Black cats are lucky!

Why is this blog called "Souvenirs of a Black Cat"?
Because I've always a particular affection for black cats, a real soft spot.
Their shiny and soft hair, with the colour of the night, their intense and intelligent green eyes, are like the apotheosis of the felinity to me.
Whoever knows and loves cats, is aware that the black ones are usually charachterized by a particular intelligence, by a curious predilection for everything made of paper and by an even more adventurous and rebel spirit than the feline average.
So, if we ever want to humanize it (even if I'm nor actually sure I would give it any advantages in this way), the black cat would no doubt be a traveller and writer cat - therefore my perfect alter ego, the ideal mascotte for my blog about travels, observations and mysteries.
But it's not just this...

Barter Books: keep calm, black cats love reading!!

Everyone has his own personal definition of Paradise, according to his biggest passions.
Who love books often daydreams to get closed like forever in some labyrinthic libraries, where you don't even understand if walls exist or if they are made of bookshelves, where there are very high piles of books, where you can find all the stories you've always had in your to-read list, and then many others, unknown until that moment, but ready to be loved as soon as you will dive into their pages.
Who love books, England and finds himself at ease among a touch of vintage, should visit Barter Books in Alnwick, Northumberland.

Gdansk: a surprise bonbonnierre

I guess it's true when they say that expectation is the root of all the disappointment.
Or, at least, it's surely quite obvious that, when your expectations aren't quite clear, you might become more open to good surprises.
Poland, to me, has always just meant one of my best friends.
I mean, a twin soul whose pen has happened to cross mine 12 years ago thanks to the will of a good fate - and, even if we had never had the chance to meet in person until now, we've got in touch so deeply since the early beginnings that I guess she is one of the persons who know more about me, including my own shadows.
But about the country itself, I wasn't quite sure about what to expect.
I guess that we Westerns end up to put all the ex communist countries in a sort of similar cauldron, as if the sovietic utopia of level them all and making them all standardized, cancelling their own identity and singular charachteristics, had finally worked out in the end.
But this is just a blinding stereotype based on the sheer flaw of not knowing enough, of course.

Turin's Cat Café - NOW we can meow about it!

Are you for second chances?
As for me, I always try not to deny them to anyone; but I must also confess that, in my personal experience, almost all the second chances I've decided to give have turned into a delusion. Not to mention third, fourth or ten-millionth ones - since I tend to be recidivous.
But each rule always has an exception, and, today, I've been really happy to have decided to give a second chance to Miagola, the first cat café set in Turin, opened 3 months ago in the pedestrian area of via Amendola.
If you've happened to read it, you will know that my very first review on this place hasn't been exactly positivee: I had written it in a very rainy April Saturday, when the Ginger Cat & me had been quite disappointed about our chaotic lunch had there, poisoned by a very strong disorganization and by noise and confusion that were drawing the cats away, making them stay hidden in their shelters and avoiding stepping outside among blatant adults and running kids.
I've been pondering for a while whether cancelling the forementioned article or not: I was sorry to leave some negative campaign for a place that, in the end, not only has been able to ransom itself, but that is also a very special spot, as we've found out today and as I'll tell you in a moment.
In the end I've decided to leave it, adding anyway a small disclaimer - in this way, if anybody might have had the same kind of not so positive experience with this place that we had (and, according to Tripadvisor, we have not been the only ones), can know that it's sometimes worth it giving a second chance.

[My Top 10] Bergen: fjords, salmon and wooden houses

For as much as I might be into making Top 10 lists like the "High fidelity" protagonist, if somebody might ask me to do a Top 10 of my very favourite cities I would be in serious trouble.
Same thing would happen with an absolute Top 10 of my favourite books or movies.
It's just a too big and wide field, I prefer focusing on a niche.
But Bergen would surely enter quite many Top 10's.
It would feature in my Top 10 cities where I'd like to live. In my Top 10 places that can make you feel in another time. In the Top 10 cities which have positively surprised me the most.
And perhaps also in the absolute one, pretty much for sure.
I've been here in 2009, together with Ginger Cat, and we've spent 5 very pleasant days in this fjords capital, steep, wooden, silent but not gloomy, colorful but introvert, that smells of smoked salmon and that in just a couple of steps makes you dive into a wild and awesome nature.
So here is what I would recommend you to see, if you'd happen to pass from there...
But, actually, I'd say that the very first thing I'd recommend you would be not to "happen" to pass from there: plan & decide to go there, it's totally worth it!

