum), no photos allowed and no postcards for sale. This museum has an extraordinary Etruscan chandelier, the like of which I’ve never seen before.
Then we visited the churches of San Domenico
triptych by Gerini in the church of San Domenico
and San Francesco.
On the outskirts of the town is the Renaissance church of Santa Maria delle Grazie al Calcinaio (Sta Maria of the lime kiln). I made a special effort to visit this because it was supposed to have a beautiful oculus (stained glass window) in the façade but I couldn’t find it. Its interior was surprisingly stark after the highly decorated churches we’d already seen
Cortona and its environs inspired Frances Mayes to write her book “under the Tuscan sun” about her life restoring the villa she called Bramasole. It was subsequently made into a film. Isabella Dusi wrote a book called “vanilla beans in brodo” about the time she spent living in Cortona itself. I wished I’d had a copy of her book with me when we visited so that I could have followed one of her walks.
We then took a scenic route via the hills behind Lake Trasimeno to get to our hotel in Passignano sul Trasimeno, on the lake, site of a famous battle between Hannibal and Rome.
our first glimpse of the lake
sunset on the lake
I’ve chosen to feature some of the photos I took in Cambodia for this week’s challenge.
These photos were taken in Phnom Pen
sugar cane vendor
turmeric vendor
pineapple vendor
anyone for barbecued fish?
this lady is a fortune teller
these photos were taken in or around Siem Reap
for some people, everyday life means hanging around waiting for tourists to take your photo,
or delivering ice,
waiting in your tuk-tuk for the next passenger,
hoping you’ll sell your lotus fruit,
market vendors
passing the time of day
away from the big hotels you might live somewhere like here
or here
flower vendors
If you live on the water near Tonle Sap you could be
boatbuilding
or fishing
washing your next meal in the river water …..
going fishing
you might live here
or here
transporting fresh produce
This week Ailsa has challenged us to share our photo experiences of food. Where in the world do I start, there’s so much wonderful food out there and I love all of it (well, nearly all). Now I regret the fact that I haven’t taken more photos of the food I’ve eaten or the food I’ve seen for sale on my travels.
Here are some of my food photos from Thailand:
iced green tea frappe
a grilled fish stall at Koh Samui’s Red Cross festival
sushi on sale at the same festival
this guy is mixing a drink
a food stall in Thailand – not quite sure what they’re selling
and another one
and another one
cakes – invariably they look better than they taste
this was our dinner one night – you can just see the nose and tail fin of this banana-leaf wrapped barracuda waiting to be grilled on the barbecue
cake made to celebrate the 23rd anniversary of the Reggae Pub on Samui
food offerings on a stand set up by a department store during the Chinese new year celebrations on Koh Samui
Chinese new year moon cakes
Why not see what sort of food other people have been photographing, here
This week we are challenged to share a picture that captures a fleeting moment on the street
I was in Luang Prabang, Laos, earlier this year and took these pictures in the street:
this is my favourite, don’t you just love the girl’s slippers?
a woman selling flowers for the temple
a broom seller
a couple of cheeky tourists muscle in while I try to photograph these donut sellers
Ailsa has challenged us again to come up with some images from our travels of street markets. I’ve always loved the colour and vibrancy of street markets and the variety of what’s on offer. Some markets may only offer produce but many offer a huge choice of everything a household could possibly need and more besides. Wherever the market is, be it Europe or Asia or beyond, it would be hard to resist the tempting displays. Here are some market images from my travels in Cambodia:
These were taken in Pnomh-Pen
street markets are wonderfully chaotic places with people jostling to get at the produce
a food stall with food ready to feed the hungry hoardes
a vendor of floral decorations for the temple
a sugar cane vendor
a turmeric vendor
banana flowers, mini aubergines, pineapple and okra on sale
a selection of edible roots and shoots
small pumpkins decorated in honour of the Chinese New Year
more edible goodies
rice noodles packed in layers of banana leaves
grilled cat fish kebabs
some things look more tempting than others
a bowl of the sea shells known as volutes, they are such beautiful shells I couldn’t possibly eat them and I was saddened to see them on sale there
these were taken in Siem Reap
flower vendors at the edge of the market
get your palm juice here
not exactly a market but a street vendor nonetheless of lotus heads
