Meeting BenCab

Speaking of my fondness for single artist museums and discovering new things in your own backyard, one of the highlights of my first few months back in the Philippines was visiting the home of Benedicto Cabrera,  Philippine National Artist for Visual Arts.

Nestled in a mountainside a few kilometers from Baguio (Km 6, Asin Road), the museum and surrounds houses world-class art by a visionary artist whom we can proudly call our own.

BenCab's home, as seen from the museum windows.

BenCab’s art is largely inspired by the scavenger woman Sabel, who frequently rummaged through garbage near the artist’s old home. She appears in many of his artworks though the years, sometimes in a real depiction or through an imagined setting. 

Spectacular Sagada

Truth be told, I was worried about coming home to the Philippines.  To return to a place so familiar after all the traveling: I might not discover anything new. Thankfully, the end of January trip to Sagada changed my perspective.

I had always wanted to go to Sagada when I lived in Manila but always found excuses to avoid the daunting road trip from Manila, through Baguio, on to Banaue & then Sagada.  These days, if you want to take a "shortcut", you can rent a van with a speed freak driver (our very own Mang Dodong) who can drive straight from Manila to Sagada in 12 hours. Instead of pure backpacker commuting style, my friend E organized a tour through Anywhere Philippines, rounded up a group of 8 people and then we were good to go.

"Fresh" upon arrival at Halfway Restaurant, Banaue.

We left Makati at 11pm on a Friday night, got bounced and jostled around inside the van for hours until we reached Banaue Rice Terraces in time for the sunrise. Just seeing that view made the cramped car ride all worth it.

Banaue Rice Terraces in the early morningg. 

And that was just the beginning! 

A Note on Munch

Every time I visit a place I always make it a point to drop by an art museum or 2.  Over many years that choice has always been the city/country's national gallery or museum but recently I've found that I learn and appreciate so much more by visiting collections of a single artist.

In Oslo, my favorite collection is at Munchmuseet.  A rich collection of Edward Munch's work, combined with the back story on his life and the arrangement of his art in chronological order which really shows his development as a person and an artist.

His more famous works such as Madonna and The Scream:

A note from the artist on how he painted The Scream. Munch liked to write about his own art.

Traveling the World (Heritage)

I must admit it. I'm a W.H.-ore traveler.  I get a special frisson of excitement whenever I hear that the places I'm about to visit are designated as a World Heritage natural or cultural preservation. Whenever I would check the guidebook a city, town or province gets one million more pogi points if they are World Heritage designated.

The past year or so has been quite a good haul for me in terms of adding notches to my World Heritage belt. Each individual visit is an adventure on its own. 

On this trip to Bath from Bracknell, the mostly efficient train  got stuck on the track during our return for over 2 hours right after I read tweets about a train collision in China. We made it in time for the Roman Baths but too late for Jane Austen's house.

The City of Bath, United Kingdom, July 2011

The Tower of London, United Kingdom, July 2011

A day trip from Madrid with a wonderful group of friends, the main attraction was actually the planned lunch Segovia's legendary cuchinillo (roast baby pig). This capped the last weekend of a lovely 10 day stay in Spain.

Segovia's Aqueducts, Spain. September 2010

Living La Vida Lisboa

Exploring Lisboa streets.

I'm extremely late with his post but what can I say. Life happened. But I've been thinking about writing about Lisbon for a while, and now is a good time as any, when I'm left with impressions and  lessons learned which I bring with me for the new year.

Tejo river and the late afternoon sky, taken from Torre de Belem. 

I consider myself extremely lucky to have the time, resources and opportunity to have lived an alternate life, even if it was just 10 weeks in the European summer of 2011. Honestly I impressed the hell out of myself, with my single minded determination to move to a place I was barely familiar with, with people I hardly knew and a language of which I only had a very basic understanding.  But in those 10 weeks, I felt I wasn't just a tourist, I really lived in Lisbon, and made friends (and lovers and enemies) of people and  the place. Its the stuff life is made of.

The highest vantage point in Lisboa, at Castelo Sao Jorge. 

