Ca' San Vio 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 ...

... endowed a museum of modern art, which seems especially radical in Venice, with its nearly universal focus on the Renaissance.
After dinner and a rest, we finished our day with a night at the Opera! We saw “The Barber of Seville” a great, silly romp of an opera - and to add to the fun, it was performed inside one of the old Venetian palaces, with each act taking place in a different room. (The small audience followed the players and the Piano Quartet from room to room.)

... 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 ...

... the giggles and make our way home, we're half way there and there seems to be a problem, Johanna isn't driving like her normal crazy self and we seem to be slowing down much to her dismay! ''We're losing power here people'' 40 miles, 30 miles,.... we roll to a stop in the middle of an S bend half way between the two towns. Oh ****. And then someone poses the question.. was is suppose to be diesel or petrol???? ACCK!!! Maybe the car needed petrol and we just ...

... and churches (But what's up with the obelisks??) We stayed outside Rome, as does the Pope in the summer. We were at Jen Mack's aunt and uncle, Mary and Mario's B&B just down the road from the Pope's summer place. Mary and Mario were super hospitable, interesting and informative.

And the bonus ... The pasta in Italy is to die for. The pasta is fresh and the cheeses, oils and prosciutto is fantastico. And if you ...

... in search of food. We park the car in town, find the restaurant the landlady mentioned, and it's closed (this is going be become a very common problem, as Dave has mentioned in his blog). OK, change of plans. We have to go the grocery store anyway - we'll just pick up something for supper. First, the COOP, Italy's version of HEB - it's teensy, tiny - more like shopping at a 7-11, so we get the basic dry goods there. Next door is the ...

... but upon arriving in Venice we realized how expensive the small area is. To cut our costs we decided to camp in an area outside of Venice, on the mainland. Venice is a small island connected to the mainland with just 1 road and the train tracks. We arrived to Venice in the late afternoon so decided to check our bags at the train station rather than go to our campsite and back. Our original plan for the day was to find the famous San Marco Square/Piazza. We located our ...

... additional expenses that awaited us. The night cost about Euro 25 while we expected it to be half that price. Venice certainly compensated for our troubles, as it was precisely what we expected it to be. While gondolas are the famous feature of the city, you don't want to use them to move around unless you're on unlimited budget. The cheapest option is a water bus called vaporetto.