May 21-23 I am actually back home in Alameda as I write this last entry in my blog. May 21 Our last day in Venezia and our last day in Italy. We got up and headed out for our customary Italian breakfast. We wanted to go and explore Burano - one of the 117 islands that make up Venezia - known for its lace making and colorful buildings. Before heading out, we made a quick stop at the Museo Musica. Venezia has a rich and colorful music history with amazing musicians and produced many operas. The museum had some of the instruments made in violin making shops and other very old instruments. We then headed back to our room and packed up our bags for our trip home later. The company that rented us our home in Venezia was kind enough to let us store our bags in their office for the day. With the trusty iPhone Google maps guiding us through the streets, we headed to the water taxi, exploring and taking pictures as we went. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny with stunning blue skies. ...
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May 20 Venezia! All my life I've wanted to come here and it does not disappoint! We slept in late again. Boy oh boy, I will be so happy to return to my bed. Not crazy about these pieces of foam they call beds here. But this apartment has a nice shower and I'm happy about that. It also has a complete kitchen which we will not be using. Not a chance. :) Venezia has an amazing and rich history through the centuries. The original people that lived here in the 11th and 12th centuries came to these marshes as a place of refuge. This is a floating city built on wood - amazing but true. The wood does not rot but due to protection from oxygen due to being under water and the minerals and salt in the water, the wood has petrified and is hard as stone. The city is a true maze and there are no cars, horses, bikes or scooters. Everyone is on foot. The streets are so narrow in places that you can touch the buildings on both sides. Our first stop was the famous Piazza San Marco. This ...
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May 19 Today was our day to explore Bologna. We slept in later than usual due to sheer exhaustion - sightseeing is hard work. Gabriella had told us we could leave our bags in the apartment and we got our bags all packed up and then headed out. Our first stop was of course cappuccinos!... and we headed back to the Piazza Maggiore. After deciding against the first coffee tourist trap we stopped at, we ended up in a delightful little coffee shop and had our morning fix. We wanted to see as much of Bologna as possible and decided to start with getting on the San Luca Express, a little train that you can ride up to the Madonna di San Luca basilica. This is truly a landmark for Bologna and a church of some sort has existed here for a thousand years. The current church was built in 1723. A pilgrimage takes place yearly to the San Luca and follows a path of porticos that is 666 arches long - the longest stretch of porticos in the world. It is a beautiful old church but we were unable to go i...
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May 18 Last day in Firenze. Started the day with more wonderful coffee.....we've been drinking about 3-4 lattes/capuccinos/espressos a day. They aren't as strong as coffee at home and it doesn't really bother you. We got all packed up and put our bags in the luggage room the owners of our Air BnB let us use and walked to the Uffizi. This is an amazing Renaissance Art Museum and has many of the most famous pieces of art in the world contained in it. I'm not a big museum fan but we took our time and went through the whole museum. There was actually a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit as well. Saw a lot of amazing art - all of it very old dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries. The Uffizi itself is very old and has a couple of rooms that were built to amaze and they do! The ceilings are all covered with paintings as well. I really did enjoy it. Kind of amazed myself. Time to head to the train - walked back and got our bags and walked to the train station and boarded the...
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May 17 Today we wanted to bike ride in Tuscany. We had a bit of a challenge as the first tour we tried to book was already full. We found one who could take us and were prepared for a full day bike ride through Tuscany hills. We got up early and had coffee and breakfast at a delightful little cafe that had three sets of stairs and we ended up in a little outside garden. Who knew? The things you can't see from the streets......amazing. This place actually served eggs, the first place we have found that does. After breakfast, we went to our designated spot for our tour. We were told that the all day tour had to be canceled due to the Tour d'Italy - similar to Tour de France. The good news was that we had a tour with just the guide and the two of us and we still got a four hour tour. The weather was beautiful beyond belief and we biked out of the city and up into the Tuscany hills. We passed a huge palazzo that was the Medici summer home. This family had unbelieva...
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May 16 - the rest of the day We toured the Palazzo Pitti and the gardens with the Porcelain Museum. This palace is so huge and austere. It dates from 1458 and was built by the banker Luca Pitti and was later bought by the famous Medici family. The sheer size of this palace is overwhelming. We walked through the Boboli gardens which were beautiful and went through the Porcelain Museum filled with pieces of china from the 18th and 19th centuries. I begged off the Palazzo museum inside as there is a limit to how many museums I can endure and David is kind enough to realize I have limitations. After the Palazzo, we had lunch and went to the Accademia where the famous David sculpture resides. This is perhaps the most amazing thing I've laid eyes on yet for this trip. I looked at the sculpture for a long time and felt teary eyed. So amazingly beautiful and has such a presence that it is hard to describe. The face of the statue reminded me of Avi. The streets of Florence are amazing...
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May 16 - noon Yesterday I had fully intended to get up at 6:00 am and run along the Tiber River before leaving Rome. But I woke up at 3 am and couldn't go back to sleep until 5:30. When my alarm went off, it just wasn't happening. Days and nights are still trying to find their right place in my body. We had skip the line tickets for the Vatican city today. We had to pay too much for them. This is something that we should have purchased before coming but we are still learning lessons that may never be important again. :) The crowds at the Vatican were INSANE. They told us 25,000 people would visit each day and we were higher than that for our visit. Our tour guide was good but it was a little too cerebral for me and with the crowds and long periods of standing while "trying" to listen to our tour guide, I felt like I was trapped on a busy freeway and couldn't get off. I am glad we went and the Vatican Museums are definitely a must see. There are 17,000 works of...