Hotel Ripagrande Ferrara

I climbed a tree today, I sat in this tree on a branch. Protected, Buffered. Cradled. I read my book, sitting in a tree.
Feeling guilty of all I am not doing. I watch people riding by ringing their bicycle bells. I am strangly humbled. I sit in this tree and watch, the water fall from the fountain, making its delicate shapes and slapping to ...

Ferrara is a Medieval town that dates back around 1300 years when Ferrara was a Byzantine military fortified city. In 1115 Ferrara became a free commune and in 1135 the Cathederal was built.

The driving was flat and the highways were fast with lots of speeding passers. The parking was limited at Ferrara and the complexity for the parki...

Short train ride from Florence after a hair raising trip trying to return the rental car in confusing, congested and traffic restrictied Florence (don't rent a car downtown go to the airport). Bologna is an university town (even Johns Hopkin has a campus). Very historical town with a great plaza area like most towns and a great antique market.

The book, the cursed book known as Lonely Planet advised as follows: cycling has become a popular tourist activity in Bologna. Rent a bike from this or that place, and ride Ferrara, following these road signs. Okay, Mandi and I thought. We're fit, we're active, we can do this. We rented bikes and with fantasies of idyllic rolling hillsides, endl...

So we spent a bit of time the night before we got here trying to secure some accomodation. We found the hotel online and it seemed like a good value even if it was a bit out of the way. Whats a 20 minute bus ride anyway. So we get on the bus, which is the right bus going in the wrong direction; we found this out when we got kicked off at the las...

The last days where amazing! We are really lucky... In last entry you can read that we had difficulty to find a place to sleep in Venice. We almost decided to leave without visiting the old center... But at the las moment we got an sms from Nico, from Hospitality club, that he could host us right away! He and Cristina, his wife, have a beautiful...

After flying from Lisbon to Madrid airport, spending a sleepless night there, and an early morning flight to Bologna we were pretty tired when we finally arrived! We had booked into a cheap hotel, but got an email just before we left Lisbon saying that they had overbooked and we had been moved to a 4 star hotel for the same price – WOOHOO!...

my dear angel,

i tried to find some good looking Italian guys to hold your birthday card, but i don't know why, once they saw I came close, they just walked away!! Orz...I did find some beautiful girls to help, hope you like it. :)

you just like my sister. though you got every weakness that older sisters usually have--impatie...

before this trip, i spent over three months to read many many stuffs, anything related to the local folklore, novel, history, photography, art and guide book...etc.

and one of those books, "Under the Tuscan Sun", answered a question to me. the question is:
when i was under 7, i always had the same dream, which is about a little girl...

Ferrara, a great medieval city, old cobbled streets with a castle and more good food. It was still really rainy, but my half broken umbrella from chinatown in san francisco is still going strong, well, it keeps me dry anyway. I was walking around at night and heard some of those horns that you hear in cartoons that announce the king. I started f...