The Gala Dinner was held in the Arsenale at the Officer's Club. I had packed my fanciest top, one I had worn only once before. (I bought it in 2014 which tells you something about my life style.) It's a jacket that flares out slightly below the waist and is in shades of dark blue, medium blue, and aqua. It was expensive and it looks it. It is also ( Read more... )

In the 15th century, Venice ruled the seas...or at least the Adriatic and the eastern Mediterranean and on into the Black Sea. The Arsenale was one of the reasons for their domination; they could build ships more quickly and of a higher quality than their contemporaries. The Arsenale was to ship building in the 1400's what Henry Ford was to ( Read more... )

On Thursday, 22 September 2016, Judy and I had a second tour scheduled for 7:30 p.m.: the mosaics of St. Mark's Basilica. This tour was not included in the Dunnett Carnivale, but we could sign up and pay through the Carnivale website ( Read more... )

Our scheduled events for Thursday, 22 September 2016 started with talks in the morning, so I slept later...8:00 a.m. is not my definition of sleeping late...and had a leisurely breakfast before joining the group ( Read more... )

On Wednesday, 21 September, our included activity was a day-long trip to the nearby islands of Burano, Torcello, and Murano. That meant that we boarded our boat at around 9:00 a.m. and from that point on, we had few decisions to make and those were how best to enjoy ourselves. Burano, home to a colorful fishing village was our first stop, but first ( Read more... )

Tuesday, 20 September: Today's activity was a walking tour of Venice, beginning near the Don Orione and ending at the Rialto. I was disappointed; I wanted very much to see St. Mark's Square and the Doge's Palace. Nothing was stopping me from going wild and crazy and just taking off for there by myself, of course, but I also wanted to see everything ( Read more... )

Sunday morning, Judy and I took a cab to Milan's train station. Our destination: Venice and a meeting with 99 other fanatical readers of Dorothy Dunnett's historical novels. Starting in the 1960's, Dorothy wrote a six-book series about a 16th century, swash-buckling hero, Francis Crawford of Lymond, followed by a one-off about MacBeth, and ending ( Read more... )

On 14 September 2016, I was on the move again, once again traveling with my friend, Judy. This time we were spending ten days in Italy, first in Milan, then in Venice where we were attending another Dunnett meeting. (More about that in a later post ( Read more... )

In addition to my usual challenges (read 50 books, see 25 or more movies each year), I added two more, starting with this one:

( Read more... )

The reasons I've been absent, chronologically, are ( Read more... )