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Castle of San Marcos (El Puerto de Santa María)
While waiting for our ferry departing for Cadiz, we had a chance to visit a local fair in El Puerto de Santa Maria). I made some interesting photography here. One of the first tourism objects I noticed in El Puerto was Castle of San Marcos.Castle of San Marcos (also Castillo de Alfonso X El Sabio) is a medieval castle located in El Puerto de Santa María, Cádiz, Spain. The castle was erected as a fortified…
Ferry from El Puerto de Santa Maria to Cadiz
The other day we arrived to El Puerto de Santa Maria just for one reason, we had red in some travel guide, that if approaching from Jerez to Cadiz, a nice option to have is to take a ferry leaving El Puerto and connecting with Cadiz.It took us some time to actually figure out where the terminal building is located and to find a free parking space for our rental car. Once we found both, we had some free time before ferry departing and luckily we…
Fair in El Puerto de Santa Maria
Right, its time to continue our latest adventures from our latest Spain trip (visiting region of Andalusia). In today's Piece of Life series a trade fair in small town of El Puerto de Santa Maria.We left Jerez early in the morning and followed by the advices on the internet decided to get to the Cadiz today, and one of the options was by making a stop at El Puerto de Santa Maria, from which a ferry departs to the city of Cadiz.We arrived around…
Campsite 'Miera Osta' near Pāvilosta
I'm a huge admirer of Latvian seashore town of Pāvilosta. I guess I first discovered it just last year. This Summer we spent many trips to Pāvilosta and vicinity - just by doing nothing - wandering around. The other weekend we found a new road end and decided to give it a try - at the end we were met by the campsite Miera Osta located near white sand Baltic seashore, some 240km from nation's capital Riga.Tree houseKids will enjoy this…
Gravel and Crushed Stone For Foundation
This Summer I will need a lot of gravel and crushed stone for home remodeling tasks, mainly for foundation sealing works.Some time ago (while digging a pond), I negotiated a few cubic meters of gravel from neighbor, who was sealing surface of the road meanwhile, it turned out that neighbors' gravel was not ideal for foundation as it consisted from clay particles, and we decided re-use clay/gravel for rock garden instead. I had no…
Sponge Cake With Wild Berries
Here comes another post on food blogger series, and again I must admit I'm not the original creator of following sponge cake, my better part is. Sponge cake with wild berries Really cool cake, here is photos and cooking directions: Biscuit dough: 4 eggs, 4 tbs. flour, 4 tbs. sugar Cooking directions: Separate egg white form the egg yolk. Whip egg white to hard foam. Separately whip yolks with 4 tablespoons…
Digging a trench around existing foundation - Building a bathroom from scratch - part 4
Here comes another update on building a bathroom from scratch series in project home remodeling. The thing is - the house we got didn't pamper us a lot, and so for example I had to install new supporting beams, not to speak about changing a roof, prior to before ever dreaming about having a bathroom. OK, I had a vision about a bathroom once we replaced roof last year, but to actually feature bathroom, we have to build many new things, among them…
Concreting Foundation For a Garden Pizza Oven - Part 2
This Summer I excelled in concreting works, the major concreting works involves concreting stone wall inside our rural country house and concreting house foundation (more on that in upcoming posts from home remodeling series)In spare time from major home reconstruction works this Summer we decided to build a cool and fancy garden pizza oven, connected with a water supply (sink) and electricity - making a cool outdoor kitchen with a lot of space…
Forest Mushrooms - Penny Bun & Red-Capped Scaber Stalk
A few days ago I reported a photo story with a harvest of mushrooms from our backyard, then we gathered fungus called Slippery Jack, in today's Piece of Life series - a harvest from deepest woods of Courland (Latvia), meet Penny Bun & Red-Capped Scaber Stalk.And again, those mushrooms were actually gathered by my better part and not me. I was actually drilling holes in a stone wall meanwhile:Penny Buns and Red-Capped Scaber StalkRed Capped…
Beam Strengthening on Stone Wall - Building Bathroom from Scratch - Part 3
The never ending story with my adventures on home remodeling and building a bathroom continues. In todays part 3 I will tell you a brief photo story how I strengthened a beam on the stone wall.See part 1 and learn more how I actually concreted this stone wall, while in part 2 see how we actually installed first bearing beams above bathroom ceiling. I'm of course talking not only about bathroom, but about a stronger and stable house as well (as…
Mushrooms in backyard
The other day my aunt visited us at our country house, we spent some lovely time together, and while somewhere in the woods near Akmenrags lighthouse we hunted for chanterelle fungi, should I mention we found just enough to make a barely pan of sauce? The day my aunt left, my better part went for mushrooms again, this time at our backyard:Our backyardYes, the veggie garden in the boxes and skew barn as well. Wait, there is a rock garden…
Akmenrags Lighthouse
Akmenrags Lighthouse (Latvian: Akmeņraga bāka) - a lighthouse on the Latvian coast of the Baltic Sea, located to the south of the resort town of Pāvilosta.I first visited Akmensrags Lighthouse in the mid Summer of 2016 together with my aunt - we made a lovely excursion with her around Courland. Akmensrags lighthouse is located some 11 km south of the Pāvilosta, the road is not in the best shape (Breakstone…
Another morning, another beatiful mist
It seems I have a new tradition - for the second year in the row I have captured beautiful morning mist in our country house backyard.Alright, previous year my beloved did the shooting while I was dreaming about roof works. This time I couldn't sleep (as I was thinking of upcoming bathroom remodeling works), and I noticed - a mist. In our backyard. See it for yourself:Mist over our pond and neighbors meadowFew things have changed this year: we…
Cats on The Rocks
Recently I featured a post about how we built a rock garden in the front of our country house. I reported a lovely sunset just shortly. In today's Piece of Life series - little creatures who enjoys the most of our new rock garden. Meet our lovely cats Tiger and Richard.Cat on the rockA nice observation place for planing an attack on...birds? Or at least a try.Cats on the rocksDouble attack?Cat on the rockAre you shooting me?
