Vespatour 2006 parte 18: Bisceglie
The sea, at last! đ
After 21 days traveling at close stops, riding my Vespa for a total of 3000 kilometers, a week at the seaside in Apulia was the closing panacea of the Vespatour.
I needed to rest not only physically, but also mentally, since during 21 days I stared for the first time at some of the artistic marvels that Italy preserves, and for each one of them the sensations were deeply intense.
Using an effective metaphor: I got drunk with art! đ
The welcome of my relatives in Bisceglie, in the province of Bari, was special to say the least: for a few days Nicola and Rosa made me feel like a member of their family.
Nicola accompanied me to visit the town and its surroundings, while Rosa made me taste her culinary specialties: one day meat and fish the other, nothing was missing on the table at all! đ
During those days of relax at seaside I visited the mysterious Castel del Monte, a strategic observation point of Frederick II, now depicted on the 1 cent italian Euro coins.
To the castle, the welcome of my relatives and the seaside of Bisceglie, are dedicated the 41 photos of the eighteen gallery of the journey.
Vespatour 2006 part 17: Caserta
A 3 kilometers-long garden, with an incredible view both towards the hill and the royal palace! đ
The Royal Palace of Caserta really surprised me and I think I did a good choice by stopping there in the morning of 23 august 2006, while I was traveling from Rome to Bisceglie, in Puglia, where I was going to spend a few days at the seaside to rest after the long journey around Italy riding my Vespa.
The 54 photos of the seventeenth gallery are entirely dedicated to the Royal Palace of Caserta, to the sumptuous royal apartments, which I visited while listening to an audioguide, and most of all to the marvelous garden and its fountains. The complex was actually built by Carlo III di Borbone with the aim to rival with the Royal Palace of Versailles.
Iâve never had the chance to visit Versailles yet, but I think the astonishment I felt in Caserta will be still in my mind when Iâll do that. Who knows, maybe in the next Vespatour⊠đ
Vespatour 2006 part 16: Rome
Staring at the magnificence of the Sistine Chapel has been among the best moments of the Vespatour, so intense that itâs impossible to describe it with words or pictures .
In particular I wanted to see the âhand of creationâ that, stylized by an friend artist, I choose as logo for the blog.
The Sistine Chapel is the last stop of the long visit route inside the Vatican Museums, the apex of the wonders exhibited.
My visit to the Vatican Museums is described in the sixteen photo gallery.
During the three days I spent in Rome I couldnât miss a romanesque-style evening dedicated to the local cuisine: on august 21, together with Stefano, a Vespa rider from Como who joined me in Rome by train, we went to Ariccia, in the Castelli Romani area. The laughs in good company and the juicy âporchetta scrocchiarellaâ (pork roast) of the âfraschetteâ (outdoor inns) were among the silliest things we did until now! đ
The stop in Rome couldnât be complete without a photo in front of the Colosseum, taken by a girl wearing a t-shirt with âMonnalisaâ written on it⊠thanks Monnalisa! đ
The next stop, on august 23, was going to be the Royal Palace of Caserta.
Vespatour 2006 part 15: Rome
They say that all roads lead to Rome, and thatâs what happened even to me during my Vespatour, the solo-journey on a Vespa I did in the 2006 summer.
After a long pause, the photo report of the journey continues with the three days stop in Rome, riding on the streets of the italian capital city to discover historical places and the most famous monuments lighted up by the august sun.
For a couple of days I walked among the âsacred monstersâ of the Eternal City: from Piazza San Pietro to Villa Borghese, from Piazza Navona to Piazza di Spagna, from the Pantheon to the Trevi Fountain: memories so deeply impressed in my mind that while browsing the 56 photos of the fifteen gallery I can’t believe almost 3 years already passed! đ
Still a few stops and the photo report of the journey will be completed.
Microblogging on Facebook
As much as WordPress changed the way I managed and presented the blog, Facebook is now changing another fundamental component: the update rate!
I often find myself microblogging on Facebook by updating my status or filling the wall in a quick and easy way, just what I needed in order to highlight what I wasnât able to through posts on the blog, even if visibility is limited to the network of friends.
In my opinion Facebook follows the 80/20 rule pretty well: for 20% of the time you typically use it to ânurtureâ your ego and for 80% to look at your friendsâ activities! đ
More or less this is my relation with a tool that in Italy is fast-growing in popularity, is generating discussions about the rise of new forms of dependence and privacy issues, but that has such a strength to be able to bring many new users on the web: without knowing it, they became micro-bloggers! đ
La Punta dellâIceberg
Posted by Albegor in Net-Tailor on December 31, 2008
A lot of things happened in 2008, and what I wrote on the blog is only the tip of the iceberg.
