Tag Archives: nature

Bricco Rosso: agriturismo hotel surrounded by vineyards

The plans were up in the air when we left Ca’ San Sebastiano wine resort and spa: where gourmet and luxury meet agriturismo. We only knew that we would have to get closer to the Mediterranean France and that we wouldn’t have time for Torino this time. I asked the GPS to bring us first to Asti, then to Alba. We had been told that they would be pleasant towns to stop by but we knew nothing about them other than that they were famous towns of the renowned wine region of Langhe in Piedmonte.

The further south we drove, the more we missed Ca’ San Sebastiano and the lush, almost mystical surroundings. We were in the heart of the Langhe region, one of Italy’s most important wine-producing areas and the roadsides full of warehouses were a proof of it.

Upon reaching Asti we decided it was too big for our taste, continued to Alba, and came to the same conclusion. Had we decided to tour the Langhe region during several days we could have maybe used Asti or Alba as a base, but since we were limited with time we just wanted to return to the countryside. After all, we live in Paris all year round, and prefer holidays in the countryside, so we continued driving.

I kept searching for the hotel at the agriturismo website. We visited some properties but nothing felt right until we saw Bricco Rosso, a red building majestically standing on a hill, surrounded by vineyards.

We agreed upon the price: 80 € for two adults and a child, including breakfast. Our room had a view on the pool and the hills.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in the pool and watching a dog running up and down the rows of grape yards. There were swings for children. We were probably the only guests of the hotel. There were still some wedding decorations left and it was explained to us that the hotel hosts a lot of wedding and other events.

We liked the hotel because it was surrounded by beautiful scenery and silence. Our room was comfortable, very clean and big enough for three. Breakfast was limited but sufficient. The staff didn’t speak English but we managed… For dinner the hotel staff recommended a local pizzeria trattoria, located in Dogliani (a five-minute car drive away), where we had a simple but ah-so-tasty dinner. In fact we fell in love with Dogliani, which is a super cute and authentic village full of old buildings and churches. It was a lot of fun to walk around in Dogliani after the dinner and to discover tiny alleys and watch children play football. The next time we would probably try to stay in the center of Dogliani and rent bikes.

Would we stay again in Bricco Rosso? Maybe, if the price stays interesting (a lot of the other hotels nearby were a lot more expensive).

Tip: If you end up staying at Bricco Rosso and it is important for you to have eating facilities on the ground, then find out in advance if the restaurant is open for hotel guests (or is it only open during events).

https://www.briccorosso.it

Agriturismo in Italy: https://www.agriturismo.it

For dinner in Dogliani: La Lanterna, via Croce, 5, Dogliani. Tel. 0173-71261 / 3347177828

Ca’ San Sebastiano wine resort and spa: where gourmet and luxury meet agriturismo

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When planning the second part of our summer holidays, we looked at the map and asked ourselves what options we have besides taking the usual “Autoroute du Soleil” from Paris to the south of France. We have taken that highway dozens of times, and yet there obviously are a lot of sightseeing along the route, we wanted something new. We had four nights to spend somewhere before our arrival in the French Riviera.

Upon a friend’s suggestion we decided to make a small detour and cross the Alps to the Italian side and head toward Piedmont, home to the Slow Food movement, Eataly, truffles and Unesco World Heritage sites.

I had made some inquiries about what to see in Piedmont and everyone had told us to head “south-east of Turin” because this is where the famous wine-producing area called Langhe is. It almost seemed as if outside Turin and Langhe there wasn’t a lot to see… However, we had found on Internet a very charming small boutique-like hotel in the north of Langhe and wanted to stop there. And what a pearl we found!! Our first stop in Piedmont, Italy was Ca’ San Sebastiano, a fantastic wine resort and spa. Look at these photos and the colours –no Phohoshop needed!

We fell in love with the style, described as “…an almost Provencal style with the addition of some charming details and authentic objects, mainly found in the various Italian and French ‘brocante’ and antique markets” in the hotel’s website.

At arrival we were taken to our room, the Lavanda Apartment. When we had called, we had just made a general booking for two adults and a four-year old without asking too many questions, so what we walked into was better than we could have expected. The apartment had a big bedroom with a fireplace and an even larger living room with an equipped kitchen, a sofa bed and a balcony facing the garden.

