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Italy

The Grand Canal has all type of boats.  We rode a Water Bus from the airport to San Marco Plaza, near our hotel.  We took a private Gondola ride and then took a Water Taxi to the bus station when we left Venice.

We are at the Rialto Bridge

We love our hotel, the Ca' Del Campo.  John and Nancy had stayed there 4 years ago.  It is only a few blocks from San Marcos Plaza.  We had the Superior 4th floor room, which was quite large.  We decided that it was set up for four people.  There were 2 refrigerators with desks and out sitting area could have beds arranged like these.  This was the only room on this floor and a dining room with 4  tables were right outside our door.  Since the other people seemed to eat early and had rooms on other floors (they have 3 small dining rooms), we always had it to ourselves.  Breakfast was 4 kinds of bread, 2 kinds of cereal, 2 kinds of fruit, 2 kinds of cheese and 2 kinds of meat and yogurt.  They had fresh coffee and tea out all day.

We had one regular window and 2 skylights with automatic covers.  We had views of roof tops, etc. on both sides!

All roofs are tile and many had fancy "Widow's Walks" on top for great views.

In the evening, we enjoyed our cocktails with snacks from the breakfast area.  Nancy is set as she has put her robe over her shirt, has her iPad and camera handy plus Rick Steves book on Italy, which was our bible.

Elizabeth buys several water colors from Piccho Santanhelo.  We loved his paintings and we fell in love with his warm, gentle spirit.

This is taken from the Doges Palace and shows the beautiful courtyard with St. Marks Basilica is in the background.

The Doges Palace is beautiful, but we are not allowed to take pictures.  The gold leaf above this entrance in a small representation of the elaborate building.  The other pictures is taken from the Bridge of Sighs.  It is the last look that prisoners have of Venice as they are led to their prison cells.

Behind Nancy is the Bridge of Sighs.  Elizabeth is on the bridge near our hotel.  Venice is composed of many islands and there are no land vehicles, so we climbed many steps as we walked all over the city.

Gondolier Alessandro showed us Venice and treated us like Royalty.

This many jeweled piece is in the Basicilia.

All of the floors are inlaid mosaics.

A movie was  being shot in this plaza and the area is roped off.  The man in the suit (in the middle picture) appears to be the star because they were always working with his makeup between takes.  The day was quite warm and he had to really be sweating.

The pizza was delicious!  They have both thick and thin crust pizza.  We got a slice of thin crust pizza at every opportunity!  Those with artichokes, mushrooms and olives were the best.

We also ate Gelato at every opportunity.  Who could walk by these fabulous displays and not partake?

We have walked across the Rialto Bridge a good ways to see these various churches.

This is often referred to as "Tintorento's Sistine Church".  The inside is fabulous, as seen by this picture at the entrance.

This is the exterior.

Elizabeth used her iPhone to navigate and we were never lost in any town!  We just followed "our" little blue ball as in moved along with us.  When it moved away from our destination, we turned around.

We took the high speed train (first class, first car) to Florence.  We left our luggage at the train station and spent the afternoon seeing the sights that Nancy wanted to see again, since she had not been there in almost 20 years.  This is the Duomo (Santa Maria del Fiore), a gothic cathedral with colorful facade (all marble).  It was the first church built since ancient Roman times.

These are replicas of the doors, which are in the museum.  This was the first bronze carving that was 3 diminsional.

The dome is this fabulous mosaic with solid gold.

This depicts Jesus with the Saints on his left as that hand faces us and the sinners on this right.  The Saints have halos, are smiling and going to Heaven.  The sinners are doomed to hell.  His toes depict people trying to climb to heaven through Jesus.  With this stark contrast, no wonder everyone gave their money to the church to purchase their place in Heaven!

This is the Plaza d'Signoria (Statues), where many marble and bronze statues are placed.

He is holding Medusa's head after decapitation.  On the right is a copy of Michelangelo's David.  The original is at the Accademia.

We have reached the river.  The famous Ponta Vecchio Bridge is seen in the background.

This plaza is in the middle of the bridge with gold and jewelry shops all along either side.  We saw lots of people walking and looking, but almost no one in the stores looking at the jewelry!

Here we are on the bridge!  It was such a beautiful day, that people were sun bathing on that green grass on the left.  Wonder what it costs to go there.  Must have been a lot, because there were few people in the lounge chairs!  Elizabeth had hired a driver, Danielle, and he took us to Castiglion Florentino, where son/grandson is in school.  Danielle and his 3 brothers run a travel service.  He took us through small towns and was a wonderful guide.

Here is the reason for our trip to Italy - Patrick!  He and Elizabeth are standing in front of his school, the Santa Chiara Study Center.  Students from the Architecture Program at University of Texas (Patrick's school), Texas A & M, Texas Tech. and Cal Poly are studying there this fall semester.  The town, in the heart of Tuscany, has about 12,000 people in all and some live inside the old wall city, which is where the school is.  It was an ancient site for the Etruscan people.  Only business vehicles are allowed and the widest streets are only a little wider than one car.  Plus the roads are quite steep because this walled city is on top of a hill. All of the people were so kind and gentle.

