More from Italy - Gardone Riviera and Brescia

Saló, on Lake Garda, is where Mussolini set up a fascist republic in German-occupied Italy after escaping from imprisonment in 1943. At nearby Gardone Riviera, the yellow villa was the home (between 1921 and his death in 1938) and is now the memorial of Gabriele d'Annunzio, a remarkable and eccentric figure - literary, military and political - in Italian history. And a very strange man indeed, to judge from the interior of the villa, which it is not permitted to photograph; you can get a small flavour of it here.

Brescia: the Castello (above) and Piazza della Loggia (below), looking towards the Torre del'Orologio (clock tower), from 1546.

Eurospeak

I spent nearly an hour on the metro this afternoon examining (in the reflection in the window, didn't want him to think I was strange or anything..) a Luscious Young Man aged about 20, and was just wondering, why weren't there any such LYMs around when I was that age, or was I just too busy trying to get a degree/job/career to notice, or did I deliberately not notice because I was not myself a Luscious Young Woman? Given that I am, surprisingly enough, old enough to be the mother of a 20 year-old (in fact I was trying to work out whether I was also old enough to be the grand-mother of a 20 year-old, which would be possible only if both self and child had been extremely and rather unnaturally precocious) I was also wondering what it would be like to have a son that age, having flown or (more likely in Belgium, where students tend to live at home,) soon likely to fly the nest.
Anyway, while I was musing on these interesting subjects, and LYM was alternately playing with his MP3 player and sending text messages on his mobile phone, he took a call and his side of the conversation went something like "Ja hallo, ça va, ça va, ja OK, ça va, nee niets, ça va, OK, see you, ciao." From which I concluded that he was a Dutch speaker, but that in Brussels at least "ça va" (it's fine, in French) is perfectly acceptable Dutch, and that "see you" (or perhaps more likely "CU") is making it into the international lexicon just as OK and ciao have become globalized.

More from Italy: Sirmione on Lake Garda

Happy Birthday EU

The clocks sprang forward for Spring last night, the sun finally came out again this morning and the EU celebrates its 50th birthday today, with a whole string of events planned for the rest of the year. I'm afraid I chose to watch last night's concert on TV rather than join the 50,000-strong crowd at the Atomium - enjoyed it all apart from the Belgian Eurovision entry and Helmut Lotti (singing "Hello Dolly": where DID he think he was??).

Slanguage

Thanks to Ögretmen for this:

Your Slanguage Profile

Aussie Slang: 100% British Slang: 75% Prison Slang: 75% Victorian Slang: 75% Canadian Slang: 25% New England Slang: 25%

What Slanguage Do You Speak?

Elsewhere

The weather in Brussels is cold, grey and drizzly, I wish I was back in Italy! So here are some photos of Lago d'Iseo/Monte Isola, from last week's trip.
I heard - or rather, saw in the French subtitles as I can't understand great wodges of spoken Turkish yet- a great quote in a Turkish film I saw yesterday, which went something like "one trip away from home makes you a traveller for all time".

Macaroon Day

Yesterday 20 March was the 2nd "Jour du Macaron" as decreed by the association "Relais Desserts International", and like his confrère Pierre Hermé in Paris, the famous Brussels patissier Wittamer was offering free macaroons as well as selling 2 new ones for charity: these were a savoury one made with spring carrots and rosemary (apparently Fabrice Collignon makes foie gras macaroons - think I'll pass on these) , and a sweet one made with raspberries and wild strawberries that sounds delicious. Unfortunately, I missed the event but I'll be prepared next year! I don't have an illustration to offer (yet) but the Ladurée site does.
Apparently America has a National Macaroon Day on 31 May.

Back from Blighty (again)

OK so I decided to go with the new Blogger for now, we'll see how that goes. And as I'm off again soon, to Italy, I thought I'd better post about my trip to London which was a couple of weeks ago already. Had a great time shopping, eating and catching up with S., can't say I managed much of a cultural nature but you can't have everything!

Chinatown still dressed for Chinese New Year.

A little break from culture at the V&A...

My favourite bookshop, Daunt's in Marylebone High Street.