Last couple of days--Venice redux

We stayed a couple of days longer at our "villa" near the town of Bagnoregio than we had originally intended, but we had to be out by Monday at 9:00am as other people were coming in for the week.  Saturday we explored the ancient hilltown of Civita Bagnoregio, which is very close to where we were staying, and Sunday we went to Rome for another day. I'll talk about these visits later.

Monday morning (Oct 31st) we were up and at-em early and said goodbye to our amiable hosts Malcom and Guilia. Found the autostrada and charged on up to Venice, about a 3-4 hour drive as I remember it.
The plan was this: Geri and Ann would stay at the Pensione Guerrato, where we all had stayed when we first arrived in Venice, and Therese and I would stay in a B&B 15-20kms outside of Venice for the night of the 31st. The next day, Ann and Geri, after spending time in Venice, would head out to the airport and get a room at a hotel close-by, as their flights both left fairly early in the morning and they wanted to be able to get to the airport quickly. There was no room at the P.G. for us the night of the 31st, so I had made a last-minute reservation at the aforementioned B&B. We would then come down to Venice and stay at the Pensione the night of the 1st as our plane didn't leave until 9:27am.

Dropped the two off at the airport and they took a bus into Venice. We then began the formidable job of finding our B&B. We had directions in a file on my laptop, but out of sheer stupidity I had neglected to write down the phone #. It was in an email, but of course I couldn't get on the internet at this time. The place was in the boonies, so to speak, but after consulting a detailed map of the area in an autostrada rest stop, the directions came together and we found the place soon afterwards. Charming, modern room in a small, non-tourist town and the young Italian woman running the place could not have been nicer or more pleasant as she explained everything about the room, about parking and taking a train to Venice, about where to eat locally. Our plan evolved thusly-- the next day (Nov 1st) we would check out and take the early train into Venice, leaving the car and most of our luggage in the train station parking lot. Upon arrival in Venice, we would check into the Pensione, leave what luggage we had there and do some sightseeing. The next morning, we would get up at 4:30am, catch the 5:38am vaporetto to the train station, board the 6:09am train back to our car, drive to the airport, return the car, and catch the 9:27am flight.
Things had to go relatively smoothly to get everything done and make the plane, and as it turned out, they did.

So that night we had a great meal at Rosa Perla's restaurant and explored the little town where we were staying. Trick-or-treaters were out in force and we checked out the little church and bell tower at the other end of town. Very sweet and pleasant little slice of rural northern Italy.

The next day in Venice we left the hotel, took a short gondola ride across the Grand Canal and walked about a mile to the lagoon-front where we could grab a boat to Murano and Burano, little islands in the lagoon surrounding Venice. I had heard that Burano, about a 45 minute boat ride away, was a colorful little respite from the crowds in Venice. Every house is painted a different vibrant color, and the island has its own canals. It is known for lace-making. Murano is known for glass-making, but is supposed to be quite touristy as it is just a few minutes from Venice. Turns out the opposite was true. Burano, though quite charming and picturesque, was overrun with tourists and the food was expensive. Murano seemed quieter, but also charming. Some incredible, albeit expensive, glass decor in some of the stores. But also some nice lesser expensive stuff for the tourists in others.

Venice

Venice

Burano

Burano

Burano

Burano

Burano

Murano ghosts

Murano

Murano

Took the boat back to shore, walked back to the hotel, rested a while, ate dinner at the place where we first ate when we arrived in Venice (there's a story to this, more later), and then took a 1/2-1 hour evening vaporetto ride down the canals and back, as we had a12-hour pass. Very pleasant and a nice way to say good-bye to the city.

Video of Guitarist in Florence

I started going through some of the video I shot on the trip and this one is of the classical guitarist playing in a piazza in Florence that I mentioned in a previous post. Watching it, I was again touched by her playing and by her sweet, serene demeanor. Unfortunately, the video quality has been reduced greatly by posting here. I may try to put it up on youtube at a later time.

Day Trip to Siena

We're home now and happy to be so, but we had a wonderful time with lots of memories and adventures. We met some fun and interesting people and saw some amazing, and just flat-out beautiful, sights. But sometime during the third week of our trip the thought of going home didn't seem so bad. One does get tired of being a tourist, of driving the video-game-like curving, twisting, bending, spiraling, serpentine roads of rural Italy, the dirty laundry which somehow never gets washed and follows you everywhere, and all the other annoying mundane minutiae of traveling. I intend to fill in some of the gaps in coverage of our trip with this blog over the next few days-- especially time in Croatia--  for my own benefit if for nothing else, to preserve the memories.

I believe it was Friday that we took a trip to Siena. We stopped briefly in Bolsena to show the town to Geri and Ann. Some shots from an overlook

Then we got on the back road to Siena, the curvy, twisty, two-lane road. Some very picturesque country-side

We got to Siena, parked, and took a bus in. Marvelous medieval town, wish we had had more time there.

We took the Auto-strada home-- much faster.

Rome, Florence

Some pics from Rome. We  got off the train and took the open-top tour bus, in which you can get a good overview of the city and also hop off when you want, explore a bit, and then get back on. Rome is big, bustling and busy with modernity mixed in seemingly randomly with culturally iconic antiquiy. We'll go back Sunday and I'll hopefully pay a visit to my friend Alessandro.

