Plus Alba D'Oro Camping Venice

Day 7, Florence

If Rome and Venice were “aerobic sightseeing,” Florence was a triathlon! Three world-class museums (plus lunch,, Rick Steeves’ “Renaissance Walk” and two harrowing bus rides in and out of town) all in about nine hours!

We started the day with a bus ride into the city center of Venice. (Even though we have a rental car, the city center is what is called locally a “no go zone’” This is a ...

Day Six, Venice to Florence:
Today was a travel day for us: getting out of Venice, picking up a rental care, making our way to Florence by way of Padua.
How we hated to leave Venice! We agree that a month here would just scratch the surface. Around every corner is a new piazza and a new adventure. We will be back!
Michele was intent on seeing the Calatrava bridge before we left Venice. For ...

Blog Day 5 (Venice 2), Wednesday, December 9
We rose well-rested and after enjoying the hotel’s breakfast buffet, set off for St. Mark’s Square, where we spent most of our day. With the national holiday crowds dispersed, it finally paid off to be here in the off season! There were no lines for the Basillica or any of the “extra” (“for a small fee”) attractions on the square. It is no longer allowed to feed the pigeons, with the positive result ...

... places where you can observe art in the setting it was created for. Titian considered this his home church and, besides having many of his creations there, he is buried in the main church.
We had to hurry back to our hotel, or to our neighborhood. We had stopped in a little shop nearby, planning to bring some snacks and drinks back to the hotel later. We asked the shopkeeper how late he would be open. He stated firmly, “I close at 8 o ...

... All of us girls crashed on the bed and Steve decided to go explore since he didn’t have as long in Venice as we did. We all eventually woke up and took showers, then met Steve to go exploring. Venice is a very beautiful city, though it does smell somewhat like fish but that didn’t bother me. We walked for hours. Winding around the back streets and bridges, trying to see what treasures we ...

... Austria to Venice, Italy. There is so much beautiful country side it's hard to take it all in! We stopped for lunch at a road side food stop next to Worth Lake (Austria) and it was breath taking!!

Well we hope you are all well and we will write again soon.

Team Heather

... Eurail Pass along with my reservation, I used up a day of travel time. I only paid for 15 days of a flexi-pass valid only for 2 months. I wrote in the day in pencil and not in pen. Immediately upon seeing my penciled in date on my flexi-pass, he said I was being fined 50€($75) because it was in pencil. Naturally I tried to talk my way out of it but the prick wouldn't budge. I told him to pen on top of it but it didn't do any good ...

... Margaret found her special object, a chook. I had seen many glass birds on Murano and was relieved when she chose one which was attractive. Margaret, who had honed her haggling skills on the hard streets of Chiang Mai, asked for the shop's best price. The salesman declared himself bested and offered her a really special price if she bought a second, slightly smaller chook. To sweeten the deal he threw in half a dozen glass eggs. Sold! A rather long vaporetto ride saw us disembark ...