Venice - Day 7

I'm still playing catch-up for the lack of internet so even though this says it is 10/19, I'm really talking about Thursday, 10/14.

Since the weather was still great we decided to explore the island communities around Venice. Again, the vaporetto was totally convenient. Our first stop was Murano, famous for its glass furnaces. The flowers in the photo are glass. We explored a little but it was pretty commercialized. Susan had been there before so she suggested we spend the bulk of our time at the other two islands in Venice's lagoon.

Our next stop was Torcello for lunch. It seemed to be the least inhabited/most rural/less tourists. A fun experience was meeting some Italian guys who were having a great time and taking their photo for them. We surmised that maybe they were on a reunion of the good old days. They reciprocated and took ours!

Rick and I continued on to Burano which is known for its lace, while Werner and Susan went back to Venice. The most amazing part of this village is the way the color their buildings. It was the brightest, most fun, spot I've ever been. I can't imagine anyone be depressed here!

As you can see by the photo on the right it was getting to be dusk. The boat ride back to Venice was incredible. We were very, very happy!

We had dinner in Venice to end our day. Rick had a "boot" of beer for our toast!

Varenna to Venice - Day 6

We took the train from Varenna to Venice and enjoyed the company of another American couple from Seattle. It's fun comparing travel notes and learning about others' experiences abroad.

Venice was a surreal experience from the moment we walked out of the train station and boarded the vaporetto on the Grand Canal. It was one of those moments where I almost had to pinch myself to be sure I wasn't just dreaming. Vaporettos are the city buses of Venice and run most efficiently. It was easy to learn how to use them and we found our hotel just a few minutes from the vaporetto stop.

We're staying in the San Barnaba Hotel in the Dorsoduro area of the city. The hotel is in a 15th century palazzo than has been in the same family since it was built. It was restored and turned into a hotel between 2000 and 2009. I had the opportunity to meet the current owner who showed me some of the original furniture they found during the restoration along with telling me a little about the family.

You can see the narrow lane it is on in this photo. I'm also going to show you a photo of the water taxi dock on the canal in the back of the hotel.

While we were waiting for Werner and Susan to arrive, I had a conversation with Roberto who seemed to be the manager. He spoke English but I tried to speak some of the Italian I had learned. I was doing pretty well until I invited him to dinner (in Italian) and asked him "Da me e da le?" Your place or mine. He just started laughing and said he would have to check with his partner! So on my first attempt at picking up a guy in Italy, the guy turned out to be gay!

After Werner and Susan arrived we spent some time exploring our neighborhood before having dinner. Here are just a few pix of what we saw. More tomorrow!

Varenna - Day 5

Today was another day of exploring. Rick read that the shortest river in Italy was in the next village over. The river is called Fiumelatte (River of Milk) and the town is named after it. The walk to the town was along the shore of Lake Como, so again every few feet there was a place for a photo. There were some amazing villas. The feel was very Big Sur/Bay Area with the same kinds of trees.

When we got to the village of Fiumelatte, we saw where the little river dives into the lake and it was rushing down so hard it did look like milk. Then Rick told me his goal was to climb to the river's source about 800 ft. above us and as the brochure told us, a gradient of 36 degrees. Not being so good at picturing distance and not even thinking about gradient, I reluctantly agreed to see the source with him. Oy vey! I think it was really a 90 degree angle some of the time plus I was shlepping my bag with water, my shawl, and about two tons of crap.

Needless to say, when I got up there, I wasn't the happiest of hikers. It was pretty though. I'm including a picture of Rick when he triumphantly reached the top and me striking a KROG pose. For those of you who don't know it, I'm really not the outdoorsy type. In fact many years ago my friends Mary and Jeanie gave me the nickname, Karen Rowinsky Outdoor Girl (hence the KROG initials) as a joke. So whenever I find myself in an uncharacteristically nature-like situation I have to memorialize it!

I hate to admit it but I did enjoy having done the hike. The way down was at a very gentle angle and I'm still confused as to why we couldn't go up and down the same way!

When we got back to our village (2 hours later) we rewarded ourselves with a lovely lunch facing the lake. My sister-in-law, Monica, who is a very talented food writer (try out her blog at http://spitanddrive.blogspot.com/2010/10/if-you-hang-out-at-table-long-enough.html) has asked that I include some pictures of the food we are eating. So here's another pizza for you! We meet up with our traveling partners tomorrow so I may start to vary my diet a little and I'll take pictures of their food which will be a lot more interesting than mine.

We ended our day with an evening ferry ride across the lake to Bellagio for dinner. It's a more commercial village than Varenna but by the time we got there most of the shops were closed. We had dinner at a lakeside restaurant. I actually had spaghetti carbonara but forgot to photograph it. Here is a picture of the ferry docking in Varenna. Now it's time to get ready for the next leg of our trip tomorrow. We're taking a train to Venice. Buona sera!

From Rome to Varenna - Day 4

Some final thoughts on Rome...I loved having been there and think we had just enough time in the big city. The people are very friendly (especially the guys on the street that have something to sell.) There seems to be a higher ratio of physically attractive (like in hot) men and women here than I've seen elsewhere! I also think there is a higher ratio of tall people too. And, I can really see how Rome is a fashion center. People here look good and they are nice too!

