Blog Archive: July 2020
Milano Centrale railway station
| Railway / Bus / Ferry | 49 seen
Milano Centrale is the main railway station of the city of Milan, Italy, and is the largest railway station in Europe by volume. The station is a terminus and located at the northern end of central Milan.
It was officially inaugurated in 1931 to replace the old central station (built 1864), which was a transit station but with a limited number of tracks and space, so could not handle the increased traffic caused by the opening of the Simplon tunnel in 1906.
It was back in Summer 2003, when I first visited this place, during my hitchhiking / train travel back home from French Foreign legion (from Marseilles, France). Back then I arrived to Milano Centrale railway station from Turin.
Milan central railway station
My latest visit here was much recently, back in November 2019, during about a week-long trip in Italy, and no I visited Milano just to take some photos or buy some pants at Zara mall.
Milano Centrale has high-speed connections to Turin in the west, Venice via Verona in the east and on the north-south mainline to Bologna, Rome, Naples…
First DJI Mavic Mini Aerial photography (Lisi Lake / Tbilisi)
| Digital Photography School | 10 seen
At the end of July 2020, I finally received my DJI Mavic Mini here in Tbilisi, Georgia.
I was very eager to test it out, and one of the first spots to test DJI Mavic mini, which come to my mind was the Lisi lake.
As our daughter has a preschool in that area, it was agreed to make the first test flight with this little drone near the Lisi lake.
DJI_0001 officially first drone photography at the Lisi lake
Not the best shot, obliviously, as the first flight was more about learning the controls
Author of this blog captured in action
Flying a drone is a lot of fun, no doubts
Lisi lake in Tbilisi from about 30-40 meter heights
The drone kept saying that there is a high wind and I didn't take the risk to go higher.. Not the best shot, but you get the idea
View towards Lisi lake in Tbilisi
One of the things I wish to learn quickly, is how to control exposure and start shooting lovely HDR sunset/sunrise photos with drone.
Vine Yard Restaurant in Kvareli
| Restaurant reviews | 14 seen
Restaurant Vine Yard in Kvareli is located just next to the city walls fortress opposite to the Kvareli Public service hall building. This place serves typical Georgian cuisine, VISA accepted.
This restaurant has been our radar since late 2018, when we discovered this place while stayed at Kvareli Eden hotel, we have been heading here ever since, when in the area.
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Typical Georgian Supra at Restaurant Vine yard in Kvareli
Simple, tasty, and quite affordable. Our total bill here some GEL 70 for mcvadi, French fries, badrijani, coffees, lemonades and more.
Sevsamora Resort & Spa
| Hotel reviews | 31 seen
Sevsamora Resort & Spa is located in the village/town of Saguramo, some 15 minutes drive from Tbilisi.
We booked a family room for a 2-night stay here in the middle of June 2020, paying about GEL 600 (USD 200), with free breakfast included.
The main reason for us coming here was the proximity to Tbilisi and the outdoor swimming pool for our baby girl.
Sevsamora Resort & Spa
Among the facilities at this property are a 24-hour front desk and room service, along with free WiFi throughout the property. The property provides both outdoor and indoor pool, a garden and rooms with pool views.
Outdoor terrace with spectacular views
Tbilisi City is 30 km from the resort. The nearest airport is Tbilisi International, 45 km from Sevsamora Resort & Spa, and the property offers a paid airport shuttle service.
Family room at Sevsamora Resort & Spa
All units are equipped with air conditioning, a flat-screen TV with satellite channels, a kettle, a bidet, a hairdryer and a desk. With a private bathroom equipped with a shower and free toiletries, rooms at the resort also provide guests with a garden…
Restaurant 'Vero Cinese' Milan (via Boscovich)
| Restaurant reviews | 14 seen
Restaurant 'Vero Cinese' is located on Boscovich street in Milan, Italy. This place serves Chinese cuisine.
We had a chance to dine here in November 2019, during our few day trip to Italy, with stop in Milano.
I find it always interesting browsing through the travel photos and finding these places on map. It wasn't hard to map Ristorante Vero Cinese.
Restaurant 'Vero Cinese' Milan (via Boscovich)
We were traveling with our toddler baby girl, so we ordered something toddler friendly.
