Peter and Venezia
Kelsie and I had the pleasure of entertaining my good friend Peter from PEI. I greeted him in style on Saturday night at Pisa Airport with a homemade card saying "peter webb" and a can of Moretti Beer. We spent the next few days exploring Florence (sometimes with me, sometimes with Kelsie as the expert tour guide). I took Peter to the Boboli Gardens which are attached to the Pitti Palace. I had never been, but given my status as a "friend of the Uffizzi" (a card which gets me into lots of state run places free) I have access to it. I will most likely visit it several more times before leaving - I loved it there! It is spectacular. I have never seen a garden this large and beautiful. It is esentially a large labyrinth with david bowie coming through the speakers. Okay, that last pard was made up, but i wish it were true.
Peter and I took a jaunt to Rome for the day as well. It was nice going without a large group because we were able to see the things we wanted to, and, managed to avoid several churches! We only went in one together (not counting the Pantheon) and it was amazing - the first thing you see upon entering is a giant poster of Ronald McDonald. Why? Because apparently children who go to that church get discounts at McDonald's. We wandered around the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill. It was a beautiful day so we enjoyed the warmth.
Last Friday after saying good-bye to Peter Kelsie and I caught the train to Venice. We had reservations at a cheap hotel in Mestre, just outside of Venice. It seemed nice at first as we were happy to sleep on a real bed that wasn't a futon. We had an easy going night on Friday and got up early on Saturday to hit the town. I am in love with Venice! What an incredible city. The guidebooks I read all said the best way to explore Venice was to get lost. So that's what we did! We just walked and walked. The first thing we saw in the morning was a mask shop. We went inside and the man working encouraged us to pick up the masks and try them on. I tried on 3 different ones and Kelsie took my picture. Then Kelsie tried on on and I had mine on at the same time so the guy working at the store took our picture together. He was really nice and said that he makes some of the masks. He gave us a brief history of Romania (where he's from) and we had a great chat about Chinese cultural traditions as well with an Italian girl. It was a great start to a great day. Kelsie took me to some places he wanted me to see but mostly we just wandered. We had a delicious dinner at cute little restaurant and then wandered the streets at night. I was looking out over the Rialto bridge and pretended not to hear Kelsie bargaining with a rose vendor - this was a pre-birthday celebration for me so he bought me a beautiful rose. We asked two very nice British women to take our photo for us and they insisted that the rose be in the picture.
Upon our return to our hotel we discovered our room had been left open by whoever cleaned it. Lovely. Luckily for us we don't own anything of value so we didn't have anything of value in the room.
The second day we visited the lagoon - Cimeterio, Murano, Burano and Torcello. The Cimeterio (or something like that) is the island where Venetians bury their dead. It is a giant cemetary. It was beautiful but really hard for me to take. For some reason I become emotional even though I don't know any of the people who have died. Maybe that's why I get sad - they are all people I never got a chance to meet. Also, its the old, run down and falling over graves that disturb me. I know the people died hundreds of years ago but I feel that they should still be remembered by somebody. There was also one section of dead children which I actually couldn't take at all so I told Kelsie we had to leave. Lucky for me he's very understanding so he was fine with it.
Murano is the island famous for glass - we saw a glassmaker in action (so cool!) and then wandered through the town. We went into a few shops but there was nothing too special. Kelsie took me the glass shop where he had bought the necklace for me in October. Their stuff was beautiful, but he definitely picked the best one for me! Unfortunately they told me it was not possible to fix it. Kelsie has a pretty good idea about how to though, so we'll try that when we get back to Canada.
Burano is famous for its fisherman's homes - they are all so brighly coloured. It was beautiful. It looks a bit like Nova Scotia, only much prettier. I took a lot of pictures here. The weather was so gorgeous that we ate lunch at an outside restaurant with our jackets off. We had fried calamari that was delicious but just does not compare to the stuff we had in Elba.
We made our way to Torcello, an island famous because there is nothing on it. Well, there are 16 residents, a few cafes and an old church. Apparently this is where everybody used to live in Venice before the plague hit. Then they all died or moved to the bigger Venetian islands. It was neat to be there because it really does feel deserted aside from all the tourists. On the way back my mom called (thanks for calling!) so that was exciting. We had to transfer vaporettos in Burano and again in Murano. While we were waiting on Murano we beachcombed and found lots of smoothed down shards of murano glass. I think Kelsie is going to try and make some of it into paint and I imagine it will be beautiful. The colours we found were incredible. There was a cute Italian girl watching us dig through the glass and she asked us what we were doing. I told her we were looking for glass and she giggled; I think she thought we were silly. Kelsie found a pretty seashell and gave it to her and I think the little girl got her first crush - it was very cute.