Red Sunset in our Rock Garden - Cool Evening Mood
This Summer spoiled us with a lovely sunsets, but one of the most empathic had been observed in front of our house at rock garden. Red/Orange Sunset at Rock GardenSee how we built this rock garden a few days ago.Country house during sunsetThere is still a lot of to do, and it will require a huge investment to completely remodel/rebuild this house, but evenings like this breaks it even.Sunset over pondYup, we dug this pond as well…
Beam Replacement for Old house - Building Bathroom from Scratch - Part 2
Here comes another update on home remodeling works - building a bathroom from scratch. After I successfully concreted stone wall it was time to install new beams. For this side of house we did not had any beams installed (ok, they were, but they were rotted, as the roof was leaky, see how we changed a roof)A while ago I ordered beams at local sawmill (beams are 20cm X 20cm) and about 4 meter long. Today I called to the father and …
Our neighbor - Fox baby
For the second year in the row we have one small and lovely neighbor - baby fox. Once we met him at the bus stop, looked amazing - fox going to the city, the other morning bad farmers had mowed crop fields and baby fox seemed very disappointed.Today we met our friend, just wandering on the road.baby fox on the roadI wish I had a telephoto lens attached, to capture a lovely portrait, as the fox didn't seemed scared or so, just wandered.road…
Making Rhubarb Wine
In our garden we have a lot of rhubarbs, one thing you can make out of them is a rhubarb cake, but turns out there is at least one more thing you can do with rhubarbs - you can try to make a wine. In today's Do It yourself series - my (our )attempt of making a rhubarb wine - I'm calling this an attempt - because we actually didn't make any wine this year. But if you are looking for a receipt on how to make a rhubarb wine, here is one: …
Gravel for road surface and rock garden
The other day I first met with one of our closet neighbors, he approached me and told me, that in couple of days he will cover road (we are sharing together) with a gravel. I already mentioned it in my previous post about pond works. I asked what kind of gravel does he is using for road surface, and decided it would be a good idea to have a little bit gravel for upcoming home foundation works (concreting). We agreed that he will give me a…
Building a Rock Garden
Today we made a rock garden from scratch, well almost. The thing is - idea to have a rock garden have always been in our minds, but we hadn't yet figured out how to solve the biggest question - rocks.We had already idea of place were rock garden will be situated (in front of house, were use to had been a dump - see: The Big Spring Territory Cleanup )Luckily after pond works were done, pond guy told he could help us with his New Holland…
Building a foundation for a garden oven - Part 1
Idea to have a nice garden pizza oven were sit first already last year, together with the works we started shaping a form of our rural house, we recently inherited. Thus we had to wait for more than a year, before actually proceeding. The other day, while the pond guys were finishing digging pond, I dug some soil, to lay in the foundation for garden brick.Laying foundation for garden ovenWith the help of a shovel, I will dug off the…
Pond Digging - Part 3 - The Result
This morning started with a surprise, I was still sleeping, when my partner awakened me and told - pond guys are digging. I was surprised, because I didn't heard a sound. Maybe I was too tired from yesterday's pond draining or as it turned latter - the modern excavators are quiet. Anyway, I was not surprised at all - because when pond guys started, they didn't even informed me, see how it started in part 1.I made (more correct, my partner…
How to drain a pond with a pump and hose - Digging Pond - Part 2
Today I had a chance to excel in pond works - I was left with no choice but to drain the pond. Luckily the pond guys brought an electric pump to make my life much easier. If you are new to home remodeling series, make sure you check out an article on how it all started about a year ago. And of course check out first part on pond digging, when we discovered that pond have been dug without our presence. Surprise pond digging in the middle of…
Chasing Sunset Photography with a Strong Foreground (Pāvilosta / Jūrkalne)
Chasing sunset photography with a strong foreground is a brief story, which happened on the next day after Summer Solstice. We took our moms and a little doggie and decided to visit coastal Latvian beaches. At start we headed to Pāvilosta piers, I left girls wandering around while installed a tripod and thought I will make a few HDR's here. I have been into HDR photography since the day 1 I discovered this lovely technique back in Tbilisi.…
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Berlin Zoo and Aquarium: One of the Best Things To Do in Berlin With Kids
At the start of April 2026, during our roughly five-day trip to Berlin, we finally visited the famous Berlin Zoo for the first time - or at least the first time I can actually remember. There is a chance my mom might have taken me here sometime in the early 1990s, but if so, those memories are long gone. This visit felt completely new, and…
Berlin Brandenburg Airport
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