A glass of wine in a traditional trattoria

Every time we find ourselves in this area of Dolomites, we make stop for a glass of wine at the same place. It is a small restaurant - trattoria, in the village of Mezzocanale. It is called Trattoria da Ninetta.

From the outside it does not look all that special, but there is a very pleasant, local atmosphere waiting for you inside. They offer mostly local dishes for a reasonable price. When you add a glass of good wine you have a winner.

An old fireplace is the main attraction of the place in my opinion. The massive stone fireplace stands in the middle of a cosy seating area. At its side there is a stand with a number of iron tools for poking the fire and keeping it at just the right size to warm up the place.

When we stop at this place and order a glass of Cabernet Franc I always get the feeling my skiing vacation has finally began. It was no different this year.

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Another ski season coming to a close

Even though my friends keep posting photos and videos of their recent ski adventures, spring is definitely coming to town. It might take a while for all that snow to melt high up in the mountains but at lower altitudes spring flowers are already blooming.

Despite of all that, my next few posts are not going to be about spring. Instead they will feature a report from our annual skiing vacation in Italian Dolomites (you can find previous reports if you follow the Dolomites label in the right column).

We enjoyed another great week in the snowy mountains of northern Italy. We had a few sunny days, then clouds rolled in and brought some snow. After that the skies cleared again for a while.

There was more than enough snow - we actually had to skip our last day of skiing due to massive amounts of fresh snow. It was so bad they did not even start the lifts for a couple of days.

Since we obviously were not able to ski throughout the last day, we decided to leave a day early. Well... as it turned out instead of leaving a day early, we left a day and a half later.

The end of our week was marked with constant snowfall. On one particular morning a look out of the bedroom window revealed more than a metre of fresh snow. It has been a long time since I saw people shovelling snow from their rooftops.

You can see a morning photo of my car below. I was driving it the previous evening and yes, it was all clear of snow at that time.

In spite of everything, I can say we were quite lucky compared to thousands of people a few valleys to the north. In addition to heaps of snow, they were stuck in their homes without electricity.

Those snow avalanches can definitely cause a lot of trouble. Although power lines were not broken, avalanches blocked all roads going out of the valley we were staying in. In spite of some army troops helping with clearing the mess, roads were being blocked again as soon as they had managed to clear them.

In addition to all that the weather forecast did not look very promising either - it was more snow for the whole next week.

As luck would have it, during our second day of waiting it stopped snowing and in the afternoon when we were already making plans for the next day of waiting, the information about an open road arrived. In a matter of minutes we got our stuff together and left.

Since the road was almost clear of snow our ride was pretty smooth and uneventful. As we got home to Slovenia we saw the power of nature in another form.
It was sleet, which would cripple half of the country in the following days...

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Tram and metro network of Istanbul

While in Lisbon, Portugal almost exactly a year ago, I snapped a few nice photos of their famous Tram 28.

At that time I did not even suspect I will find myself in Istanbul after a year to admire a similar sight. Like in Lisbon there is an extensive tram network also in Istanbul.

Since there are quite a few hills within the huge city (just like in Lisbon and Rome), Istanbul also has a couple of funicular type trams to help transfer passengers uphill.

Apart from those there is also a stretch of the metro line simply called Tünel. Just recently a celebration took place to mark the establishment of the Tünel (139th anniversary), which is the second oldest subterranean urban rail line in the world. Only the London Underground (est. 1863) is older.
Today it is just a part of the municipal transport network and serves some 12,000 people daily.

Among the many public transportation rides we took while in Istanbul, we also had to try the Tünel. It was built to provide an easy ride between the neighborhoods of Galata in Karaköy and Pera (60 meters higher) in Beyoğlu, both of which at the time were in the relatively newer part of Istanbul on the northern shore of the Golden Horn.
The only direct street connecting the two, Yüksek Kaldırım, is steep and narrow. At the time of the construction of Tünel, it was crowded with 40,000 pedestrians a day.

We also tried walking uphill that street and I would definitely have to agree it is quite a workout. You can easily try both options and you will get the idea pretty quickly yourself. If it is not obvious enough, I suggest you take a ride through the Tünel uphill and walk the streets downhill.
You can also check out the spectacular view from the Galata tower while in the area.

If you plan on using the pretty convenient public transportation network a lot during your stay in Istanbul, you should consider getting an Istanbul Card (Istanbulkart), which you can fill up with cash as you go. You can get it at the airport as soon as you arrive.

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