After that we headed back to our hotel to grab our stuff and then made our long journey back to Florence. As nice as it was to be back in our temporary home, I was sad to leave Venice. People say Venice is polluted but I certainly saw nothing to prove that. Sure, there was garbage in the canals but the air was clean and so were the streets. I don't even remember being bothered by the smoke aside from in our hotel.
Oh Venice.......
Peter and I took a jaunt to Rome for the day as well. It was nice going without a large group because we were able to see the things we wanted to, and, managed to avoid several churches! We only went in one together (not counting the Pantheon) and it was amazing - the first thing you see upon entering is a giant poster of Ronald McDonald. Why? Because apparently children who go to that church get discounts at McDonald's. We wandered around the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill. It was a beautiful day so we enjoyed the warmth.
Last Friday after saying good-bye to Peter Kelsie and I caught the train to Venice. We had reservations at a cheap hotel in Mestre, just outside of Venice. It seemed nice at first as we were happy to sleep on a real bed that wasn't a futon. We had an easy going night on Friday and got up early on Saturday to hit the town. I am in love with Venice! What an incredible city. The guidebooks I read all said the best way to explore Venice was to get lost. So that's what we did! We just walked and walked. The first thing we saw in the morning was a mask shop. We went inside and the man working encouraged us to pick up the masks and try them on. I tried on 3 different ones and Kelsie took my picture. Then Kelsie tried on on and I had mine on at the same time so the guy working at the store took our picture together. He was really nice and said that he makes some of the masks. He gave us a brief history of Romania (where he's from) and we had a great chat about Chinese cultural traditions as well with an Italian girl. It was a great start to a great day. Kelsie took me to some places he wanted me to see but mostly we just wandered. We had a delicious dinner at cute little restaurant and then wandered the streets at night. I was looking out over the Rialto bridge and pretended not to hear Kelsie bargaining with a rose vendor - this was a pre-birthday celebration for me so he bought me a beautiful rose. We asked two very nice British women to take our photo for us and they insisted that the rose be in the picture.
Upon our return to our hotel we discovered our room had been left open by whoever cleaned it. Lovely. Luckily for us we don't own anything of value so we didn't have anything of value in the room.
The second day we visited the lagoon - Cimeterio, Murano, Burano and Torcello. The Cimeterio (or something like that) is the island where Venetians bury their dead. It is a giant cemetary. It was beautiful but really hard for me to take. For some reason I become emotional even though I don't know any of the people who have died. Maybe that's why I get sad - they are all people I never got a chance to meet. Also, its the old, run down and falling over graves that disturb me. I know the people died hundreds of years ago but I feel that they should still be remembered by somebody. There was also one section of dead children which I actually couldn't take at all so I told Kelsie we had to leave. Lucky for me he's very understanding so he was fine with it.
Murano is the island famous for glass - we saw a glassmaker in action (so cool!) and then wandered through the town. We went into a few shops but there was nothing too special. Kelsie took me the glass shop where he had bought the necklace for me in October. Their stuff was beautiful, but he definitely picked the best one for me! Unfortunately they told me it was not possible to fix it. Kelsie has a pretty good idea about how to though, so we'll try that when we get back to Canada.
Burano is famous for its fisherman's homes - they are all so brighly coloured. It was beautiful. It looks a bit like Nova Scotia, only much prettier. I took a lot of pictures here. The weather was so gorgeous that we ate lunch at an outside restaurant with our jackets off. We had fried calamari that was delicious but just does not compare to the stuff we had in Elba.
We made our way to Torcello, an island famous because there is nothing on it. Well, there are 16 residents, a few cafes and an old church. Apparently this is where everybody used to live in Venice before the plague hit. Then they all died or moved to the bigger Venetian islands. It was neat to be there because it really does feel deserted aside from all the tourists. On the way back my mom called (thanks for calling!) so that was exciting. We had to transfer vaporettos in Burano and again in Murano. While we were waiting on Murano we beachcombed and found lots of smoothed down shards of murano glass. I think Kelsie is going to try and make some of it into paint and I imagine it will be beautiful. The colours we found were incredible. There was a cute Italian girl watching us dig through the glass and she asked us what we were doing. I told her we were looking for glass and she giggled; I think she thought we were silly. Kelsie found a pretty seashell and gave it to her and I think the little girl got her first crush - it was very cute.
After that we headed back to our hotel to grab our stuff and then made our long journey back to Florence. As nice as it was to be back in our temporary home, I was sad to leave Venice. People say Venice is polluted but I certainly saw nothing to prove that. Sure, there was garbage in the canals but the air was clean and so were the streets. I don't even remember being bothered by the smoke aside from in our hotel.
Oh Venice.......