Turin's Cat Café - please come back when you'll be ready...

It's been since a few months that I was reading on Facebook the piece of news concerning the opening of a Cat Café in Turin, and this had made me grow lots of expectations.
For those who don't know it yet, a cat café is, like the word itself may suggest, a café where there are cats as well, who offer their pleasant company while you are having something there (or better... maybe having something there becomes a sort of excuse for enjoying the cats' company) and who can also be caressed and cuddled - just if they want, of course.
It's a kind of format born in the Far East (Japan and Korea) and that, little by little, has started diffusing in Europe as well, and now also in the US.
I was a bit skeptical about the fact that it could arrive in Italy too, if nothing for the fact that here public exercises must undergo through very anal hygiene rules; but, actually, if there could be a city that could have worked as a candidate for starting this kind of business on Italian territory - no one could have been better than Turin, with its Middle European appeal and its tendency of becoming a cradle for new things.
I've got to know that the first Turin's cat café opened while I was in Paris - experimenting something similar for the first time, by the way.

Paris - Day 3 ... relaxing with cats and flowers

Remember how I told you yesterday that I should start to take some lessons on how to learn to slow down a bit my crazy march of the beauty of Paris, as the fatigue was beginning to take its toll?
Well, now I would have liked to write something type "Nah, after a night of restful sleep and I am totally reborn and ready to go for a new marathon walking till Versailles!" ... but of course it is not exactly what happened.
Let's say that today my "slowdown" lesson was a must, because I was definitely knackered and sore in almost any part of the body.
So the theme of today's post will be "How to enjoy a day of complete relaxation in Paris" ;-)

10 things I've loved about Copenaghen

I've been in Copenaghen at the end of October last year: the air was chilly, obviously chillier than what it was in Italy - but it was still possible to enjoy staying out, not only strolling but even sitting on the bench for a while, with the proper equipment in term of warm clothes and with some sun shining.
I've like the city. It didn't beat Stockholm in my personal classification of the Nordic capitals, but it's an honourable second place, very close to the first one. And, while they have similarities in architecture and structure, Copenaghen assumes a very different declination from the Swedish capital - just like two cooks preparing the same recipes with (almost) the same ingredients, but adding a very relevant touch of their own personalities that make the final result undeniably different.
When you walk around Copenaghen, you just can't help thinking about Hamlet: there is something intense and tragic in this city, but I mean it in a positive, emotional way. Just like a very quiet and silent surface that hides strong and wild emotions.
You are compelled to seek these emotions, to explore hidden corners, to slip into courtyards, to follow secondary alleys. It's less tidy than its Swedish cousin - the surface lets shine through some hints of the turmoil: architecture has some extra curvy lines, here and there appear some strong colours.
Maybe, just like Hamlet, also Copenaghen questions itself about being or not being: but the contrast between the neat Scandinavian appearance and the more flamboyant flashes doesn't provide indecision, but a richer, variegated personality.
And now let me tell you which ones of these facets I've enjoyed the most...

Burano: cats and colors

Burano is one of islands of the archipelago around Venice and it's a lovely and cosy stop I totally recommend if you are visiting the city.
Most of people usually add to the visit also a stop to the neighbour islands of Murano and Torcello (which is lovely as well), but in my opinion Burano is the prettiest and most particular.

I AMsterdam

For Easter 2012 my goal was to visit a European "capital" (more or less officially so) that I hadn't seen (shamefully?) yet.
So Ginger Cat & me chose Amsterdam.
It's a city that has always affascinated me, although I've always postponed my visit because of - ahem, a totally silly reason. If you promise you won't laugh, I will tell you.
Deal?
Ok. I have to confess I am a bit (...) scared by bikes. Ehm. I used to ride them as a kid; but nowadays I'm just not sure I would even if I were paid. But, besides being afraid of riding a bike myself, I'm scared about bikes ridden by others, and...
Hey!! You had promised you wouldn't have laughed!!!

Ottawa - aka Little London

I'm a Britaholic black cat and, as soon as I've stepped in Ottawa, I've breathed a somehow familiar atmosphere.
After all Ottawa is the capital of Canada, and I guess that Lizzie and her ancestors wanted it to feel like being at home.