The pool area where we spent the rest of the day was overlooking the hills, wineyards and Medieval churches. It was serene and pleasant. There were mainly Italian tourists, a nice mixture of couples of all ages and families. For dinner the hotel had suggested a buffet table that we had prior to the arrival been hesitant about (mainly because of the price, 25€/person), but it was so worth it. It was straight from an Italian movie featuring romantic life in the countryside: fresh homecooking dishes with tons of delicious vegetables, pasta of course, fresh herbs, dark red wine from the local grapes… Our daughter, a big fan of grissini, spinach and olives, was in heaven.The next morning we had a breakfast (a combination of homemade cakes and cookies, jams, cold cuts and cheese etc.), purchased some wine to take home, said hi to the swimming pool, and hit the road. We did not try the spa and its famous vinotherapy and hay bath, and missed the wine tasting and cellar visits, but we will definitetely be back. Maybe we will rent bikes and tour the nearby hills.

I think in future we would fly from Paris to Turin, visit some of those famous museum including the famous Egyptian Museum, rent a car and drive to Ca San Sebastiano, located only one hour from Turin by car.

This was our first-ever agriturismo* experience, and we now regret not explorig the concept before but better late than never, right!

TIPS:

There are many differents kind of accommodation options: mainly rooms and apartments but there is also an other apartment called Orangerie located 8 km from the hotel that can host up to 5 people. I personally thought the booking options were not that simple to understand, so best to call the hotel directly and tell them what you need. And if the hotel is not full, visit different options like we always do! E.g. we saw a family with a baby on the ground floor and their apartment had a small terrace where the baby could play.
There are mosquitos in the evening -a lot of them!!- so be prepared.

CA’ SAN SEBASTIANO: Via Ombra 10 -12 Fraz. Castel San Pietro – 15020 Camino.

Phone: +39 0142 469595 Cell: + 39 339 5030545 info@casansebastiano.it

PRICE: 70€/room including breakfast (such a great deal, especially considering this was in early August!) and 25€/buffet dinner/adult (our four-year old didn’t pay).

*Agriturismo: the word basically means “farm stay” but in practise the concept goes beyond that. Here is a great article to learn more about agriturismo: https://www.walksofitaly.com/blog/hotels/what-is-an-agriturismo

Borneo: Sarawak or Sabah?

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“I am going to Borneo” would be like saying “I am going to Europe”. Will you visit Ireland, Lapland, former socialist countries bordering Russia or the Mediterranean islands?

Borneo is the world’s third biggest island divided between Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. The diversity touches all the spheres of life from culture and food to people and nature. WWF says that on average three new species are found in Borneo each month. WWF further estimates that over 170 languages are spoken in the island. Talking about re-inventing the word “diversity”!

There really is a lot to see in Borneo and that’s why we would have to smart about how to best use our precious ten days. So, where to begin? I started posting on travel forums and asking friends if they know anyone who has been to Borneo. Responses started to direct me toward Sabah but I remained intrigued by Sarawak. Ever since I discovered a great article on Kutching (the capital of Sarawak), published by the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/jan/21/kuching-borneo-malaysia-city-guide-hotels-restaurants-bars I could not help but feel that Sarawak is The One. I read more and purchased the Borneo guide book by Lonely Planet. What I gathered from my extensive research was that there are two main differences between Sarawak and Sabah: the latter has better beaches and Borneo pygmy elephants. Orangutans can be seen in both states, which was important to us. I returned to travel forums to ask a strategic question: Why does everyone go to Sabah? Is Sarawak so much less interesting? The responses reassured me. I was told that Sabah is more developed and more known, but that Sarawak is like this rough diamond that hasn’t been fully discovered, with as much to offer as its more famous sister state (and more because Sarawak has famous caves).

To be honest, the fact that Sarawak is only 1 hour and 15 minutes by plane from Singapore (as opposed to Sabah, which is 2.5 hours away), was a key factor to us. The idea of being so close to Singapore in case there was an emergency comforted us. Yeah, we had never before chosen a travel destination even partially based on its proximity to a big city, but traveling with a child follows its learning curve…. I told some of our friends who insisted on Sabah that we will be a bit more adventurous next time. One step at a time. After all, this was our second exotic trip with our daughter. Even if Sri Lanka had been a piece of cake, Borneo was one step crazier.

