Hotel Al Santo Padua

... control measure (hint: it’s not working!) If you even accidentally drive into the area, much less park there, they will photo your car and send you a hefty bill! Did we mention that drivers here seem to all have the same death wish?

Our first stop was the Bargello Museum, which is home to works by Donatello and Michelangelo, among others. Then off to the Galleria Academia .Yes, we went to an Accademia in Venice, too. It does get confusing! The ...

... of you who are not Reddingites, Calatrava designed the world famous Sundial Bridge in Redding, CA. Michele had read about the Venice bridge and found that it was just as plagued by delays and cost over-runs as the Redding project. Michele describes herself as the only resident of Redding who hates the bridge, more for its cost than its beauty.
You will see some pictures on the blog, but two ...

... 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 ...

... find. Then it started raining, I mean it IS Venice, so what more could you expect? But it wasn’t bad, so (after I bought an umbrella) we kept walking.

The next day was spent the same way, though without Steve. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed tracking down gondolas. We found a great little place that sold yummy ham and cheese Paninis, and had a surprisingly wonderful few days. Next stop: Rome.

... at 7:00 and our laundry would be done. Okay we thought the other guy left I guess it's okay. We had a bit of disagreement with him when we were loading the machines though as he wanted to put our whites, darks and red all together but we manged to get the No point across' loaded the machines and left.

We walked back to the hotel listening to the church bells and saying how we were going to miss them. We only stopped for gelato which Jen promptly got on her bag, her dress, her ...

... walk through Venice. We started at the bridge in front of the train station and wandered our way through the middle island to the Rialto bridge. We stopped at a little church called the Church of San Rocco which was quite beautiful. We looked at some of the little shops along the way, which we would have missed if we had just taken a vaporetto (water bus) to our destination. Carla bought a mask at a store where they make them. They were ...

... and while flights and hotel prices are a fraction of the price off season, restaurants don't seem to reduce their rates acccordingly. On the previous day we'd been guided straight back to a fantastic pizza seller by Hannah, which is hugely impressive considering that all the alleyways look remarkably similar and that she was only about twelve when she was last there. I ...

... as Burano (a fishing village famous for lace and coloured houses) and also Torcello which was abandoned due to malaria. We kinda hopped on the wrong vaporetto though and ended up being on it for about 1 1/2 hours! oops. we were getting pretty sick of being on the water and swayed quite a bit back on land! The Kiwis from Cinque Terre gave us a great tip for free internet in Venice (otherwise the internet costs 9 euros/NZ$18 an hour!) and we had to travel to the island of Guidecca ...

... We took those 2 cable cars up to the top of the Schilthorn Mountain this morning and at 9,748 feet we had fantastic views of the mountains all around and even down to Interlaken where we could see the lake. There's still too much snow on the mountain to hike down - they had about 7 meters this winter - so we made it a round trip on the cable car. Once we got back down to Murren we rode the one-car train to Grutschalp - about a 15-minute ride. From there we made the easy 1 ¼ hour ...

... and no body seems to take any offence. We developed a few driving rules off our own which came in handy on many occasions especially for the navigator - stay on the round-a-bout until I decide where we are and where we are going became second nature! Anyway on to Padua, and the lesson of Venice was to repeat itself and become a pattern thro' most of Italy and France. Why did I think that I would drive off a six lane autobahn where cars were doing up to 145+ kph ...