The staff speaks excellent Italian, but little English. This was not our typical Tbilisi Chinese restaurant, this was totally different.
Some dumplings and Chinese tea
Soup with egg
Top Georgian Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange
| Investments | 124 seen
It was back in 2011 or 2012 when I first heard about Bank of Georgia or TBC bank is listed on the London stock exchange.
Back then I thought - wow, cool, impressive. Fast forward to 2020, I still think this is impressive that Georgia has a few companies listed on the London stock exchange, but as my investment horizons have shifted towards dividend investing + options trading, I don't find investing on LSE interesting.
Anyhow, in today's article I'm going to look at four Georgian companies listed on London stock exchange: Bank of Georgia, TBC bank, Georgia Healthcare Group and Georgia capital.
As said, I'm not the biggest fan of investing in the London Stock exchange (I prefer NYSE or Nasdaq), but I do have one investment from the London - Blackstone.
Also, I'm more options + dividend investor. When looking at data from these 4 Georgian companies listed on the London Stock exchange, just one company (TBC bank) is paying a humble 0.071% dividend. None of these companies are optionable. Investments in one of these Georgian companies should be looked as the long term value growth…
Kindzmarauli Church and Monastery
| Churches and Monasteries | 11 seen
Kindzmarauli church and monastery complex is located in the region of Kakheti, some 3 km off from the main road (Road 43 Telavi - Kvareli)
We discovered this small monastery complex while driving from the Lopota lake resort to the town of Kvareli at the start of June 2020. There is a linden tree right at the monastery, my better part gathered some linden flowers to make a tea latter in the winter.
The surrounding area of the Kindzmarauli church
Roses, mountains and vineyards.
Bell tower at Kindzmarauli church
We didn't actually visit the church this time.
Top 10 Laptops with Intel Xeon processor
| Laptop Reviews | 495 seen
Xeon is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded system market.
In today's article, I've listed top 10 laptops (featured on Amazon) with Intel Xeon processors.
Intel Xeon processors deliver workload optimized performance in space and power constrained environments, from the data center to the intelligent edge. These innovative, system-on-a-chip processors support high-density, single-socket network, storage, and cloud edge computing solutions with a range of integrated security, network, and acceleration capabilities
Top 10 Laptops with 128GB RAM (Mobile WorkStations)
A quick note: This article contains affiliate links to Amazon.com, by clicking on links on this page and by making a purchase on Amazon site, I might earn an affiliate income at no cost to you. Prices for laptops listed on this page are retrieved using Amazon Product Advertising API and is updated daily. For actual prices please refer to the product page on Amazon.…
Kapiloni Restaurant in Telavi
| Restaurant reviews | 55 seen
Kapiloni restaurant in Telavi is located on Barnovi street 10, just opposite to the King Erekle museum.
I had a chance to visit this place at the start of July, during our trip to the Lopota lake
Kapiloni restaurant serves typical Georgian cuisine for quite affordable prices
Ojakhuri at Kapiloni restaurant
Ojakhuri is the generic name for meat (usually pork) and fried potatoes.
Chicken barbeque
Hotel Berna Milan
| Hotel reviews | 15 seen
Hotel Berna is a 4-star hotel, located 200 m from Milan Central Train Station and Metro.
Free tea, coffee and snacks are available all day. All rooms are soundproofed and include air conditioning, free WiFi and a satellite LCD TV.
We booked here a stay back in November 2019 for a couple of days and paid about $200 for our stay here (don't remember anymore, was it one night or two nights).
The hotel indeed is centrally located, we decided to come here from another hotel in Milan, see Hotel 'San Francisco' Milan
Hotel Berna in Milan
The Berna Hotel serves a large, continental breakfast buffet including fresh fruit, pastries and a selection of teas and coffees. Special diet foods are also available on request.
Hotel Berna
This non-smoking hotel is just 4 Metro Stops from the famous Milan Cathedral. By metro or bus you can easily reach all main attractions in town, as well as the MiCo Congress Centre and the Rho FieraMilano Exhibition Centre.
White Cherry Jam
| Food blogger | 18 seen
White cherry jam is quite popular here in Georgia. Georgians like to add nuts to the jam, but for this food recipe we will make a jam from cherries only (adding a bit lemon skin and peppermint though)
The first step was to obtain cherries, for this task we asked our housekeeper to buy a few kilos at Rustavi market (she is from Rustavi), that's how we got about 4 kilograms of white cherries.
