deluxe rest stops

Having taken a couple of road trips (and read a Norwegian crime thriller) lately, I was kind of captivated by this slideshow of Norwegian rest stops.  My parents always favored rest stops over gas stations for potty breaks, which made sense when traveling with children, and lately I've been thinking it may be time to switch back to rest stops.  Especially as cars start getting better gas mileage, it seems a shame to stop at a gas station when you don't actually need gas.  Of course most rest stops aren't like this one, but I remember them being universally a cut above your average gas station.


Photo:  Bjarne Riesto

striped floors!

I just discovered Jim Lambie's beautiful installations made with tape.  I think this may be my favorite type of art at the moment:  installations that transform a space into something surreal, unexpected, and wonderful using prosaic materials.

Casa Talìa

 

I saw this beautiful Sicilian rental property, Casa Talìa, in a recent UK Elle Decoration (my monthly magazine splurge, so much better than the US edition).  You can find more pictures and an interesting interview with the owners here.



Photo by Andrea Ferrari

swimming cities

This is so wonderful--"swimming cities", weird, piled-up makeshift rafts/works of art.  I love things like this that could be confused with a strange dream.


Photos by Tod Seelie

valencia 2

Two different doors to the Lonja de la Seda.

tree music

I can't pretend to understand the method behind this, but this music created by Bartholomäus Traubeck is really lovely.  It's created using data from tree rings--more actual information here.  

I originally found this at the Utne Reader, which is a good source for weird and wonderfully random things like this.  They also have free music downloads every month.

valencia

I realized I never posted any photos from a great family-visit trip we took to Valencia, Spain last year.  I think Valencia is the great semi-best-kept secret of Spain.  It's big enough to be cosmopolitan but still small enough to be relaxed and easily navigable, people are friendly in a laid-back way, there's art and history everywhere, and the climate is conducive to strolls at pretty much any time of year.  

Ironically, and somewhat sadly, I felt like the recession had made Valencia almost more enjoyable from a visitor's perspective than it was when we lived there ten years ago.  I'm not sure how much of that was due to the fact that this time I was on vacation, and how much was due to the relative quiet brought on by an economic downturn.

One of the things I enjoy about Valencia is the juxtaposition of new and old.  These very modern murals are in the oldest part of town.  I can't say anything about these exact buildings, but many of the buildings in this neighborhood have parts dating back hundreds of years, and there are some neat interior design elements built around, say, Moorish walls.