Ca'Delizia 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 ...

... they no longer swarm the tourists. But it you still have to watch out for the Pigeon Poop! The Basillica was another feast for the eyes - and ears! As we approached the central altar, imagine our surprise as the “theme” from Phantom of the Opera suddenly blasted from the organ!
Next, we toured the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. This wealthy American woman, who lived in an palatial home on the Grand Canal, had two great loves: her dogs and modern art. After her death, her ...

... 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 ...

Those couple of years of Italian in high school are all coming back to me! I am a natural at Italian LOL I love love love Italy!!

On the way from Munich to Venice we had the best drive.. we went through Austria along some famous scenic route that I cant remember the name of and ended up in Innsbruck, Austria. It was so awesome, I cant wait to load the photos (which are some of my best LOL). There was still snow on some of the peaks even though its been ...

... little stairways discovering new views and shops and restaurants and hotels. Wonderful!

The last stop was Fira town, the main town on the island. The tour left us here for the afternoon, with tickets to take the cable car down to where the boats return to the ship. We had a glass of Santorini wine and sandwiches in a restaurant right on the edge of the cliff with a view of the entire caldera. Fantastic! Then we strolled around town. They say the ...

... the train and water taxis to get around St. Lucia to Venice. Extremely confusing and again the people were not much help. One elderly lady with stockings falling down her legs helped me get back to the square talking in extremely fast Italian. The only words I knew was "si" and "chow." I feel like I need to burn my clothes as the public transportation mixed with the ...

... bought some pizza for lunch which was delicious. Then, on our way back, we found a nice little gelato store to get some ice cream. Ohmygoodness, it was the best ice cream that I've had in Italy so far. It was delicious!!! After that, we walked around the city a little across bridges and just enjoying the view. We took the water taxi to some small islands across from the tourist areas and just enjoyed the waterway and the ...

... grabbing her right breast. Apparently, if you rub her right breast, you will get good luck when it comes to love. I did it but I have yet to see the benefits. We took our obligatory photos but it wasn't so easy. We tried to keep it orderly and form a line but a group of older European tourists decided to forgo the line and go straight to the statue. Once that was done, we were looking for Patrice who we figured just got lost again. Then we hear her calling our names from ...