Together at last!!!

Perugia, Umbria, Corta del Poggio Villa.

We finally all made it here together. Rose and Karen had to have the hostess, Christina, come and pick them up. Lora and I found it, but only by chance. We've already polished off three bottles of wine --- well, Rose and Karen are three up on me.

The Villa is lovely and Christina is wonderful. I recommend this place to anyone. Our rooms are very charming and clean, with ensuite bathrooms. There are only two bedrooms, so it only accommodates 4 guests. It's very charming. We're really looking forward to our stay here. More later...gotta start working on catching up with them on this wine!

Day 4 - Venice to Parma

Julliette and her balcony

Day 4 "Wherefore Art We? -- The Great Venice to Tuscany Adventure

After our morning breakfast of bread, cheese, and water in our room, we checked out of our hotel and took the Alilaguna public water taxi back to the airport in Venice to pick up our rental car to begin our journey to Tuscany. We have two nights with no reservations and a map.
Our first stop was going to be Padova, but there was nothing there, so we continued on to Fair Varona. We parked in front of a pizza restaurant (free parking!) and had lunch. Great pizza! We were very close to the old walled city and the colluseum, so we walked around the city, until we came upon the statue of Juliette beneath her balcony. The city was bigger than we expected and we did not know that there was a colluseum there. It is used today as a theater. We enjoyed our walk around this charming city.

We found an internet cafe and tried to book a hotel for the night in our next destination, Parma, but the computers were slow, the Hotels.com site kept jumping back into Italian and couldn't tell what I was booking, and finally my 30 minutes of time ended just as I was entering my credit card info. So we just decided to wing it.

The drive to Parma was reminiscent of our walks around Venice -- we felt lost every minute of the way. The roundabouts every kilimeter had confusing signs that pointed every which way (I think the Italians like to mess with the tourists) and we had to back track several times when we realized that we had followed the wrong sign. And they say that all roads lead to Rome, but every roundabout had a sign pointing the way to Brescia, which was in the opposite direction from where we were going. And sometimes the sign would point to the west, and the next time it would point to the east.

We finally made it to Parma at 7 pm and stopped at the first hotel we saw, the Astoria Residence Hotel. They charged us 14 euros to park, but they gave us an hour of free internet. I'll have to post this on the blog tomorrow because I used up all my time booking our hotel for tomorrow night in San Gimignano in Tuscany. We wanted to be sure to prebook something with free parking and free internet.

There was a very nice restaurant next door to the hotel, so we enjoyed a nice bottle of wine and Lora had lamb chops and I had pork cheeks and pollenta. And we both had our first green salad of the trip. Surprisingly, neither of us had anything that needed to be topped with Parmesan cheese.

More from Torcello

The cathedral at Torcello

A bridge along the canal

A view of the distant mountains

The dock at Torcello

Memories of Venice

St. Mark's Square

Canals of Venice

My daily gelati fix

Day 3 - Murano, Burano, and Torcello

Today was our excursion to Murano, Burano, and Torcello. We were disappointed in Murano, as we hoped to do some serious shopping there. But they only took us to one factory, where we watched a short demonstration and were led to the store (probably owned by the boat owner's cousin), and where the prices were double what we had been finding in Venice. We only spent about 35 minutes on each island.

The colorful buildings of Burano

Next, we continued on to the picturesque island of Burano, famous for its lace and also it colorful fishermen's houses.

Just a little further on was the island of Torcello, which was the first centre of civilation. We walked along a canal to find the cathedral, which dates back to the 7th century. There are currently only 15 residence on this island. I think all of them own restaurants.

When we returned, we had a private tour of our hotel from the Director of Sales for the Starwood Hotels. It is a beautiful property, and they have just completed updating half of their rooms and are working on the other half.

We finished all of our shopping for Venice, and found one of the recommended restaurants on Lora's list for our dinner. Tomorrow we get an early start to get our rental car and begin our two days of exploring what's in between here and Tuscany.

Day 2 - Venice

Day 2 - Venice

It was 9:30 before my Heavenly Bed would release me from its grasp. I stumbled into our marble bath while Lora, lazy person that she is, snoozed away.

The 40 euro breakfast buffet at our hotel, the Westin Europa and Regina, did nothinf to stimulate our appetites, so we set out to find what the Venicians do for breakfast. It turned out to be a choice between coffee and a pastry or a slice of pizza and a diet coke. We had a slice on the Grand Canal. Pizza never tasted better!

We went back to our hotel to find out where to catch the water taxi that cruises the Grand Canal from end to end, and to find out where we catch our boat trip tomorrow for our trip to Murano Island. Luckily, they are both close to our hotel.

We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day for cruising on the canal. The water taxi is public transportation which stops several times along the canal to pick up and drop off passengers. It makes for a very leisurely cruise. We both noticed how good looking most the gondola drivers are. Almost makes you want to spend the 90 euros for a ride. Well.....no. Not unless they throw something else in with the ride.

After the cruise, we enjoyed a nice lunch on the St. Mark's Square side of the Grand Canal. It was a geat spot for people watching. After lunch, we enjoyed another walk, always finding new places to get lost. And of course, to shop.

After a couple hours of rest in our hotel room, we ventured out again in the evening for another lovely dinner on the Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge. Are you beginning to see a pattern here? There's nothing like having a good meal and a nice glass of vino while watching the boats go by on the Grand Canal.

Day 1 - Venice with Mo and Lora

It was a good plan. Lora and I would meet in Paris and fly together to Venice. But the best laid plans, etc. etc. My flight was delayed just long enough for the long bus rides through the meandering, industrial drab Charles De Gaulle Airport and their need to send you through another security check the I missed my flight by 10 minutes. Poor Lora was searching the plane for me (we've never met before). I had to catch a flight 2 1/2 hours later. Luckily, we both managed to find our way from the airport to the water taxi, to St. Mark's Square, and to our hotel. I found Lora relaxing in our room wondering what had happened to me.

This is Lora's first trip to Venice (to Italy, for that matter), so we enjoyed walking through the winding streets, over the many bridges, looking for affordable dining options (15 euros for a slice of pizza!!), and window shopping -- so many shiny things to distract and tempt us!

We finally found our way to the Rialto Bridge and Market and some of the more affordable eating and drinking establishments. A 9 euro pizza or plate of pasta started looking pretty affordable. After we had our fill of window shopping and even making a few purchases, we sat at an alfresco cafe along the Grand Canal overlooking the Rialto Bridge and had a nice glass of wine. Ahhh, this is the life.

Then I managed to lose my international cell phone, although it was useless to begin with. After several attempts to call and report the missing phone, we felt the need to relieve the stress with a plate of pasta and another glass of chianti. With heavy eyelids, we crawled our way back to our hotel for a well deserved first night's sleep.