We took a morning train to Milan and then switched trains to head to Varenna. It took us about five hours. I find train travel relaxing and I think Rick and I took turns dozing. Varenna is a lovely town on Lake Como. Every time I've mentioned it to anyone they bring up George Clooney who lives on the lake somewhere (it's a big lake). We took a quick walk through the village. I think I'll just include some photos so you can get the feel for the place.

The photo above is the view from our room. It is so peaceful. There are lots of tourists here but it isn't tacky and so far no young man has tried to sell us a shawl or weird toy.

We had a lovely dinner at our hotel and got the wi-fi to work in our room. Who could ask for more? I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.

Ostia Antica - Day 3

After staying up until 2:30am (our biorhythms are totally off), we woke up at 11am. Rick's ankle began hurting during the night and we noticed a big bruise on his shin from the previous evening's fall. I woke up with two giant blisters on my foot as a remembrance of the all the walking we did yesterday! But we probably will only be here once so we carried on with our plans to explore Ostia Antica.

We needed to take two trains to get there and had to switch trains at the Piramid (the Italian spelling) stop, so we went above ground to see the pyramid. It is actually a real pyramid copied by Gaius Cesius, a rich Roman magnate around 30 BC as a burial place for himself. Apparently, the Mark Antony/Cleopatra scandal brought exotic Egyptian styles into vogue in Rome at the time. It is smaller than the ones in Egypt but pretty cool.

Our next train ride was only about 30 minutes to Ostia Antica and cheap too! Only 1 Euro each way for both trains. Ostia is a town dating back to the 4th century BC. It was once a thriving seaport because it sat on the banks of the Tiber River and Tyrrhenian Sea. Unfortunately the port silted in and the Tiber changed its course and Ostia met its demise in the 5th century AD. It's been the scene of archeological exploration since the late 1700s.

I found it mind boggling that archeologists could have learned so much from so long ago. The site was huge. The restoration that was done over the year seems to have been done very respectfully in that while they made it look like the original, it was obvious what parts were restored. I'm going to attach some of the photos I took. They don't do it justice. I was particularly taken with the mosaics and the latrines! Traveling always makes me keenly aware of where the nearest "decent" bathroom is located!

We ended the day with a lovely meal at Mama Angela's restaurant which conveniently is next door to our hotel. It began with Prosecco and ended with Limoncello with fabulous pasta in between (Rick had lamb). Unlike other trips, I think it will be no problem for me finding things I like to eat in Italy!

Tomorrow we leave Rome for Lake Como!

Rome - Day 2

Today was our day to "do" Rome and did we ever do it! After breakfast at the cafe across the street from our hotel, we started out on our mission to find ancient Rome. With our trusty Rick Steves on the iPad, our first glimpse of ruins came at the Museum of Rome. It was also our first view of the cats of Rome.

We continued on until we got to the Forum. It was filled with tourists as we had expected but we each felt thankful that we had not come in the summer when it is supposed to be even more crowded and hot. We had lovely weather today with it cool enough for a jacket in the morning but sunny and 70ish in the afternoon. We decided that neither of us were that interested in actually standing on line and joining the throngs within the Coliseum, so we just circled it catching views of inside through some of the arches. We had seen so many documentaries on it that we figured we could avoid my idea of hell which is following a tour guide with 30 or so people that keep asking stupid questions.

We kept wandering for a total of about 4 hours, seeing the Trevi Fountain and numbers of obelisks. We had enough of crowds so we shleped back to our hotel for a much needed nap. I love the sleep of vacations!

After our nap we set out looking for dinner. We had written down the name of restaurant we saw on a Rick Steves' TV show. We must have screwed something up because it didn't look like the one we saw but since we hadn't eaten since breakfast, we decided to eat there anyway. I got to speak my first Italian (besides grazie) by ordering de la bira (beer) and had my first real Italian pizza. It was great!

Then we made our way to the Spanish Steps, where I listened to the Van Morrison song, The Spanish Steps on my iPhone! I had been planning this for a while and was so excited to pull it off!

We walked for a total of 4 hours in the evening too. Only one minor mishap which could have been a disaster. We were at the Pantheon and for some reason, Rick thought there were some steps but instead there was a four foot drop. We only noticed the sign after Rick took the best fall of his life and didn't hurt himself!

We fortified ourselves with our first, of what I assume will be many, gelatos for the walk back to the hotel. Even with all the walking I did this summer to train for the trip, I think I might have over done it. Tomorrow will tell!

Leawood to Rome - Day 1

Travels with Karen and Rick - 2010

We began our travels on Thursday, October 7 and flew from Kansas to Detroit to Paris to Rome. It was a really, I mean really, long. We took the train from the airport into the city, walked about six blocks to our hotel, arriving about 4pm. One at a time, we squeezed ourselves into the tiniest shower I've ever seen. I think I was barely dried off before falling asleep. We thought we'd awaken for dinner and do Rick Steves' evening walking tour of Rome but instead we just kept sleeping. We'd wake up every few hours, talk a little, and doze off again. Giving into sleep was probably the best thing we did on this really long day.