sardinia III: cala gonone & the golfo di orosei

     
Some shots from the two different days we did the Golfo di Orosei boat tour (separated by a day of hanging out at a beach to the north of Orosei & subsequently at the pool at Hotel Villa Gustui Maris, pictured above). We totally loved Villa Gustui Maris last year, so much that I reviewed it on Trip Advisor. Their breakfast is one of my favorite hotel breakfasts ever -- little individual silver coffee pots! fresh fruit! local Dorgali ricotta! eating on the patio overlooking the Golfo di Orosei! So great.

sardinia II: flowers

Gorgeous flowers at one of the beaches we visited on our way up the southeastern coast of Sardinia in early July.

sardinia I: the southeast

Stephen and I liked last year's parts-of-five-days trip to Sardinia so much that we decided to go back again this year. This time we spent almost two full weeks there. These pictures are from the first couple of days, when we spent the night in Quartu Sant' Elena just outside of Cagliari and then road tripped up the southeastern coast on the way to Cala Gonone.

Pro tip: The promenade along Poetto Beach is an excellent place to go running.

kölner wochenende

I visited Mandie in Cologne a couple of weeks ago, and in between running 13.1 miles (training for the Frankfurt Marathon less than two months out!), splitting fifteen little dishes of fabulous Persian food with Mandie and Kedar, watching Clueless, and getting Flammlachs sandwiches and a Nutella crêpe at a wine fest by the Rhein, we went to the lake. Specifically, Blackfoot Beach, which was excellent. We eased our way into the not-terribly-warm water and spent a while lounging on the big floating rubber barriers you can see in the lake before coming ashore for a light snack, which in my case translated to basically a whole meal involving potato salad, Greek salad, and, in response to some serious post-run protein cravings, the rare consumption of a German sausage. (I hit my lifetime bratwurst limit sometime in 2007, after a couple dozen visits to the Freiburg market for cheap bratwurst and mustard on a Brötchen, but do occasionally make exceptions.) The French fries in the picture tasted not a little bit like chicken and I didn't quite manage the entire sausage, but they (and the entire lake visit!) totally hit the spot.

frankfurt summer

     
We've had a relatively excellent summer in Europe this year. Here: a really gorgeous evening around Alte Oper, a superb grilling party in a garden, and swimming at Brentanobad.

paris: postcards

  
Some of my favorite shots of Paris from our wonderful weekend trip at the end of June. More here.

paris: city of crêpes

Have you heard of crêpe street in Paris? Rue du Montparnasse and the next street over, rue d'Odesssa, are packed with upwards of twenty crêpe shops. Stephen discovered this area when visiting Paris with friends last year, and brought me back for what we dubbed Crêpe Weekend: two days and three evenings of eating all the crêpes (sweet) and galettes (savory) we could pack in. We managed to visit five different crêperies over the course of the weekend, listed in the order in which we visited them.

1. Crêperie Plougastel, rue du Montparnasse, Friday night dinner:
We ate a cheese and mushroom galette, a cheese/mushroom/spinach galette, and a caramel crêpe. The galettes were both delicious, the crêpe was a little too simple (perhaps because the caramel was a bit thin). We sat outdoors and drank white wine, which was excellent at the time and a little less excellent the next morning.

2. Crêperie du Quiberon, rue du Montparnasse, Saturday late breakfast:
It seems like a lot of the crêperies don't open until eleven a.m., which worked out fine for us since we were a little slow-moving on Saturday. Dominic, who served us, was stoked about us being "American citizens", and served us caramel beurre salé to taste in little shot glasses -- seems like he does this for everyone, but that didn't make it any less excellent. We ate a four-cheese galette, a tomato/onion/mushroom/cheese galette, and a crêpe with almond/vanilla ice cream/caramel beurre salé. Amazing. Overall our favorite crêperie of the trip.

3. Crêperie du Josselin, rue du Montparnasse, Saturday evening:
There was a line out the door for this place, which we figured could only be a good sign, but it might also have to do with the fact that it seems to be very well loved on Yelp. The restaurant interior was quite cool: nautical Breton theme, very atmospheric. The service was just okay, since the place was terribly busy (might also have to do with the fact that it was a Saturday night). We got a walnuts and Roquefort galette, a spinach/Emmentaler/cream galette, and a crêpe "Chaud-Froid": flambé with orange liqueur and vanilla ice cream. I'm always a sucker for excellent food presentation, and flaming food certainly fits the bill.

4. Crêperie du Manoir Breton, rue de l'Odessa, Sunday morning:
We sat outside and peered into the interior (also Breton-seafarer style). We got a three cheese galette (goat cheese, Roquefort, unidentified yellow cheese), a Roquefort/potatoes/cream/walnuts galette, and a chocolate and coconut crêpe. Not bad, but not our favorite.

5. Crêperie de Pont Aven, rue de l'Odessa, Sunday afternoon:
We got a little cocky in terms of our French food words knowledge, so what we thought was going to be a galette with cream, mushrooms, and walnuts turned out to be cream and scallops. Since Stephen's a vegetarian, I took one for the team and ate the scallops galette, though it wasn't particularly excellent -- too much cream. Our other galette, with Emmentaler, mushrooms, spinach, and cream, was very tasty, and our Nutella crêpe was right about what a Nutella crêpe should be. Service was quick, but Stephen thought the galette and crêpe batter were both a little more pancake-like than he preferred, and the scallops were certainly a surprise.

In summary: crêpe street! Go there!