Federico and Alessio own this darling B & B, which is around the corner from Patrick's school.  In the ancient building, they have a quite high tech establishment with high speed Internet, motion lighting, etc.  The breakfasts are cereal, yogurt, cheese and meat, breads and many great looking sweet rolls. Since we don't much care for sweets, we never tried any, but a cream filled pastry sure looked good

!

This is the street coming in front of our B&B and one of the few parking places.

We ate here twice.  Had pizza for lunch outside and a great dinner inside one night.  Patrick takes us on a tour of the town.

This is the plaza on top of the hill, the town center. The cafe on the left is the Anticco and Analisa serves great snacks, small pizzas and pastries.  She also served us beer and gin and tonic at quite reasonable prices.  Alcoholic drinks are about the same price as sodas and bottled water.  She also freely offers patio chairs to rest from treks up the hill.  The portico overlooks the valley below the town.  We run into Patrick a couple of times having a snack or coffee here.

Nancy looks just like an Italian woman trekking up the steep road.  (As you can see, I am straight upright and the road is NOT.)

Everything is so neat and clean.

Nancy enjoys reading on our balcony.  (What a ladylike pose!)

The church is right outside the walled city.  The structure on the right is at the very top of the hill and was the fortress.

Patrick was able to visit the ruins of the old structures as mentioned.

The gates are closed.  Patrick sits on the wall.

Elizabeth buys this beautiful bowl made by potter Matteo Capitini.  His shop was closed and our B&B called Matteo, who opened up for us.

Matteo spoke no English, but he called his grandson to come meet us and help translate.  She had an app on her phone that would translate from English to Italian and vice-versa.  Matteo was fascinated with it!

Each of his pieces are one of a kind and he is so proud of them.  He showed us some clippings where he and his wife had exhibited at a show in New York state.

Saturday night has a show in the Plaza.  Watching these men get the stage ready for the show was a show in itself!  They wanted it to be so perfect and used various scraps of things.

Patrick shows us his school and his drawing table.  It was so great to see him in his "habitat" - so far away from us.

The Dining Room

The courtyard with Patrick's room on the 3rd floor, back left.

Sitting under one of the shade structures.

Oh we were so glad to see our boy!

Cinque Terre - Monterrossa

This panorama view is from the balcony on our room.  The other 4 towns were visible.  This has become a tourist hot spot.  (Probably due to Rick Steve's rave reviews.)  We did find very Americans, however, but many European tourists.

This is our hotel, Hotel Baia - second floor with the middle balcony.

This is the view from our balcony.

There was a wedding at one of the towns - a Canadian bride and Italian groom.  They rode on the boat with us as we toured the five towns.

We eat a great lunch here as we overlook the bay.

The statue of Garibaldi is high on the hill.

We go to the Post Office to mail Elizabeth's bowl, which was just wrapped with paper.  No boxes or packaging materials were available.  We combed the area grocery stores to find boxes and talked store owner into selling some bubble wrap.  The postman had tape.  The box was mailed by ship  (4 to 6 weeks) with no insurance.

There it goes!  (a 2 hour process)

This fisherman was mending his net.

We take the boat to visit the 5 towns.  We got off at Vernazza and Riomassiore.  Vernazza is a very pretty town and one of the most photographed.

Nancy had just finished the book, Beautiful Ruins, which partially takes place in Cinque Terre about 50 years ago.  The hero had wanted to build a tennis court on the cliff and everyone laughed at him.  When I saw this parking lot, I thought it might not have been such a dumb idea after all.

Since the main character is named Pasquale, I took a picture of this small hotel.

This is as close as we get to the water.  It was cold for South Texans!

Milan

We have good train accommodations to Milan.

The train station is beautiful - and hectic.  (I would never have made all of the trains without Elizabeth's careful planning.  We rode all kinds of trains, a bus, the subway, a chauffeured car and the 4 types of boats.  We never took a taxi!)

This is called "Liz Cafe".  We decided that we will eat supper there after our touring.

Here is the Duomo (the 4th largest church in the world).

This is from the top of the Duomo.  Really high!

Some of the beautiful carvings

The castle

On the left is Adam holding an apple.  On the right is the unfinished Pieta by Michelangelo.  The raw rendering captures the passion of Mary holding Jesus.  He worked on this Pieta for 4 years, but did not finish it before he died.

We were able to see the Last Supper, the famous fresco painted by Leonardo de Vinci.  Elizabeth had secured tickets at home, which was good.  People were standing around trying to get someone's ticket.  Only 25 people can go in the room at a time, so the fresco won't be damaged.  It was worth the trip to Milan to see it!

We had our evening cocktails with these "tapas".  We then ordered a sandwich.  It was delicious.  Liz's cafe was a great ending to a great trip.  There were just a few tables outside at this busy intersection.  We were there at Rush Hour.  However, they had oleanders in pots that hid the tables and also muffled the noise.

We had beautiful weather the entire trip, but it a little cloudy as we leave.  You can see the top of one of the Andes Mountains and some of them in the background.