KC’s Blog

For my Birthday lunch in Croatia Hoss took me to a small town called Opatjia, just outside of Rijeka, a beautiful town along the coast of Croatia, about an hour and half from where we live in Italy. Hoss had been there several times with work, their Croatian shop is there. The Restaurant is called Kukuriku, which we think means chicken, there were fake chickens all around the restaurants, but not in the tacky way that it sounds. The meal was seven courses of pure delight, we ate pasta, pate, beef, polenta with truffles, cheese, and so much more. Each course was coupled with amazing wine to compliment what we were eating. Three hours later we were stuffed and had to say goodbye, we left the restaurant to find it raining outside and hit the road to go home. Most of the drive is through the country in the pitch dark, but we threw some cds into the stereo and enjoyed the ride.

Thanks to Anthony I had an amazing Birthday that I will remember forever!

Hoss and I spent the day in Ljubljana, in Slovenia, it’s about an hours drive east through the mountains. We had a beautiful day, enjoying the sites, local cuisine, the Christmas fair and H&M!!

Saturday afternoon, with little more than a general sense of direction and some road signs we went to Cividale.  Cividale was founded by Julius Ceasar around 568 AD and was a meeting point of artists and nobility in the Middle Ages.  The town sits on cliffs atop the Natisone River and is surrounded by the Dolimites.  This little town is so rich with history it was hard to know which direction to go in first!

Saturday we spent the morning at Redipuglia in Ronchi dei Legionari. Redipuglia is a huge monument to the soliders from the First World War. The monument itself really does take your breath away but more than that it makes you think about the cost of any war.

Some pictures of my favorite plants …. I just can’t get over how beautiful my Aubergine plant is … thanks to Jeanette!

Hoss and I spent 5 days in Tuscany last weekend, in a small town called Lucca. Lucca’s history began as a roman colony, the main part of the city is surrounded by a 4 km wall, which you can walk or ride on and gives you a great view of the city centre and the beautiful landscape of Tuscany. We were able to enjoy our time there with our friend Darryl and the rest of the lighting crew from Nora Jones, who Hoss has a vivid history with and I got to hear some pretty great stories from Hoss’ past!

We spent Friday afternoon in Pisa, amid the throngs of tourists we got our own cheesie pictures holding up the tower.

On Saturday we rented bikes for 2.50 euro an hour and rode around the battlement wall and enjoyed a lovely picnic lunch, drinking Tuscan wine in plastics cups, I’m not sure it gets much better than that. Saturday evening we sat in the famous Piazza Napoleone and enjoyed the Nora Jones concert!

Sunday we headed off to Viareggio which is the ‘foot of the Riviera’, bought some bathing suits and spent the afternoon languishing on the beach and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, well technically it’s the Ligurian Sea, but it’s still part of the Mediterranean.

All in all it was a fantastic trip we ate a lot of good food, drank great wine and Hoss got 3 days off work!

Anthony and I spent the last evening in Venice, where dose a couple go when they are living in Italy and celebrating their 5 year anniversary?! We had a good night, when we got there we jumped in a water taxi

and took the short ride around to Piazza San Marco and I got some of the best pictures yet of the canals.

Ironically as the evening wore on we got drunker and the camera just didn’t come out again, probably a good thing. We arrive back in Monfalcone at 2 am to catch the last hour of the Mediterranean Festival in the square, we had one small beer at La Rocca and then home to bed, all in a all another fun evening in Italy.

Anthony and I have had a lot of fun over the past 2 weeks with all our visitors … here’s some random shots from the past two weeks in Trieste, Venice and bowling in Duino.  Stay tuned for our adventure into Autstria today!

As the weather has been getting hotter and hotter Anthony and I have been determined to spend more and more time on our balcony. I started a few months ago by planting a small vegetable garden which is currently blossoming; my cucumber plants have small beautiful yellow flowers, so it looks like I should actually yield some veggies from them. My tomato plants are growing inches everyday and I will have to stake them shortly. I am enjoying watching the plants grow.

We also decided to purchase a barbeque, and it really does seem as if we’re the only people on the block with one. The Italians just don’t seem to embrace the barbeque the same way we North Americans do. Fortunately we’ve had no complaints yet, so we’ll just keep on cooking! Anthony has totally enjoyed every minute of the barbeque and for those of you that know him he’s already figuring out ‘a system’ to harness the power generated by heat from the coals. The main thing for me is that for the first time in months I’ve seen the smile return to Anthony’s face and that is well worth the price of the barbeque!