But there was another practical reason. Sarawak is more compact than Sabah and we would be able to be based in one place (Kuching) and do half and full day trips from there. In Sabah we would have to visit Kota Kinabalu for the beaches. From there we would have to drive or fly to Sandakan for the orangutans and the Kinabatangan river safari (this is where you see the pygmy elephants). Ideally from Sandakan we would have to continue to Danum Valley for amazing rain forest and more orangutans and the Semporna Archipelago for some of the world’s best dive sites. Current warnings against traveling in the Eastern parts of Sabah worried us too. There was no need to take additional risks, especially when traveling with a precisious three-year old blond.I know we could have combined Sarawak and Sabah but it just felt like too much. So we purchased Singapore-Kuching-Singapore tickets by Scoot, but until the day of our departure I kept wondering if we made the right choice about visiting only Sarawak. Would we be disappointed by the beach? Will there be enough to see in Kuching and in the surroundings?

Follow our journey to find out more! Pearlspotting is also on Facebook and Instagram.

May travel dilemma

Blue Turtle Hotel in Tissamaharama: Stylish and comfortable boutique hotel in lush surroundings

Sri Gemunu Beach Resort: stunning location with friendly service

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If you read my previous post Dalawella Beach: Picture perfect and safe for swimming, you already have a pretty good idea about the area. We chose Sri Gemunu Beach Resort as our base in Dalawella beach, located on the northern end of this wonderful beach (where the big rock is).

We could choose between a downstairs room overlooking the garden (where the restaurant is) and the ocean (just behind the garden), and an upstairs room (comes with a proper sea view). Had we been just two of us, we would have probably chosen the upstairs room (around 95€/night including breakfast and dinner) but we took the downstairs room. It was very convenient for our daughter to be able to run straight from the room to the garden. The downstairs room -number 22, a nice one as it is on the far end of the building so very quiet- cost us just above 80€/ night (half board also).

Our room 22 is located downstairs on the right. It had more privacy than many other downstairs rooms.

Our AC room was clean and came with a four-poster bed with a mosquito net (that had some holes in it but the housekeeping fixed it very fast). The safe and fridge didn’t exist but we didn’t miss them (valuable can be left at the reception). The bathroom -again- was the weakest part of the room, but it was clean. There was a baby cot that however wasn’t in its best condition. The room was nothing fancy but it had a traditional design, and we were very comfortable and loved the fact that the ocean was just a few steps away.

The hotel staff was very welcoming. They let me use the reception telephone for local phone calls free of charge. The chefs was particularly kind and always prepared something special and extra for our daughter. He made sure we always had enough coconut and honey pancakes. One of the owners brought his little granddaughter to plays with ours. Small things maybe but all of our questions and requests were promptly responded with a sincere smile.

We ate at the hotel restaurant every night. There was a buffet, a mixture of Sri Lankan and Western food (this applied to breakfast too). After a few days the food got a bit boring but I guess buffets often do? We enjoyed Sri Lankan dishes but everything was a bit too westernized to our taste and we kept adding chili. Our daughter further extended her palate but pappadum and pumpkin curry remained her favorites.

The clientele of the hotel was mainly European: northern Europeans, Germans, English, Italians and French. The average age must have been around 60, but we did see some other families. The only thing that really bothered me was smoking as it is allowed in the outdoor restaurant. So when the wind blows from the right direction and you get a neighbor who loves smoking (regardless of smoke getting in your child’s face…), it is annoying, but not really a hotel’s fault (even if I would love to see all hotels in the world turn smoke free lol).

Would we return to Sri Gemunu Beach Resort? Definitely, any time! It is a great base to discover some important sites including Galle or just unwind at the beach.

