January 23, 2012

About acrylic Buddha Statues, Online Shopping and The Year of the Dragon


yellow transparent acrylic Buddha

From my actual hometown Bangkok, Thailand I am writing this. From the Italian side no news so far. Hence, I thought you might enjoy my weekend finds from Bangkok in the meantime. It was a spontaneous trip to the market on Saturday - during the Chinese New Year weekend.

small colourful acrylic Buddha statues

One friend had recently discovered a small stand that sells colourful acrylic Buddha statues. And me and another friend wanted to see where. So we hopped on a taxi.

The small statues are transparent or mat and have a kind of golden antique finish. However the larger statues look at least as good! What a difficult choice!


January 17, 2012

Winter in Calabria

Camigliatello in La Sila National Park, Calabria

So far this blog was all about renovating and decorating a Beach House.

Now, we did it. Okay, it still needs some improvements and probably constant re-renovation work - but mainly we are done. And we are really happy with the result.

Strangely, when I saw the latest interior magazine AD during our skiing holidays in Europe, with lots of snow outside, and all these cozy homes and restaurants in the mountains with wooden fires inside ... I started dreaming ...

Sounds crazy, I know. - Shouldn't I focus on our beach house?

But then I remembered, that Calabria has not only 800 km of coast line to offer. Calabria is quiet hilly and has mountains up to 2,000 meters high above sea level. And when it snows, you can ski! Yes, there are a few ski lifts!

The most important "ski resorts" in Calabria are Camigliatello and Villaggio Palumbo in La Sila and Gambarie in Aspromonte. Both mountainous regions are National Parks.
 
Pizzo --> Sila  app. 120 km and 1,5h drive (via Google Map)

La Sila is about 120 km North of Pizzo and the Aspromonte about 100 km South.  We could reach a ski resort from Pizzo in aobut 1,5 hours drive ! 

From the sea to the mountains in no time. The highest mountain in Sila, Botte Donato (1,928 m) is covered with snow right now. Information about snow levels at Camigliatello via Skiinfo. There are two ski lifts only, but this will do for us when in Calabria in winter!

This is an excellent reason to push forward the installation of a chimney in our beach house. We could drink hot teas and wine in front of the wooden fire after a day skiing up in the mountains. :-)

And I really enjoyed this magazine, especially the featured home of Aerin Lauder in Aspen.

AD German Edition Dec/Jan 2012

Living room of Aerin Lauder's Aspen home


Wishing you all the best for 2012!