All posts tagged: Travels

Delicious Sicily: Part 1- Santa Anastasia Winery and Castelbuono

Published by

**The short film in which I made an appearance, “Romance and Spirit of Sicily” has won awards at several international film festivals. I hope you you’ll enjoy it!** Hello! I’m finally back! Please forgive me for the long absence. For a girl, who had wandered around the world for over 10 years, to finally become Mrs. was a good enough excuse to have a break, I thought. To justify the long break, I had planned to make a grand comeback with a new website but well, this is as much as I could do. But I have many exciting stories to share with you in months to come, and I’ll start with the latest culinary trip to Sicily, the mysterious island that everyone desires. Yes, it was full of wonders and beauty, and didn’t disappoint me in any sense. The people were so generous and friendly, and it was so good to be in a timeless place where everyone says hi to everyone. After a week, I felt like I’d lived there for a year! Cefalu, where Cinema Pasadiso was filmed, was …

massimo villas

Delicious Sicily: Part 2- Palermo Market and Cooking at Massimo Villas

Published by

This is probably the highlight of my Sicilian trip and it’s because of the wonderful home cooking experience. Since the cooking was in the evening, we decided to visit Palermo, more precisely the street market, yipeeee! Before I start, I’ll share the video of the home cooking, Private Chef, Cefalu by Joolzy on for those who prefer to watch rather than to read. Julian did a great job in delivering the true atmosphere of the evening in his short video, and I’m looking forward to seeing more videos  on the rest of the trip soon. So now let’s move on to the market. The market we went to is Ballarò in Palermo. Living in Istanbul, I’m used to the bustles and shouts of vendors but in Sicily they were a lot louder, making strange whistles and tunes! There are so many photos of foods but I can’t and won’t share them all. There was a huge variety of produce and some of them had odd shapes and sizes or were strange like this snake-like long zucchini, cucuzza. What caught my attention …

Antakya Food Trip – I love Antakya!

Published by

Here you go the second part of my Antakya food trip, where I got deeper into the town and food, but no luck with museums and churches. We got up the next day to find out that the archeological museum was closed along with all other museums… Yes, usually museums are closed on Mondays in Turkey and I knew that part, however, I was sure that I’d read ‘Closed on Sundays’ on the museum site. Was I dreaming? So disappointed at the finding and so annoyed by the cold weather, I lost my appetite for food. Take a deep breath…..calm down… Only the fact that the museum was under refurbishment in a new location and currently only half of the site is available to the public made me feel a little better. Alright, then, let’s just eat whatever we come across. I definitely needed food to cheer me up. The cheese bread just outside the hotel was so so good, reminding us a bit of Georgian cheese bread. You must try it when you’re in …

safranbolu

Safranbolu, Amasra..and Beautiful Autumn colours

Published by

I know there are hundreds of photos of the traditional Ottoman houses but I’ll still add mine because one never gets tired of looking at these timeless houses with unique characteristics. Mr.O took me around to secret spots where he sat drinking coffee and reading books. He knew this village like the back of his hand, having come here on weekends during the compulsory military service while other soldiers went to the new town for more fun. Nowadays, Korean tourists seem to be everywhere, leaving their traces here and there, a hand-written sign board or message in Korean inviting tourists to certain shops and restaurants for example. Words travel fast in Turkey and when we were going to Sanfranbolu, Mr.O’s ex-commander’s daughter joined us with her friend, who was a huge fan of Korean TV and culture. They study at the local university and I happened to be there. They took us to their favourite cafe, Kuru Kahveci, for the best Turkish coffee as they claimed, but it was closed so we went to Sade …

A wine trip to Georgia – Pheasant’s Tears

Published by

Pheasant’s Tears…. Ok, let’s get started, finally! It is one of your lucky days having two posts in a row from me! Ehem… What a poetic name! Very fine wines make pheasants shed tears of joy when they sip it….. Well, I must have been a pheasant in my past life, because I cry, too. When I sip a good wine, all the words for describing wines stop dead in my head and all I manage to utter is simply wows with my eyes automatically closing and my head moving sideways in a very slow motion. There should be non-verbal evaluation of wines like this. Words can disguise emotions but the body language can’t as passion is felt rather than spelt out. Don’t you think so? Have you had this kind of moment? You just want to savour it, feeling reluctant to say a word, as if any words would spoil the taste. Sorry, let me get back on the track. Though it wasn’t entirely irrelevant to the review I’m about to write because my …

Georgian food

Let me fill your glass with my past stories: Part 2 – Georgia

Published by

I’ve done it finally! Now I’ve unearthed the mysteries and secret talks surrounding Georgian wines and Caucasus mountains! My devoted love and curiosity about wine, which started in the New World, has led me to another ancient wine-producing country. My wine pilgrimage routes: Australia and New Zealand – France – Spain – Italy – Turkey – Greece – Georgia – next ? Here I am in Batumi, Georgia, where I entered and re-entered the Sarpi customs building at the Georgia-Turkey border 8 times in total, messing up my passport with 8 stamps on a single journey. Duh! I’m crossing the border where mosques are instantly replaced by churches. The Sarpi customs building is built in the shape of a key to heaven, by the way. We arrived in Batumi later than scheduled due to the delayed flight in Istanbul. My first impression of Georgia was very different to what I’d imagined. Batumi had many casinos and the area around them was clean, well-maintained with renovated old buildings as well as modern architecture. Our plan was …