Sri Gemunu Beach Resort: http://www.sri-lanka-resort.com

***

Previous Sri Lanka trip posts (in the order of appearance):

Planning Sri Lanka: Itinerary

Sea Shine Guesthouse in Dodanduwa: spotless seafront rooms that come with a smile and delicious food

Dalawella Beach: Picture perfect and safe for swimming

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Sri Lanka is famous for surfing but if you want to find beaches safe for swimming, it gets trickier. When you read guide books that are full of warnings about dangerous currents, you start to wonder if swimming is safe anywhere -especially for small children. We did a considerable amount of research prior to our trip and I have to say that information I found was not very helpful. What people call “safe” seems to be very vague to…

After four nights -just enough time to recover not only from jetlag but also from Paris fatigue- we left Sea Shine Guesthouse in Dodanduwa: spotless seafront rooms that come with a smile and delicious food. Time to start exploring! We hired a car with a driver (more about this in another post) for the rest of our trip and decided to head towards Unawatuna, one of the most famous southern coast beach destinations. We decided to stay away from hustle and bustle and chose Dalawella beach because it was close to Unawatuna in case we suddenly felt like visiting the action center.

We visited Unawatuna one afternoon and walked for an hour on the beach. That was sufficient for us. It was far too busy for us, not as clean as Dalawella, waves were strong and tourism in general very developed (sign boards were also in Russian!). If you want something quiet, stay at Dalawella like we did, or Thalpe.

We had been in contact with Wijaya Beach hotel, located on Dalawella beach, by email and telephone and were pretty sure we would choose to stay there (we usually like to see the place before making the final decision). Despite Wijaya Beach hotel probably being the most cool place to hang out in Dalawella, we decided not to say there. Instead we chose a more low-key, not as fancy but equally perfectly located Sri Gemunu Beach Resort.

Wonderful Dalawella Beach, our favorite beach in Sri Lanka. Peaceful, very clean and oh-so-pretty. The beach is small as you can see, and there are many hotels along it. Sri Gemunu Beach Resort is located in the northern end of the beach (right where the big rock is). Right next to it is Rathna Guesthouse (the hut on the beach). The building on the right end of the photo with sun beds is Wijaya Beach.

Every morning we extended our stay at Sri Gemunu Beach Resort. We developed a very good routine: breakfast, beach time, lunch & nap, visiting & beach, dinner. The hotel was nothing fancy, but it was clean, staff very friendly and we felt comfortable. Buffet food was good at most of the time. The hotel overlooks the beach and we had to walk about thirty steps from our room to reach the beach.

If you are thinking of staying at any of the hotels located on Dalawella beach, and if you want to be able to swim then continue reading (nobody on Internet tells you this!) : there is a coral reef in from of Dalawella Beach and during the low tide the reef appears, creating a sort of a natural lagoon. During our stay (January 2017) the swimming was best in late afternoons. Some people also snorkeled in the lagoon but you can see small fish even without the gear.

PS I read somewhere that it is common to see turtles on Dalawella Beach. Maybe we just didn’t get lucky, maybe January was not an ideal month, maybe the moon should have been in a different position.. who knows! If you visit or have visited this beach and have seen turtles, let me know please 🙂

Previous Sri Lanka trip posts (in the order of appearance):

Planning Sri Lanka: Itinerary

Sea Shine Guesthouse in Dodanduwa: spotless seafront rooms that come with a smile and delicious food

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Due to some last minute cancellations, we had no taxi reserved upon landing at the Bandaranaike International Airport at 4 a.m. We prepared ourselves for some serious negotiating but that was not necessary: as soon as we walked into the arrival hall, there were several companies offering taxi services with prices written on sign boards. We used the Bandaranaike International Airport Taxi Service (when you arrive, the first company on your right) and the fixed price to Dodanduwa was 8740 Sri Lankan rupees (about 55€/58USD) for an AC van. In addition we paid 300 and 400 rupees for the use of two highways: Colombo-Katunayake Expressway and Southern Expressway. Plus some tip.

My husband and our daughter fell asleep very soon while I watched the night turn into morning. Black became pink, moist air created fog and I could see silhouettes of birds against a rising sun. It was all very pretty and I wondered if this is what the depiction of Garden of Eden looks like.

Depiction of Garden of Eden? No, just a typical image taken on the Southern Expressway on the way to Dodanduwa.

