Venice - St. Mark's Basilica

It is taking me forever to get these pictures up between not much time, small computer screen and slow connections.... :-)  But, here's the next installment...

We visited St. Mark's Basilica on Friday morning,  and it was truly amazing!

The entire ceiling surface is tiled with very small tiles of gold and other mosaics.  It was truly overwhelming to walk in and even begin to try to take it all in.  There is an incredible amount of ornamentation and I just don't think it's possible to absorb all that visual input in less than a few days!

Below:  These mosaics are entirely constructed of small tiles (maybe 1/2 inch x 1/2 inch?)

The Hospital:

The Rialto Bridge:

Although it was in the 90's, we had a great day exploring... 12 hours on foot and we were exhausted by the end of the day!  Up next, we went to the island of Murano, where they make glass.... pictures to follow later!

First Evening in Venice

A few more pictures entering Venice:

We arrived and got settled into our lovely apartment on Giudecca, one of the islands of Venice:

After unpacking just enough to get out of the clothes we had traveled in all night and day (couldn't do that fast enough!), we showered and got dressed for dinner. Luca, the manager of the guest apartments, had kindly made a reservation for us at our request at Trattoria Do Mori. There is a walk almost the entire distance of Guidecca facing the main Venetian islands, and out restaurant was along this walk. Our apartments are on one end of the island, and we walked about a third of the way down to reach Palanca, the site of our restaurtant. We were seated at the railing along the canal, and got to experience Venice in a very personal way when a boat wake sent a wave up and over the side dousing Heather's feet! It was quite a surprise to suddenly be wet, but all the same refreshing in the midst of the heat! You just can't look too closely at the water, or it doesn't seem so refreshing as it does somewhat nasty... ;-)

I (Heather) enjoyed a pizza Venezia, with tomatoes, mozarella and basil. Aaron ate a sausage and mushroom calzone and we enjoyed our first dinner in Italy looking across at Venice. Not too bad!

Following dinner we completed our walk down to the end of Guidecca. It was so peaceful, quiet and nice...  a lovely way to end our first night in Venice!

(we saw "our" boat again docked along Guidecca... had to take another pic of course!)

We've arrived at Villa Sophia

We are finally at the lovely Villa Sophia here in Menaggio on Lake Como.  It was a long a crazy travel day, missing both a train and a ferry connection by seconds, but eventually we got here!
What a fun night!  We arrived at the Villa to the wonderful aroma of dinner cooking wafting from the villa and sat down to a delicious meal of pasta, salad, bread and balsalmic vinegar/olive oil.  We are here with friends of Heather's from high school and their husbands.  Amy & Scott and Pam & Whil have spent the last few days in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland and brought boxes of Swiss chocolates and a couple bottles of rare Swiss wine (apparently , they were told the Swiss make so little wine that they "don't export it," but keep it all to themselves!).  Monika and Joe arrived after a couple weeks in Sweden and Finland visiting family, and Tracy and Dave joined us from Paris.
The bride and groom, Camille and Coos, also joined us for dinner tonight and it was so great to see them again and have everyone all together.  It is very special to have such a wonderful group of friends still together almost 20 years after high school!

And hey, any dinner that concludes with a group of friends sharing and laughing around a table full of chocolates is a really great meal. :-)

It's after 1am here and we are all exhausted from our travels and adventures the last few days.  We are looking forward to starting the RELAXING part of our vacation now!  Aaron and I are taking a ferry over to Bellagio tomorrow morning for a 4 hour cooking class with Luigi.  I'm sure we'll come back experts in making Italian food after our morning... ;-)

Speaking of ferries, as we left on the train today from Venice and got onto the mainland, we realized we hadn't seen any cars since we arrived.  Being in Venice, we took the boat from the airport and to everywhere else, so it was our first time seeing roads in Italy!  The road up the side of Lake Como is quite an adventure, especially taken at such high speeds in a big bus in such very narrow spaces.  The buildings on the side of the road were a mere 1-2 feet from my window at times! 

After our class tomorrow, hopefully we'll be able to actually download the pictures from our last couple days and get some posted.  Probably have to do that poolside here at the villa.... that is, if I don't just fall asleep... ;-)

Looking forward to a great week ahead!

From Venice to Lake Como

We are leaving Venice by train today and headed to Lake Como.  We'll write more updates from the train and post when we can.  Tonight we move into the villa with 4 other couples and get to see Camille (the bride). 
Aaron

A good day's journey

Heather and I took advice of friends and tried to get lost in Venice.  We started in San Marcos Square and smiled as we bypassed several hundred tourists waiting in line to see the Basilica.  My adventure coordinator/travel agent/bride of 15 years had purchased the tour pass ahead of time.  After some morning chocolate gelato we headed in.  It was a hoarders delight.  H and I enjoy simple elegance when it comes to decor.  This basilica has been decorated so many times through the ages.  There are hundreds of extra marble columns (not structural) and it is just dripping with ornamentation.

After that, we started down any alley that looked less crowded and saw so many amazing sights.  The windows and doors and shutters were remarkable.

We bought our pass on the Vaporetti (water bus) in Venice today in order to get around wherever and whenever we wanted.  Being on the boats was refreshing and we headed to the island of Murano, famous for it's glass industry.  They have been producing glass for 8 centuries since 1291.  They pushed all the glass makers there to avoid burning down the main part of Venice.

After a little more Gelato we headed back to wander back through Venice and hit some famous spots like the Rialto bridge

After 12 hours on our feet we soaked them in cold water in the tub and are headed off to bed.  One more full day in Venice tomorrow.

Aaron

Entering Venice

First off, what a sweet and generous welcome!

We love you, too, Venice!

We visited the hospital today as we walked around Venice.  Like everthing else, it is housed in an original very old structure of stone and brick.  In Venice, you don't really clear ground for a new building or buy up empty lots, so the hospital is planned within the space of the existing buildings, with little hallways and stairs (with tiled marble floors) leading you to the various specialties.  We watched as a man was escorted from the hospital in a "wheelchair" to a boat.   The wheel chair looked more like a wheelbarrow with a seat- only two wheels in the back and the gentleman tilted the man back on the chair and carted him off.  I imagine that's much more practical in a city with so many stairs and boats!

Below:  Heather in front of the Molino Stucky.  Formerly a mill and factory, it is now a Hilton Hotel and private residences.  The Rezidencia Grande Veduti (where we are staying) has apartment/hotel rooms on the fourth and fifth floors.  We are on the fifth floor in a great apartment!  Alex, we are taking pictures of our "house" and we'll post them for you soon!

The view from our windows:

Venice!

We have arrived, and boy is it hot!  and beautiful!  and amazing!  and unreal!  and REALLY HOT!
We just checked into our lovely little apartment overlooking the canal with a great view of Venice.  We decided to take the slow boat in from the airport so got a 90 minute boat tour around Venice visiting each of the other stops.  We plan to post pictures later, (including one of our amazing reception in Venice- they've obviously been waiting for us to show up ;-0) but now it's time for a shower and our first dinner in Italy.  Mmmmmmm.  Reservations are in 50 minutes, so I'd best be going for now.... pretty rough schedule... ;-)

Love to you all!