The Government Center Garage building on New Sudbury and Congress Streets is generally considered to be an ugly, concrete relic from 1967 (in fact, developers hope to tear it down and build something more contemporary). But zoom in on its exterior, and it actually makes for an interesting visual.
January 16, 2012
January 01, 2012
Time to Start the Year Anew
Atop the Charlestown Municipal Building (c. 1868), City Square.
November 13, 2011
Sterling Vineyards
Sorry - last week got away from me before I could wrap up the vineyard tour. I have a few more to cover, so here goes...
Sterling Vineyards is a bit further up the road in Calistoga, but we made our way there because we were already fans of their popular wines and heard that the tram ride up to the winery has beautiful views. So we boarded the gondola and were lifted about 300 feet up to where their white stucco building - designed to look like one from the Greek island of Mykonos - provides a stark contrast to the lush mountains surrounding it. It felt like a monastery, complete with bell towers (one of the bells, incidentally, was recovered from an old church in London that was destroyed during WWII). Here, we did a self-guided tour and tasting, sat out on their patio overlooking the two vineyards from which they source their grapes, and finished up in their dining room for a final flight of wines.
October 26, 2011
Castello di Amorosa
The first vineyard we visited was a magnificent property up in Calistoga called Castello di Amorosa ("Castle of Love"). It is the creation of Dario Sattui, a 4th-generation vintner who also owns V. Sattui Winery down the road in St. Helena, and whose great-grandfather first created a vineyard in San Francisco in 1885.
The younger Sattui set out to build an authentic, medieval Italian castle and perfect his Italian wines. It took him 14 years to complete the 107-room structure which covers 121,000 square feet and features a moat, drawbridge, torture chamber, chapel, and great hall. The surrounding grounds are stunning, including not only the vineyard but a small vegetable garden, sheep, peacocks, chickens and a two cats, Sir Lancelot and Lady Guinevere.
No detail was left to chance as Sattui imported authentic artifacts to complete the rooms (the torture chamber has a 300 year old iron maiden, the courtyard has a 200+ year old Tuscan grape press, the great room has a 500 year old fireplace surrounded by frescoes painted by Italian artists) and completed all masonry, iron, and wood work by hand, using traditional methods.
Beneath the castle is a 2-acre barrel cellar with big oak casks stacked floor to ceiling (and we were told that an empty casks cost $1000 so imagine the value of all those full ones!). This is where we did our tastings, and I purchased a bottle of the Fantasia sparkling red which we enjoyed with dessert later in the week.
As you can imagine, I took a ton of photos of this place; here's a pretty good representation, until I can get them all up on Flickr.
October 22, 2011
Chinatown
Did you know that San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest in North America and the largest Chinese community outside of Asia? It was established in the 1840s, has over 300 restaurants, and draws more tourists annually than the Golden Gate Bridge!
Add us to the numbers, as we spent a couple of hours last Sunday afternoon exploring the colorful spice shops, jewelry stores, groceries, and tea houses in this bustling neighborhood. We even stopped for lunch at a Dim Sum restaurant, fitting since this is where the popular small plates were introduced to the Western world (and I was surprised to see shark fin on the menu given how controversial that is).
I have too many photos to post here; the balance will go up on Flickr shortly.
Coit Tower
Next I climbed the dozens of steps up Filbert Street, one of the steepest navigable roads in the Western hemisphere, with a nearly 35% grade. The sidewalks are stepped and cars must park perpendicular to them because it is so steep. It's also an incredible up-hill workout!
My destination was Coit Tower, a 210-foot structure atop Telegraph Hill that was built in 1933 at the request of a local socialite who wanted to beautify the city. Her name was Lillie Hitchcock Coit, an eccentric woman who smoked cigars and wore trousers (unheard of for women back then!) and on occasion dressed like a man so she could get into the gambling parlors.
The long climb up was rewarded with amazing 360-degree views of the city, including Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Oakland Bay Bridge. Inside, the tower walls are swathed in giant murals painted by 27 different artists under the auspices of the New Deal Public Works for Art Project.
October 21, 2011
Peter, Paul and Grace
Grace Cathedral (see first photo, below) borders Little Italy and the Red Light District. It's an Episcopal cathedral known for its open-mindedness, and has one of only 7 remaining men & boys cathedral choirs. It is also known for its stained glass windows, mosaics by Polish painter Jan Henryk de Rosen, and an altarpiece designed by Keith Haring for the AIDS Interfaith Chapel here.
Further down the road, on the edge of Washington Square Park (host to an art show the day we visited) is Saints Peter and Paul Church. This one is Roman Catholic and serves as the home church and community center for the city's Italian American population. It was prominently featured in Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry, and is also the site of Joe DiMaggio's wedding (to his first wife, not Marilyn Monroe - although she posed for photos with him on the front steps) and his funeral. This church is pictured in the last 3 photos below, including the final one in which I was walking up the steep road to Coit Tower, which I'll feature next.
October 20, 2011
The Sentinel Building
The Sentinel Building in North Beach is a magnificent copper structure, and home to the American Zoetrope, a studio founded by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.
Many famous movies were written, edited, and sound checked here, including Godfather I and II, Apocalypse Now, The Black Stallion, Rumblefish, and American Graffiti.
Coppola also operates an Italian cafe on the first floor where he serves wine from his Rubicon Estate vineyards (which we visited later in the week...stay tuned) and showcases old film artifacts (like the old-time zoetropes from which the cafe takes it's name).
October 18, 2011
Architecture
There is some gorgeous architecture in this city...
September 17, 2011
Hunting for Treasure in Brimfield
It's another beautiful Fall day in Boston, and before I head out to the South Boston Street Festival I wanted to give a quick update on last week's pilgrimage to the Brimfield Antique Show.
This is the largest outdoor antique show in the world, with over 6,000 dealers and 130,000 visitors spread out across 24 fields in western Massachusetts. The show is only held 3 times a year - generally for 6 days at a time around Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day. I absolutelyl love going (here's the post from last year's trip) and browing through the one-mile stretch of jewelry, art, furniture, textiles, housewares and every kind of collectible you could imagine.
My big score this year was a hand painted ceramic and brass tray from Italian artist Arnaldo Miniati (above). I also had my eye on a beautiful set of Staffordshire Dogs, but decided to pass on them and now, of course, regret it. Even more so because I had taken a photo of a table full of them, but for some reason half of the photos I took that day mysteriously disappeared from my camera.
But I was able to retrieve a handful of other shots, among which you'll see the devastating effects of the tornado that tore through Brimfield back in June. It was eerie to be driving along route 20 among lush trees, and then all of a sudden get to a spot where the trees are flattened on both sides.
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