Sea Shine Guesthouse, where we arrived three hours later, turned out to be exactly or even better than we had imagined. Our room was very clean, came with a mosquito net and direct sea view. Like often in Sri Lanka (based on what we saw during our 15-day trip), the bathroom was the weakest part of the room, but it was clean and that was the main thing. We had reserved a non-AC room and as the house was built according to traditional Sri Lankan style, there was natural ventilation (but very few mosquitoes!) making it very nice to fall asleep while listening to the ocean.

Breakfast options were either Western or Sri Lankan and we opted for the latter (but it had to be ordered the night before). Delicious! We moved very little from our hotel, just wanted to relax, so we had lunch and dinner every day at the hotel. Mr. Sunil’s (the owner of the guesthouse) son Roshan took care of the cooking together with his mother, and everything was fresh, tasty and copious. We ate everything and never had any problem… Our daughter became a big fan of pappadums and expanded her palate to devilled chicken, fried noodles, grilled lobster, octopus, stringhoppers, dal, pumpkin curry and sambar.

Missing this breakfast! Chef Roshan’s dal was particularly delicious!

In overall, we had a relaxing and lovely stay at Sea Shine Guesthouse. Of course it is a homestay, do not expect 5-star service, but we felt that the family went out of their way to make our stay comfortable. They played with our daughter, they taught her how to feed aquarium fish and always made sure she had what she needs for meals. There is no high chair but we had ours. In terms of sightseeing, there are a turtle hatchery nearby in Kosgoda (we didn’t visit), Galle (we visited from our next destination) and Hikkaduwa (we took a tuk tuk and returned by the beach). We appreciated the fact that there are some activities and towns nearby, but that the location of our guesthouse was very quiet (Hikkaduwa beach is very busy!). The beach was super clean, there were no beach boys and at night we only heard waves. Perfect! My husband went for a swim but I didn’t dare. I don’t estimate that the beach is safe for children to swim in, but most of the beaches in Sri Lanka aren’t. One should always ask locals what the sea condition is that specific day (sadly, a tourist drowned during our stay in Dodanduwa).

Should you be interested in Sea Shine Guesthouse, I recommend you to contact them directly. I didn’t get response to my email, so the best is to contact them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sea-shine-Hikka-1548810175394587/ (type “Sea shine Hikka” on Facebook if the link doesn’t work) or by WhatsApp / cellular phone +94-71-9725703. Facebook and WhatsApp messages are responded by Mr. Sunil’s friendly daughter Dily (say hello from me 🙂 ). We (2 adults and a toddler) paid 5500 Sri Lankan rupees per night for a nice non-AC room (number 2), including breakfast, and in the end we were given the room for 5000 rupees. Websites like Booking.com etc have higher prices, so contact the guesthouse directly!

Sea Shine Guesthouse: http://www.seashinehikkaduwa.com

To read the first post about our Sri Lanka trip, see Planning Sri Lanka: Itinerary

Planning Sri Lanka: Itinerary

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When Emirates sent out its winter offers last November, we didn’t think for a very long time before reserving the tickets: 1200€ for two adults and one child (less than two years), not bad! Hadn’t we chosen a Dubai stop-over, additional ticket flexibility and 30kg of baggage allowance per person (instead of 20kg) we could have gotten our Paris-Colombo return tickets for as low as 1000€. Flying an airline based in an oil-rich country has its advantages…

Sri Lanka had been on our travel list for a long time, and it felt like a safe yet fun option with a toddler. This was going to be our first long-distance trip with our daughter so naturally we had questions and hesitations in mind, but everyone we talked to was very reassuring. Comments like “It is not exactly Singapore, but Sri Lanka is VERY developed, clean and safe” and “Your daughter will love it; they love children over there” sealed our decision.

Loyal to our habit, there we were, planned another self-organized trip, still resisting to book an all-inclusive holiday that comes with toddler activities and clubs…

We were going to have 15 full days in the Emerald Ile of Asia. The initial plan was to do like most tourists do: get one or two nights of rest either in Negombo (where the airport is located) or in Colombo (located south from Negombo) before continuing to explore the rest of the island. I soon abandoned this idea, for the following reasons.