White cherries
I'm not sure why they are called white when they are actually yellow/red
The next step was to remove pits from the cherry for this task it was agreed to use a straw.
Separating pits from the cherries using a drinking straw
For cleaning some 5 kilograms of cherries it took some 2 hours. While still cleaning 2 kilograms of sugar were added in water to melt on slow fire. Latter a lemon skin and peppermint were added for flavoring.
Lemon skin and peppermint in sugar syrup water
The lemon skin and peppermint were later removed, but some are saying lemon skin could be left in the jam.
Adding cherries to the syrup water
It turned out this pot…
Buenos Aires (Milan Shopping Street)
| Shopping Venues | 116 seen
Corso Buenos Aires is a major street in north-eastern Milan, Italy. With over 350 shops and outlets, it features the highest concentration of clothing stores in Europe. The architecture of the area is mostly late 19th- and 20th-century style; the street and its surroundings are pointed with several neo-classical and art nouveau buildings.
I had a chance to visit Corso Buenos Aires back at the end of 2019, during our about a week-long trip to Italy
Corso Buenos Aires
Corso Buenos Aires is located in the north-eastern part of Milan, corresponding to the Zone 3 administrative division. It is about 1.2 km long, going roughly south-west to north-east, along the ideal line connecting Milan's centre at the Duomo to the nearby city of Monza. The street itself starts at Piazzale Oberdan, in the Porta Venezia neighbourhood, and ends in Piazzale Loreto. Going towards the city centre, the prosecution of Corso Buenos Aires is Corso Venezia, that reaches the very centre at Piazza San Babila, in the immediate surroundings of the Duomo. From the opposite end in…
Tbilisi Sea Club
| Lakes | 324 seen
Tbilisi sea club is a popular and paid recreational area located next to the Tbilisi sea.
For an entrance fee of GEL 20/per person (kids are free) you could get a free parking lot, free sunbed, free entry to the outdoor pool, and great access to the Tbilisi sea.
Yacht rental is possible (starting GEL 70/per hour), restaurant, restrooms, and the outdoor shower are available.
Public parking lot at Tbilisi Sea club
Its said the club is working from June until mid-September. During the 2020 season working hours were 9-21
People getting tan on floating decks
On the day we visited it (Saturday, June 20, 2020) it was a very hot and sunny day, the place was pretty crowded.
There is also a white sand beach available, with rocky entrance to the sea, most folks seems enjoy laying on the sunbeds on these floating decks.
A little harbor at Tbilisi sea club
Yachts are available for rent, also jet-ski are available.
How To Add CAPTCHA Protection to Drupal 8 Webform
| Drupal Development | 209 seen
Recently I launched a new Drupal 8 website and was surprised by a spam amount we got via website's contact form (built with Webform module).
As the website was new, I was manually blocking each spammers IP, but the amount got larger and larger, to avoid that, I decided to install Captcha module, just like in the case with Drupal 7, see: Adding CAPTCHA to Drupal 7 Webform
A CAPTCHA is a challenge-response test most often placed within web forms to determine whether the user is human. The purpose of CAPTCHA is to block form submissions by spambots, which are automated scripts that post spam content everywhere they can. The CAPTCHA module provides this feature to virtually any user-facing web form on a Drupal site.
I will assume, you have already configured your webform, now let's add captcha to it, and keep those spammers away
Go to admin/config/people/captcha click on the tab Form settings, as we are using Webform module here, enable node_webform_form
Drupal 8 configuring captcha module
Once, enabled, click edit and in the blank text box under "Form…
Restaurant Imeruli Ezo
| Restaurant reviews | 17 seen
Restaurant Imeruli Ezo is a nice roadside restaurant located in Natakhtari (this area is famous for its restaurants)
We made a lovely dinner here at the start of June 2020, returning from our adventures at the Poppy fields near Mchadijvari
Inside yard at Imeruli Ezo
In direct translation from Georgian to English - Imeruli Ezo - means - Imeretian yard. And yes they are serving here Imeretian style food.
The food at Imeruli Ezo
We ordered some salads, mcvadi, badrijani, Turkish Coffee, and some Georgian lemonades.