Browsing Category

Postcards

Postcard #8: Chateau de la Solitude

The exterior of the Chateau de la Solitude.

I spent Sunday afternoon slinking through the ruins of an abandoned Neo-Gothic chateau on the outskirts of Paris. The Chateau de la Solitude was the former home of the head of a chocolate dynasty, and was briefly a convent and a women’s college before falling to ruin.

Today only a shell remains of the once stately property, but the crumbling interior and the quiet woods that surround it have resulted in a haunting beauty that draws urban explorers, photographers, and the curious.

November 10, 2015 by Erin

Postcards, travel

Postcard #7: Back in Paris

The Pantheon on a late-winter evening. © Erin Zaleski 2013

Once again, I’m here in a Paris beset with mood swings as the city transitions from one season to another. The days are getting longer though, and a few evenings ago the sky had a striking, Maxfield Parish-ness to it as the last of the light faded away.

March 20, 2013 by Erin

Photography, Postcards, travel

Postcard #6: At last, winter! Sort of.

Abandoned cabin in winter, Lake Tahoe. © Erin Zaleski 2012

Lake Tahoe has been struggling through one of its driest winters in history, so when the forecast predicted snow on Tuesday, I dashed up to the ski house late Monday night.

On Tuesday I awoke to the winter wonderland I have been craving since December, and by Wednesday I was hitting the slopes at Northstar. Alas, the winter interlude was fleeting. By the end of the week the temperature had increased to a balmy 60f, the snow was melting fast, and hungry bears were roaming the region in search of food.

I snapped this photo off Highway 267 on the way to the Northstar resort. The lonely cabin appears as fragile as this season’s winter.

March 10, 2012 by Erin

Postcards

Postcard #5: Dry docked

Boat dry docked in Stockholm. © Erin Zaleski 2012

I’m back in the San Francisco Bay Area getting visa stuff sorted before my return to Sweden in a couple of months. I feel a bit like a dry docked boat: tied up, grounded, and impatiently waiting to freely roam the archipelago once more. The upside? Time with family and friends, jogs through the redwoods, skiing at Lake Tahoe, foggy Sunday mornings spent writing and drinking Honey Yuzu tea, Soule Domaine’s ahi, Viansa’s Cabernets and Shimizu’s Piedmont Roll.

Nordic Lad and I are also making plans for upcoming spring/summer adventures. Boating around the Stockholm archipelago is definitely on the list!

January 27, 2012 by Erin

Postcards, travel

Postcard #4: Back in Stockholm

First impressions of a late-November in Stockholm in 100 words:

Awaking in darkness. Large black birds with white wing tips dart from tree to tree just beyond the terrace, and by 3:00 daylight is already draining from the sky again. Stockholmers are beautiful—the women are slender with maliciously poreless skin and uptilted fairy-eyes. They flounce down the streets in tight jeans and tall boots and shiny jackets like haughty dolls. Lanterns flicker outside the entrances of shops and restaurants in the afternoon, and cheesy, American holiday music filters out of taxis past midnight. A French grocer in Vasastan. Muesli with filmjölk in the morning, and procecco with jazz after dark.

November 25, 2011 by Erin

Photography, Postcards, travel

Postcard #3: Deliciously Frenetic Weekend in NY

The blur of people streaming out of Radio City Music Hall perfectly captures all that is mad, frustrating, beautiful, electric, and delicious about a weekend in New York. There were monsoon rains, humidity more fitting for Miami than a Manhattan autumn, champagne at Griffou with a good friend, more drinks in the East Village, ravenous pizza noshing at 3am, a rainy train ride to Long Island’s North Shore, chocolate cake and red gloves in a weathered art studio, Cirque du Soleil, taxi rides with Nordic Lad under a damp, gray sky, a giant, white breast on the wall at Trattoria dell’Arte, a first glimpse of the WTC construction site, the crush of bodies and the blare of sirens, and the sensation of loss and relief as I board the plane to San Francisco.

October 3, 2011 by Erin

Postcards, travel

Postcard #2: Holiday at Lake Tahoe

The trailhead to the late Lora Josephine Knight’s ’20s-era holiday home looks deceptively summery, but remnants of one of the region’s longest winters–it snowed on June 6– has all but eliminated typical mid-June activities. Swimming is out, most trails are off limits, and the river is too swollen for rafting. What’s a girl (and her visiting Nordic Lad) to do? Take a cue from Tahoe’s jazz age set, of course.

Just as it took a certain level of ingenuity and determination to construct a Scandinavian-style mansion in the middle of the Sierras, so too does it require resourcefulness and fortitude to find hikes that didn’t involve trudging through tall snow drifts or plunging through river wells (don’t ask me how I know this). The determination paid off, and now I can’t stop raving about Nevada’s steep Flume Trail, where you can catch one of Tahoe’s most picturesque panoramas.

June 14, 2011 by Erin

Postcards, travel

Postcard #1: Southern California Bound

Under the Santa Barabra Pier, a photo by erinz on Flickr.

Taking a road trip to Santa Barbara and L.A. to visit a couple of longtime close friends. Looking forward to salty air, beach treks, crepes on Anacapa, Sunstone Merlot, speeding down PCH in my red car with the moon roof up, smoothies at the Malibu Farmer’s Market, hearing the words “ove'” and “gnar” again, admiring the first Jacaranda blooms, talking late into the evening, and catching a film at the Arlington. Mostly, I am looking forward to reconnecting with my pretty ones.

March 16, 2011 by Erin