I lived in a centrally located apartment in Lisbon, perfect for walking to the nearby Marques de Pombal or Avenida metro stations heading for late (!) night partying in Bairro Alto or window shopping at Baixa. I felt so "local" the day I got my Viva Viagem public transport card with my photo on the back so I could go just about anywhere --- whether it was to visit a friend in Almada, go to yoga class in Estrela, play tourist in Belem or explore Jardim Gulbenkian.

Alentejo Wine Tour

Previous to arriving in Portugal, I googled some ways to take the wine tours and found very few enterprises that did it around Portugal. These tours came with a hefty price tag, including a private car, driver, and accommodations.  I figured that spending more time there and living as a local, I would find it easier and cheaper.  Well yes, it was much more affordable (think of a 900 euro professional wine tour vs. a 5- 7 euro per vineyard visit) but it wasn't as easy  as I thought.

I spent some days in Alentejo, based out of Evora, to plan my Rota de Vinhos.  The Vinhos do Atenejo office is located right in the city center. However, its not simply a matter of walking there, booking a tour or hiring a car. The most they can provide is maps, brochures and a little advice.  They tell you that you can only do it by car (you should have hired one!) and you need to make all the bookings by yourself.  So yes, go there and equip yourself with those maps and brochures, a Portuguese sim card and make those bcalls yourself. If you've booked at least 3 appointments, you can pat yourself on the back.  How to get around the car aspect? Enlist the help of friendly locals (you can offer to pay for gas and invite them to lunch) or by all means hire a car (roughly 25 euros per day excluding gas). Driving around Alentejo is actually quite beautiful.

Most of the bigger vineyards already have set schedules for their tours so you won't need to make many special arrangements.  And you can get on these tours for under 7 euros, with wines tasted at the end, or in some cases, free!  Plus the vineyards are always a sight to behold, the surroundings are always beautiful due to the slopes required to grow the vines just right.  The stories behind the vineyards and wineries can be just as fascinating and my hats always go off to the ones that carry history with them

Here are the visits I made in Alentejo:

Adega da Cartuxa, Evora 

Cartuxa was named after the monastery that sits right beside it, that today still houses the Cartuxian monks.  One of the older wineries in the region, they have moved to a new state-of-the art production site but left the old winery for tours such as the one I took. Today the vineyards are owned by the Fundacao Eugenio da Almeida, which is an institution that lends its profits to the development of arts and culture all around Portugal.

Funny enough they said the original winery used to belong to the Jesuit priests before they were kicked out of Portugal. Flashback to my college days.

The main structure of the winery.

These are the "display"vineyards.

Seaside in the South

My first and priority stop upon arriving in Portugal was of course, to hit the beach! I flew in from Amsterdam to the Faro airport, picked up a rental car from Europcar as well as my travel buddy Kristin (who flew in from Oslo) and drove down to Portimao for beach front accommodations on the huge and packed Praia de Rocha. But for some reason I didn't mind the crowded beaches so much. I felt really "local" as one of the few foreigners in beaches populated by hundreds (or thousands?) of Portuguese on their summer break.Frolicking in the chilly Atlantic waters (by day 2, I was actually swimming!) and sunbathing topless (yes along with all the saggy lolas), I felt like I was on a real summer holiday.

If you also bothered to move from your chosen sunbathing corner to the western end of the beach (which I only did towards the end of my stay), you will find gorgeous rock formations and a beautiful sunset.

Stone pier separates the main stretches of Praia de Rocha.

My favorite part of the day...sunset of course!

This opening only becomes available at low tide.

We stayed for 7 nights in Hotel Avenida Praia, smack dab in the center of Praia de Rocha's party strip--- thankfully I'm not one to be bothered by noise but its definitely not a place for peace and quiet. Rather its a place for endless glasses of Caipirinha, some live guitar music or clubbing til the wee hours of the morning. Thus my theme song for summer 2011 is "Give Me Everything Tonight" (Pitbull ft. Ne-yo) because I heard it EVERY night, multiple times a night, for the entire duration of our stay.