sauce – Energy and Time

Italy day 47: Fontanella to Duino

October 5th: Our B&B came with breakfast, which turned out to be coupons for a bakery two blocks away

Carol got a fruit pastry, and I got a croissant sandwich. Note the wiggly spoon hooked over the cup rim.

Fontanella is an ancient town, going back at least to a fort built in the 5th century.

La Porta di Sopra, part of the ancient boundary wall (but possibly remodeled at a later date).

We chose to drive back roads through this part of Italy, which is rated very high for “quality of life”. We stopped for lunch at a random restaurant, but the food was excellent.

First course. Carol is a gnocchi-holic, but I opted for the squid pasta. Both the gnocchi and pasta were handmade.

We split one second course. Veal, in a lemon-caper-mint sauce that was amazing.

After lunch, we walked around the town square and got some gelato.

The weather cleared up to merely cloudy as we continued our long drive to Duino. But we arrived around 7 PM, and it was hard to find an open restaurant. We finally ate at Dama Bianca down by the water.

Slovenia day 33: Lake Bohinj

September 21st: We scored some nice raspberries and strawberries at a grocery store, so I cobbled together a fruit-and-granola breakfast with low-fat milk. Both kinds of berries in Europe tended to be smaller, darker, and more intensely flavored than their American counterparts.

We were thinking about biking around the lake, but the bike I got had rather sudden braking, and I fell while trying it out. So I stayed home while Carol biked.

On the way to dinner, we stopped and got someone to take a picture of us.

We ate at the Hotel Tripič. Carol got fried local trout filets in Bohinj corn flour with sour cream and buckwheat porridge with mushrooms, and I got the rumpsteak filled with smoked ham and Bohinj cheese, in pepper sauce, with Krapi (buckwheat ravioli).

Croatia day 27: Paklenica

September 15th: In the morning, we snorkeled a little in Pag before heading out. There was an entry point less than 100 meters from our apartment. Nothing spectacular, but lots of small fish.

On the way out of town, I noticed a sign to St. Duh.

“Svetnik” or “svetnica” means “saint”, so this sign appeared to be pointing to a church of Saint Duh. A patron saint of obviousness? There are too many possible puns on this to list here, so I’ll let you make up your own. Just pray that there are no spherical holy relics, or we’d have to call them “sveti balls“. But it’s a bit more complicated than that, as “Sv.” can also be an abbreviation for “sveti” = “holy”. And “sveti duh” means “holy ghost”.

Our main target for the day was Paklenica National Park, known for its narrow canyons, numerous rock-climbing routes, and a secret military bunker (now a museum).

The former military bunker displays nature photos and provides an air-conditioned alternative to hiking outside.

Triple Caramel Chunk is called Caramel Chew Chew in Croatia.

Then we drove to Gračac, where we stayed 2 nights. We ate dinner at the Kralj Zonomic restaurant.

I had beef goulash, and Carol had the mixed meat platter (note the bowl of ajvar sauce).

Iceland day 11: Svartifoss to Heimaey

We had camped just outside Svartifoss, and Carol woke up early and wanted to hike there. But I was feeling a bit beat up and decided to skip it in favor of a leisurely breakfast.

Me eating breakfast next to our black Dacia Dokker camper

Svartifoss (“Black Waterfall”, probably from the same root as the English “swarthy”) is known for it’s black hexagonal basalt columns, which tend to break away before they can be worn smooth, leaving fairly jagged rock. This is the same kind of rock as seen in Devil’s Tower in Wyoming.

another (unnamed?) waterfall on the hike

Then it was off for a long driving day.

There are tall thin waterfalls all over Iceland, in some areas one every kilometer or two.

Our next stop was Fjaðrárgljúfur, a canyon which is (sadly) most famous for Justin Bieber filming parts of a music video there, which increased the tourist load so much that it had to be temporarily closed in 2019.

I found two kinds of mushrooms on the way out.

This looked somewhat similar to a Liberty Cap (*Psilocybe semilanceata*), but I wasn’t about to ingest a foreign LBM to find out whether it was hallucinogenic or not. Also, the stipes seemed too thick and short, and there was no sign of blue or purple discoloration in the older specimens.

We stopped in Vík for lunch at Wok On Vík, an Asian fast food place.

Looking southwest. The 3 rocks in the distance are a famous landmark.

I had something in peanut sauce over brown rice, while Carol went for green tea noodles.

A delicate rock arch. Same 3 rocks in the distance, only this time east (behind us).

Onward to Skógafoss, a 60-meter falls (slightly taller than Niagara Falls).

Lots of spray. You get close, you get wet.

Seljalandsfoss, often described as the only Iceland waterfall you can walk behind, even though Kvernufoss also has that property.

Since we were a little ahead of schedule, Carol proposed that we visit Vestmannaeyjar (the Westman Islands). So we took the short ferry ride to Heimaey (“Home Island”), found a nice campsite (more on that tomorrow), and had dinner at Tanginn.

Carol had the Reindeer Steak, which came with a mushroom sauce. Yes, there’s meat somewhere under those greens.

Iceland day 9: East Fjords

At 08:00 the Viking Jupiter cruise ship arrived. It was on an “Iceland’s Natural Beauty” tour that circumnavigates the island.

I thought about taking that tour sometime in the future just to eat sushi here again, but $2800 for a sushi meal seems excessive. 🙂 Cheaper to fly in and stay for a few days.

At the summit on the way back in to Egilsstaðir we passed the old (now unused) bridge from when it was a one-lane road. Well, actually we passed it on the way out too, but I missed taking a picture then.

In some of the Eastfjords there is fish farming.

For lunch, we stopped at the Hotel Framtíð restaurant in Djúpivogur. I had the Fish Soup, which came with bread and an extra pitcher of soup.

Carol had the catch of the day (salmon in Bearnaise sauce) with onion soup.

After lunch we headed to the famous “black sand reflecting beach”.

Except it wasn’t sand at all (Icelanders do not seem to know what “sand” means), as I found out when I tried to walk on it. It was a mud flat. I sank in up to my ankles.