Hotel Ancora Moena

... turbo-prop model. Even our small hand carry luggage won’t fit under the seat or overhead bin on these small planes, so we gave them to baggage handlers at the plane and they stowed them for us.

We arrived at the Munich airport at 2:00 pm and called the King Hotel for instructions on transportation options to the hotel. We found the “S” train, which is basically very similar to our BART system, was the way to go. For 18 ...

Short train ride from Florence after a hair raising trip trying to return the rental car in confusing, congested and traffic restrictied Florence (don't rent a car downtown go to the airport). Bologna is an university town (even Johns Hopkin has a campus). Very historical town with a great plaza area like most towns and a great antique market.

... environment is more of a brand new hospital than any sort of factory one could imagine. The place has its own foundry, which produces the aluminum and the steel for the engines and the chassis. The robots and computer programing of such resembles more of a military defense base. The technology advancements for this company have been bountiful. We were lucky to tour the new production line / building now in ...

... desk clerk our passports and she looks for the reservation and takes a while to find us in the system. And she tells us our room is Monet. So now I'm really curious about what this room is like. We get in and the place is huge, especially by Italian standards, king bed (actually 2 twins pushed together... not really that comfy but who can complain), satellite tv with English programs, a fridge, a thing to make your pants ...

... are packed with tourists... We visited funny art exhibitions that where part of the biennale and had lots of fun trying to understand it. In the evening we joined Nico and Cristina for a yoga class! What a day!

The next day we left Venice direction Padua. We decided to cycle more south, direction Livorno or Rome (where we can take a ferry to Barcelona). On the way we will visit our friend Andrea, that we met in the ...

... been told the wrong bus number!! The lady gave us a bus map and new directions and off we went. Found what we thought was the right bus, but after a while I realized it was going the WRONG WAY.. AAGGHHH!! So off we jumped, crossed the road and tried again – surely this one would take us there. We basically crossed from one side of the city to the other, and got off where the tourist info lady had told us to. We were in the middle of NO WHERE. Like the outer ...

... provide some entertainment and pleasure reading. Paris and India? Yes, it's true, but I have so many stories to tell before that... A new chapter of my trip began as I was off to Lienz, Austria to meet my sister! This also meant it was time to say goodbye to Simon...after an early morning of packing, and a long walk over the bridge to the train station on a gray and misty morning, I was on my way. Six trains, five transfers and nine hours and ...

... of day-trippers pouring out of the streets away from Piazza delle Erbe, and we somehow missed Verona’s most famous tourist spot, Juliet’s mythical balcony from that Shakespeare play, in the small amount of time we had to meander the streets. But we had to press on because dinner was waiting.

Heading westwards to Brescia and then making for Iseo (a town on a lake of the same name) without any real idea of where we were going, we were hampered ...

... still no place to lay our blanket down so we drove to the end of the gravel road and back to the villa via a very modern but totally deserted highway. After all that country driving we ended up sitting in a grove of trees under the imposing bulk of our castle, lying on a blanket in the grass sipping the local wine and eating our lunch while watching two pregnant mares and their foals grazing in the paddock below. As I write: I can hear the sound of thunder from the ...

June 10, 2002

Back on the bus! This time to Italy!! We went to Pisa (and had pizza for lunch!) We saw the tower, of course, and the church. Got to shop in the souvenir shops and sit for awhile in the sun. Very peaceful day. I can tell I'm getting tired, because the travel journal entries are shorter and shorter!




We were in ...