Venice Day 4

The door to our apartment.

 

Got up early (it seems to have been a theme for this trip!) to catch the Vaparetto to the water taxi that will take us to the airport.  It was an hour ride and we got to Marco Polo Airport in plenty of time for our 11:30 flight, so we did a little more shopping in duty free!


                                       Traveling is wonderful and it is always good to get home!

Hope you enjoyed our blog!

Love,

Helen & Jill

Venice Day 3

           This is our last full day in Venice, so we have no plan.  Are are going to wander and      shop. See that red bag hanging on Helen's left arm??

It has this Murano glass necklace and bracelet Helen is modeling as she is pictured here with the artist!

Jill with the lion. No packages in evidence, but she bought stuff too!

Here we are in St. Marks Square right after we observed a lady holding and feeding pigeons.  A guy that observed our horror, called the pigeons, 'flying rats'!  There's a vision!!!

After a busy day of shopping, nothing like a Bellini at the famous Harry's! It is a fabulous, refreshing drink made of peach purée and Prosecco. We look good!!!  What a trip this has been!

Whoops, the artist got in here again and I don't know how to delete her!

 

We went out for dinner at a restaurant owned by a friend of Aaron & Mette.  We had a great time! On the way home we ran into a good friend of Aaron & Mette, who Helen met at their wedding in Venice 3 years ago.  I wish we would have gotten a photo of Sarah!  Lots of hugs all around and she got to meet Asger!

 Now, home to pack.  We leave early tomorrow.

Venice Day 2

We got up early and Aaron took us to get coffee and pointed us in the direction of a bank.  The coffee here is fabulous!!!

Off to find a bank.  This was probably a more difficult task than it needed to be, but mission finally accomplished.  We walked down to St Marks Square and noticed the line to the cathedral was pretty short so we got in line.  It went very quickly.  This is one of the places Dan Brown takes the reader in Inferno!

                                                         Lots of gold, 24K!

We then caught the Vaparetto (boat) out to Murano.  The first thing we did was watch a glass blower, the second thing we did was to shop!

This is Murano.

Here you can see the Vaparetto stop for the Binnale, a huge art event that was to begin in 2 days.

We took the boat back to #7 and caught #1 back to our place!  We have this down!

Dinner tonight was much closer than Sunday night!  It worked out that we had our own room in the restaurant and it was a good thing because we ate, drank & laughed & laughed.

This dessert below is wonderful.  They hollow out figs, strawberries, walnuts, peaches and fill each with the corresponding gellato flavor. Simply amazing. And notice the 2 bottles of liquid! One was melon flavored and the other was lemon. Consumed in little glasses, it was fabulous!

Asger had perfected holding his index finger out poiting like John Travolta, totally entertaining.

Another good evening!!!

Venice

Sunday,June 2, 2013
We are home now but didn't get to post at all while we were in Venice, so we'll do that now.

We left Ventena Vecchia early and drove the autostrata to Venice.  Made it in 2 hours 45 min easily. Returning the car was a snap(getting gas was not) and we rolled our luggage to the airport to wait for Helen's family.  They arrived, kisses & introductions all around and we were off for the Water Taxi.  Here are Mette, Asger ( little tired but a trooper!), Linda & Aaron.

The water taxi took us right to our flat.  It was perfect! 2 livingrooms, 4 bedrooms a kitchen amd 2 balconies.  Mette, Aaron's wife, who had lived in Venice and graduated from high school there, said our location was very central to all the action and would be easy to find once we began to explore. Here's Kriegh (Helen's brother) and Aaron, his son, out on one of the balconies enjoying a glass of wine that Jill & Helen brought from Tuscany!

If they look to their right, here is the view of the piazza.

                                                        This is the main livingroom.

After we got settled, we walked to dinner.  One of the things Helen's family did for Jill was to introduce her to many foods she had never had.  Like black squid ink pasta, fritto misto and bottles of brunello and spitz. Here's Kriegh with a Spritz!

                                                                          Two pastas!

 

SATURDAY, May 25, 2013
Today is our last day here at Ventena Vecchia. We got up to find natural treasures (Helen for her 13 MW friends and Jill for her garden).  Once that mission was accomplished, we have time to read, relax and Jill took a few pictures of our apartment.

The name of our room is ' Poppies'. We selected it in honor of Jill's love of poppies.

We are excited for the next leg of our 'Girlfriends Gone Wild in Italy' as we move to Venice! Stay tuned!

FRIDAY, May 24
This is simply amazing!  On our first train ride on Sunday, we met Alix, a woman who owns TuscanFitness . She told us about her business and we asked if we could come for a half day experience so we set it up for Friday morning at 8:30. ( She also was invaluable on the first Sunday in that she oriented us to Florence, suggested we take part in the gellato fair that was going on and suggested a place to eat dinner!)
 We met her at the Bodegga in Moncioni on Friday.  We hiked, (lots of hills), did yoga--absolutely fabulous (I am going to insert the video of the beginning of our session) Alix studied in India and it was the best yoga experience either of us had!  Helen is going to India! ;)

After our hike, we did yoga.  It was wonderful.  Here is Alix with the opening.

She prepared us a vegan lunch.  Fritata, salad, warm fresh bread and apple with homemade peanut butter. It was fabulous!

Our final event for this day was wood fired pizza!  We enjoyed Bruschetta, pizza, and (of course) wine!!

What a DAY!!!!!

THURSDAY, May 23, 2013
We got up at 6:15am, got ready and left to catch the 6:56 am train to Florence.  This is the day for the tour of major art works, buildings and 2 galleries.  The first tour begins at 9:15 on the Ponte Vecchio (a REALLY OLD bridge).  Helen is reading Dan Brown's new book Inferno, and is excited to see some of the sites she has been reading about.  The bridge where we are meeting our tour plays a prominent part in the beginning of the book......and we are HERE! 
Jill is pictured with the 'fake' David in the Piazza della Signoria (it seems this Piazza has the most exposed male genetalia than any in Florence--Helen got a calendar of them!) and we saw the original David carved by Michelangelo in the Galleria dell'Accademia (but of course they wouldn't let us take pictures).  He is a FINE specimine! Our tour guide, Anna, was absolutely delightful! We learned alot!

This is the Ponte Vecchio (the one in Inferno)! and where the tour started.

Helen is standing on the Ponte Vecchio with the yellow tour amplifer box hanging around her neck. She is holding her Kindle on which Brown's book was delivered May 14!  What a hoot to be here seeing the sights mentioned in the book!

Between the tours, we did a little shopping in Florence and headed out to find lunch.  We hardly had time to eat our lunch and we had to race back to the Ufizzi, (another gallery) for our second tour. The good news was we had another delightful tour guide.  The bad news was we were both tired.  I wish we would have taken pictures of each other trying to stay AWAKE!!!!  The group was only 14 people and after about an hour people began to leave.  After 5 people gracefully left the tour, we did as well. We felt a little bad for the guide, but she made us feel better when she said,"It is your holiday! Go right ahead!"

We had a bit of a trek back to the train (if we don't lose weight on this trip, it is because of the wine!  ;) Plus we had dinner scheduled at Ventena Vecchio so we needed to be back by 7pm.

Our final gourmet was four courses.  It began with the pasta dish pictured above, then we had lemon chicken & peas, a fabulous salad was next, and it ended with the dessert pictured above.  Biate, Eva and Olaf, our hosts, again prepared a wonderful meal and provided a great place to visit with our new friends!  Jill and Helen had NO problem falling asleep!  Tomorrow is a fitness day!