Parking solution

Florence was amazing. We got going a little late and missed the 9:33am train, so we just said hey, we'll drive. You can't drive into the city or risk a 100 euro fine, so once there we parked on the outskirts and took a bus in. This type of endeavour (using local transportation) is always an adventure, but somehow it always works out. Using our bad Italian and the locals' bad, but usually better, English, we are usually  able to figure out how and where to pay and where to get off. And so we headed into Florence. We walked around heading for various sights, and the city is so pretty, so alive, and so vibrant. The duomo may be even more spectacular than the one in Orvieto, but here it's just another stunning edifice. We were on our way to the Uffizzi museum and passed a young woman in a piazza  playing classical guitar to a crowd of onlookers. She was playing a rather familiar number by a Tuscan composer-- Puccini or someone like that. She played with such feeling, with such mastery that I was compelled to throw a euro into her guitar case. I then went to take a photo of a sign with her picture and name so I would later know who she was. Our eyes met while she was playing and I instinctively smiled at her. She smiled back with a smile as sweet and as serene as the music she was playing. Quite a nice moment as smiles and eye contact with strangers seem to be quite rare on this continent. We also  passed another guitarist a little later also playing wonderful Tuscan music. So nice to have this soundtrack in the background intermingled with the other exciting sights and sounds of this Renaissance city.

The Uffizzi gallery was great, lots of Italian Renaissance paintings and sculpture. The landscapes and buildings and little hill towns we have been seeing so much of these last few days appeared almost verbatim in paintings done over 500 years ago.

Took the bus back to the car and ate a superb dinner at an obscure little restaurant opposite the car park. Waiters in Italy seem to have a lot of personality and flair, and the young man here was no exception-- he cleaned my grilled sea bass with consumate skill and told us of his own fishing adventures in far off places, explained local wines, and in general was quite genial and informative.

Some pics:

Recently we have also visited Civita Bagnoreggio and Siena, and I'll try to post some pictures of these places tomorrow.

The trip is winding down. We leave here Monday and head back to Venice for a couple of days before leaving for home on November 2nd.

Bolsena

Bolsena is a little ancient town going back to Etruscan times on the shore of the lake which bears its name. The lake is in an old caldera the result of a volcano blowing its top eons ago. It's a quiet, pleasant town with huge poplar trees lining the streets. It's not far from where  we're staying and we visited it Monday.

There's a castle at the top of the town which incorporated parts of the old Etruscan city wall.

That evening we picked up Geri at the train station and heard about her adventures in San Giovanni Rotundo.

Tuesday was also a fairly slow day. While Geri recuperated, we went to an old Etruscan amphitheatre about 15-20kms away and did some exploring. It's  out of the way and is not really promoted as a tourist site, but was very interesting to some extent because of this Since there were no tourists or other distractions, one was really able to get a feel for the place and experience its timeless ambience.

We went to the train station again in the evening to pick up Geri's friend, Ann. She had arrived in Venice that morning and taken the train down to Orvieto. Earlier in the day we finally met the owners of our apt.  as they returned from their travels. They live in the downstairs apt. Giulia is an Italian woman who went to England to study English and there met Malcolm. They're very friendly and nice and full of information about the area. They invited us down to a little get together with another British couple and we talked, drank some wine and ate some cake and tarts. Very pleasant. Malcolm, Kevin and I had great conversations involving our mutual interests in music, especially classic British and American rock-- Pink Floyd, Clapton, Allman Bros, etc.

Tomorrow we go to Rome.

Orvieto

Later in the day we drove to Orvieto in search of matches, money and a church to attend Mass. On the way we ran into this slice of heaven:

Orvieto from afar:

Orvieto is a medieval wonderland. The duomo, or cathedral, is absolutely stunning:

Walked around the town and found out that Mass at the cathedral was at 6:00pm, so we decided to come back later. Ate  a lunch of pasta with wild boor  and saw this extremely tall woman

Then we went back to the apartment for a while, driving the rather maddening Italian roads through glorious countryside

Sunsets from our apt. are beautiful

Orvieto at night

The bank machines were not working for a while, but we were finally able to get some money. Also found a lighter for sale. It is surprising how hard it was to find matches.

Mass in the cathedral was beautiful. Went home to build a fire.



Umbrian morning

We're back in Italy today in our new accomodations. They're huge-- and cold!! Tried to light a fire last night, but we only had one match and my fire-starting skills have gotten rusty since the days we camped out in Maine every summer. But it's beautiful here-- and quiet. There are sounds of distant planes but not much else, except for the cheerful song of a bird which must be singing in a dialect of Italian since I don't recognize the melody. Our view is of a field, some trees and the lake ringed by low hills. On the way here through the fields we saw a herd of snow-white lambs with several babies. So
cute!! Must go back and get a picture. But that was the long way in that a kindly local road worker took us on when we were hopelessly lost in the town of Bagnoreggio. We followed him, he sped in his tiny car through  the ancient, narrow streets of the town, avoiding pedestrians and other cars with aplumb, then turned down one country lane, and then another, and, voila, we were there. We are in the country, a 2km ride down a dirt driveway to the road. But there is a shorter way to the main road than
the one he showed us last evening.

Last night we slept on the ferry from Split, Croatia to Ancona, Italy. After arriving, Geri jumped on a train to go to San Giovanni Rotundo to pay respects to Padre Pio, and we continued on to this tiny town near Orvieto where we will stay for a week. She will rejoin us Monday. We will visit some hill towns and take some day trips to Rome over the next few days. And get some matches.

Istria to Zadar

 Some pics from our coastal journey