However, should I really make a choice, the thing that impressed me the most has been the evening walk in the Red Square when I was in Moscow with the Virtual Tailor of Cernobbio: misterious, fascinating and⊠I didnât expect it was not flat at all! đ
Travels, exhibitions, events and meetings filled a 2008 that ended with such a concentration of good news in the last two months to make 2009 full of good expectations.
And even bad or unpleasant things, once elaborated, become part of the luggage of experience I’ll bring with me in the new year.
As the last thing of the year Iâd like to thank the people whom I felt close during difficult times and send a special greeting to who called me crazy since I ride my Vespa with any kind of weather! đ
Welcome to 2009 and its wind of change!
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Ciao Willy!
Itâs incredible how we can build a relationship as close as with a family member with a creature so different from us human beings!
It happened with my cat Willy, and now that an obscure incurable illness has taken him away, all thatâs left is the memory of the best moments spent caressing him, playing hide and seek, and why not, replying accordingly to his mewings. đ
Found 9 years ago in the area where they were building the Dadone complex in Como, Willy – the reddish tiger, become the familyâs pet, a catalyst of our relations in times of trouble and in the course of time showed us that âdivine feline detachment with which he measured himself with the things of the worldâ.
The quote is by Federico Roncoroni and comes from his Amici Mici published by Edizioni Ulivo, as are these lines that Willy certainly knew:
The true owner
A cat you believe you own
and he just to please you
makes you believe
he loves to be owned.
Actually
the truth lies elsewhere.
You do not own a cat,
ever:
the cat owns you.
Now that you know it,
never forget it:
you are the cat
of the cat you own.
Thanks to all my dear friends who stood by me in such a difficult time.
i-muse at Touristech 2008
Giving an effective presentation is pretty difficult task and Guido actually did it by presenting i-muse at Touristech 2008! đ
On november 28, in the Sala Affreschi of Palazzo Isimbardi in Milan, we attended the third edition of the conference organized by Wireless and dedicated to innovative technologies for tourism.
The presentations were almost all interesting, each one focused on a different information technology tool: from web 2.0 style mobile service platforms to community portals for specific sectors such as sailing, from theatrical podcasts for historical town tours to i-muse, our videoguide platform which aims to make its technology so transparent that the user can see only one thing: quality contents!
An objective not so easy to demonstrate we achieved, as discussed at the conference: the only method is using it and Guido explained this by talking about the i-muse installation project at Villa Bernasconi in Cernobbio and its possible evolution.
In Berlin for the iPhone Tech Talk World Tour
Apple hit my soft spot! đ
A few days ago I flew to Berlin to attend the conference dedicated to iPhone developers which took place on november 10 at Freie UniversitÀt.
iPhone is the first target of the extention of the videoguide platform, so I couldnât miss the event that also gave me the chance to visit the german capital for the first time.
As a player of WWII videogames, I attacked or defended Berlin a lot of times on virtual battlefields. Maybe the sort of reverential fear I initially had about Berlin was due to that, other than to my ignorance about the german language. đ
However, walking around the city, alone or with Laura and Fawzi, friends researchers I met in Toronto during ICHIM 07, my feelings did change: itâs a pleasant metropolis, with bike lanes, an efficient transportation system, little pollution and a lot of stories to tell: from the remains of the Wall to the chocolate sculptures by Fassbender&Rausch (in the picture you can see their unsinkable chocolate Titanic!).
Laura and Fawzi not didn’t only offer me their hospitality for my first stop in Berlin, but also helped me appreciating the city, including german and syrian cuisine: heartful thanks! đ
The contents of the iPhone Tech Talk were interesting, although necessarily not too much in-depth. Two of the speakers were italians, so it was pretty easy getting in touch with them and talk about i-muse.
And now letâs bite the SDK of the Appleâs phone, since it looks like the ideal device on which i-muse will run!
Villa Bernasconi: An Interactive Villa
On october 23 and 24 Iâve been in the magic Lucca together with the TogunĂ team to attend Lu.Be.C. 2008, one of the most important events in Italy about technology applied to the cultural heritage sector.
We were both among the 40 exhibitors with a booth and among the speakers in the afternoon conference dedicated to partnership case studies between public administration and private companies: the ideal opportunity to announce the i-muse installation project for Villa Bernasconi, a wonderful Liberty-style villa in Cernobbio, just recently restored.
Together with the Major of Cernobbio, Simona Saladini, Guido showed a demo of i-muse with the first contents made for the villa, impeccably speakered in Italian (thanks Melania!). đ
At the end of the two days in Lucca the team was really galvanized, a satisfaction that repays us of the hard work done until now to weave the web holding the startup in search of clients a bit at a time.
Big thanks to the staff of PromoPA, organizer the event, in particular to the patient Francesca Velani, Diana Lomas e Silvia Doberti! đ
Nice were the eco-compatible exhibition desks and panels made entirely by cardboard and great was the concert at the Auditorium San Romano with spectacular lights effects by Son et LumiĂšre.