Negombo didn’t feel like a place we would like stay: the sea is too dirty and dangerous to swim in and hotels seemed expensive for the quality one gets.
Colombo, on the hand, seemed interesting, but we were just too tired to do city sightseeing, especially in the beginning of our trip. Big cities can be really tiresome with small children and our Palermo experience (http://wp.me/p35gzD-IA) was fresh in mind.
Since Colombo was at least one hour away from the airport, I started to wonder “if we are going to sit in the car anyway, why not to drive a bit further to a really lovely beach destination?” Our flight was to land early in the morning, so we could also benefit from quiet roads. I was pretty sure our daughter would sleep in the car, so two hours in a car instead of one hour would make no difference.

The Negombo beach isn’t really as pretty as this photo lets you think… The beach is quite dirty, the sea is rather dangerous, beach boys follow you around and you can smell sewage. We did eventually spend 1.5 nights there in the end of our holidays but hope we will never have to return.

So, the plan B was born: I started looking into beach destinations that were not too far from the airport. The Kalpitiya Peninsula caught my eye and it was only 2 – 2.5 hours away from the airport. The idea was to rest here for few nights and recover from the jetlag prior to intensive visiting in the Cultural Triangle where the ancient Buddhist sites are. The Kalpitiya region has only recently opened up to tourism and is famous for kitesurfing, dolphin and whale watching, as well as for some of Sri Lanka’s best eco lodges. Unfortunately, many of the nicer hotels were not in our budget. We started to worry a bit; nobody had told us you need to spend more than 200USD/night in order to get something comfortable in Sri Lanka!

This is when the plan C kicked in. All along my husband had kept reminding me “do not make us do too much driving, the goal of this trip is to rest”. I took a closer look at the most common circuit, which usually heads first to the Cultural Triangle and tea plantations, followed by beach time (or the same circuit but in a reverse order). Distances seemed important… Had it been just two of us, no problem, but having a toddler sit in a car for a half day or more, several times during a 15-day holiday, started to look like a bad idea. So, sadly , we decided to entirely skip the Cultural Triangle and said to ourselves that we will just have to return to Sri Lanka another time. We decided to spend most of our holiday by the sea on the southern coast and try to include a visit to Yala National Park and some (rare!) religious sites of the south.

I started looking for a hotel around Hikkaduwa, the world-famous surf town. I purchased a print version of the Rough Guide and finally started to get a feel for Sri Lanka (I hadn’t appreciated the French Routard guide book). Beaches looked more attractive while prices started to seem more reasonable too. This is when I stumbled across a small town called Dodanduwa, just few kilometers south of Hikkaduwa, and we ended up spending first few days of our trip in a lovely small beachfront guesthouse, but more about that in the next post!

PS Sri Lanka is such a hot tourism destination at the moment so I bet many of you readers have visited this wonderful island. Do you have a perfect itinerary to suggest? Were you traveling with or without children? If you are planning a trip to Sri Lanka at this very moment, congratulations on your great choice and I hope my post helps you to plan. Meanwhile, the Rough Guide has very good maps including different itineraries, see https://www.roughguides.com/destinations/asia/sri-lanka/itineraries/

Midnight swim

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Nostalgia.

Summer house. Sauna with my Mom. Dipping into lake. Just after the sunset. Water 18 degrees, air around 10 degrees. Cold? A bit, yes, but feels rejuvenating.

Magic Finland, dear summer house. Until next summer!

Swim after sauna. Feels fantastic! Even when water is only 18 degrees.

The day the fish came out

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A few days after my last post Still waiting for fish the fog appeared. One morning the lake was so misty that we could not see the islands in front of us (less than one kilometer away). As every morning, my Dad left for the cast nets and the much-awaited fish was finally there. During a period of about two weeks we caught a lot of fish: pike, pike perch, white fish and bream.

Pike is a freshwater fish commonly found in Finland.

Not all fish is equal. Pike we usually give away to a local family who gives us potatoes and milk in exchange. Pike perch we consider like gold (it can cost nearly 40€ per kilo at super market) so we keep it. White fish is another precious fish, and we keep it too. However, bream is not something we often eat, so we normally give it away either to a Russian friend who loves bream, or to our neighbors who give us mushrooms in exchange. The cast nets sometimes give us roach but that is for cats…

Breams and roaches before being given away.

Life continues to be sweet at the summer house. And it doesn’t hurt to go back to basics: the barter economy!

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