Photography Exhibition @ Cafe Verona

Photographer: Mihai Grigorescu

Yesterday I attended the opening cocktail of a beautiful photography exhibition at Cafe Verona in Bucharest. It's Mihai Grigorescu's first photography exhibition, based on the book he published in April 2009, Maramures - people and places.

I loved his pictures. He portrayed Maramures from all its different angles - people and how they work, their way of life and some traditional celebrations, but also the magnificent landscapes. The book was yesterday on show at the Cafe, I hope that wasn't just for the opening day.

Here are some pictures I took yesterday, so that you can see the setting of the exhibition. The atmosphere was really good, people were enjoying themselves over a glass of wine while looking at the photographs.

And for the end I saved a special treat: some more original pictures form this exhibition of Mihai Grigorescu! These were my favourites:

Photographer: Mihai Grigorescu

Photographer: Mihai Grigorescu

Photographer: Mihai Grigorescu

Photographer: Mihai Grigorescu

The exhibition will be open until the 31st of July if you want to take a quick look.

Style profile: Alexa Chung

Some of you may already know who Alexa Chung is. For those of you who haven't heard about her yet, she is a british former model. She also hosted many TV shows in her native country and in the US and is a contributing editor for british Vogue as of 2009. Her mixed origins are responsible for her great looks - her mother is English, but her father is three-quarter Chinese. In January she modeled for Vivienne Westwood in the London Fashion Week and she currently is the face of SS10 Pepe Jeans London campaign. This girl is so cool, that she even has a bag named after her, the "Alexa", desiged by Mulberry.

Alexa Chung has a unique sense of style. Either rock 'n roll or french chic, simple or eccentric, laid back and relaxed or red carpet glamour she always looks her best. She is a great fan of ankle boots and flats, that she wears with almost everything. Her quirkiness gives a new edge to the schoolgirl style bringing it again into the spotlight.

I put up a selection of different outfits to show you the stylistic chameleon she is:

Which one of her styles do you prefer?

A quiet place in the big city

Arabian days...

Paris is a city that never stops surprising me! Wondering through its streets in an excruciating heat and while the roaring of the cars overwhelmed me, I stumbled upon a marvelously quiet place... well... OK... I guess I should be honest... I didn't actually STUMBLE upon it, I read about it in my guide... The result is the same, don't you agree? It just feels really weird saying that I used a guide for Paris and that I discovered so many beautiful things I had no idea about, after having spent a whole year here! It seems one discovers much more being a tourist than being a local...

In the south-eastern part of Paris, near one if the entrances to the Jardin des Plantes, there is a beautiful Mosque built in the 1920s in moorish-hispanic style. It has baths - or as they call them hammam - that are open to the public and a great restaurant and terrace. The tower overlooks the quiet surroundings from a hight of 33 meters and it is still used to call people to prayer.

Pure cobalt blue

I loved the colours in here, from the cobalt blue of the terrace to the vivid orange and golden tones inside the restaurant, everything reminded me to my trip to Africa and set me in a moroccan mood. Drinking a cup of tea on the cool terrace in the shade is the perfect remedy for the heat you have to endure during a hot summer day. The sweet things to eat are exquisite, but they come with a price - you'll find yourself surrounded by sparrows in no time! They are so accustomed to being fed, that they will even eat from your hand if your cookies are tasty enough!

Sparrows enjoying lunch

The restaurant inside is gorgeous, next time I'm in Paris I will definitely stop by and grab something to eat here! The next two photos are courtesy of my french guide (yes, I also had a french guide, not only my book ;) ) Eric D., I didn't want to take credit for his beautiful pictures.

I hope I dragged you into the mood for drinking some tea to cool off, because the heat outside here in Bucharest most certainly outruns the one I had to stand in Paris two weeks ago!

Rome at sunset

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take,
but by the number o moments that take your breath away."

Some days just don't look anything like the others, today for example I finished some work I had to do that I had been procrastinating since forever and I felt liberated! That's how I thought of the theme of today's post - moments that take your breath away. Doesn't this picture incorporate just that?

I always thought that the Tiber that flows through Rome wasn't as exciting as other rivers. I had already seen it a few years ago the first time I was in Rome and I hadn't seen anything special about it. I always had this image in my head about the perfect river that passes through a city and it resembled the Seine passing through Paris. A few weeks ago when I was in Rome I discovered however that I had been totally wrong! I don't know which part of the Tiber I had seen last time, but what I found now was stunning!

The river has the same strange beauty of the Seine, winding around big old buildings and you can take a walk on its banks. There are a lot of bridges crossing it, even ruins of old Roman ones in the middle of it and what is most astonishing is that there is even an island!

Overlooking San Pietro

Signore, scusi! Am I in Rome or in Paris? Which river is this?