Basilica and the Doge's palace

So today it was a bit sad.  Rachel and I got up with the sun yet again to take on the fish market yet again, only to find that they are a bit like our hair dressers......they are off Sunday's and Monday's.  So the thing to keep in mind is you don't eat fish on those days.  It won't be flippin out of the bins fresh.  So we made do and made a great pasta with the Italian flag colors that night.  Basil, tomatoes and onion.  Very nice!  Also Rachel made wonderful balamic carmalized onions.  They were the bomb! 
But yet again I am a bit ahead of myself.  After getting home from the "not there market".  We were off to St. Mark's square to take on the Basilica and the Doge's palace.  You need to get there early folks.  This place yet again is off the hook with ton's of tourist, from the cruise ships and every other way they can get there.  But we are on top of it and there early, so early we stand for an hour before we can get in.  I would love to show you pic's but that is a "no, no".  However you would not have known that from anyone else.....everyone diregarded the "no photo's" sign...but us....so if the blog police are out there I am still safe.
The rest of the day was wondering places we had not seen before....trying to stay away from the crowds.  Finding wonderful quite places that were just as unique.  That is one thing I have found by staying a week.  You do want to go where the tourists are because they ARE wonderful.  But you just want to do these things early and get the hell out.  Then you go find the wonderful pieces of heaven that are really around every courner.  It is very true that you can be in the most crowed of places and turn down the very next alley and boom you are away from all the crowds.

Murano and Burano and Ghosts

Today was yet another day of walking.  We walked until we were a foot shorter and only on nubs for feet.  We took the ferry to Murano watched the glass being made by the masters and then over to Burano.  Burano seemed to be the big winner of the day.  Those beautiful lazy houses of every color in the rainbow was hard to leave.  We had a wonderful pairing of wine and dessert at the very same place that Don and I found 2 years earlier on our first trip here.  There was a hugh party of Italians celebrating something and were very fun.  We all wanted to stay but that was not to be....we have to hurry back to our apartment and drop off all our purchases and try to rest for only 1 thin hour and then off we go again to the top of Realto bridge for our ghost tour.  We walked the small alley's of Venice being told the history and the tales of long, long, long ago.  At this point we are so close to dead we don't see how we can make it one other step.  But we have our picture night as we have every night since have been in Italy and enjoy it all over again. 

The next morning Rachel and I are up with the sun again....but today we have fog.  How lovely!  We want to go back to the market for all that we need for another wonderful dinner.  But in our hearts we know that this is Sunday and there won't be a market.  But we go ahead and make the trek just in case.  And as we walk the sleepy streets we see that we were right.  There is very little signs of life on this Sunday morning.  But our walk in not in vain.  The views are spectacular.  And I love that there is almost nobody out.  We walk everywhere, enjoying everything.  Not much at all open, and it is very hard to find a place for our cafe fix.  But we walk until we find someplace open and sit and enjoy the coffee, and Venice.  As for the rest of our day, we have no plans today.  We were so very tired yesterday that the slow pace of a Sunday morning in Venice is rubbing off on us and we are finding that we are just as slow to get going.

Venice

Well we made it!  Not even the strike could stop us.  Just a joke, the strike was only 8 hours the day before.  It seems to be a bit of a tradition to have trasportation strikes.  Although we did see trains durring what they called a strike, it was very limited service and there was no service between the 5 villages of Cinque Terra.  But this was a new day and we were at the train station as they opened to get our tickets to Venice.  We arrive and it is just a beautiful with a small bit of bad luck.  This place is packed!!!!!! Beyond packed.  I can almost see why some might come for just a few days and never come back.  Had I not had that first glorious trip, I am sure I would be one of them.  But I do know how beautiful and quite it can be if your here at the right time.  When we got off the train and saw how packed it was on the vaparetto's we got a water taxi and found our way to the apartment.  It has 2 bedrooms and 2 baths and view of the canal.  The windows are not as big as I would like because I love looking out at all the happenings out on the canal.  I call it Venice TV.  But I found that if I put a chair with a pillow to make me a bit higher I can look out quite nicely.  I wave to the people passing by and they wave back.  It is a great way to spend an evening. 
But Linda has an even better way.  Our second night in Venice, she treated us to box seats to La Traviata at the Venice Oprera.  It was magnifacent.  We got all dolled up and off into the night we went, found this unbelievable teater and our seats.  It was a wonderful night. Linda and Rachel in one box, Don and I on the next box over.....fronts seats in the box.  CAN YOU STAND IT!  We had a lovely couple in our box that was from Japan. They were perfect box mates.  The even took the picture of all 4 of us after the event.  Sooooo all you followers now you can see Don.  I have had many requests to see his handsome face.  Some think he was lost or is not on this trip.  But I can tell you he is....most of the time he is manning the camera.  Even he loved the Opera.  No fuddy duddies on this trip....everyone is having a blast.  Even the crowds can't bring us down. 

Next morning Rachel and I are up with the sun.....off to the Rialto market.  This place is off the hook amazing.  Fruits, veggies, and the fish......all that glorious fish.  Some still flippin and a floppin it is so fresh. The crabs and octopus so big you just can't believe it.  Tonight Rachel and I will cook.  We got hugh shrimp and mussels for a pasta dish that we will make tonight.  Buon appotito!  Stay tuned for the next adventure.

Strike! Strike! Strike!

Today the Italian transportation will be on strike.  So when in Italy just go with the flow.  We are at our favorite place for breakfast, talking with the locals and the travelers.  Also we score again, the market will be in our village today.  So we will be checking that out as well.  Also since there is a strike today and the trains won't be running we will take the time to get ourselves ready for tomorrows travels to Venice.  Yahhhhh!!!  

Beautiful Montorosso

What a beautiful place this is.  We spent the whole day exploring this village to the north of us.  The St. Francis of Assisi  looking out over the sea is unbelievable.  Pictures just can't say it all here.  Although we will try.  The food is wonderful....our lunch at Via Venti was one of the very best to date....But I do think we have said this a few times.  But ya'll all check out the pic's and tell me what you think.

Rain glorious rain!

Today they had glorious rain. Not all day long but most of it. No hiking today, unless you call hiking the trek from our b&b to just about any place in the village. But it cooled off for a bit until the sun came out mid day and then back to rain it went. So this was a bit of a lazy day. But don’t think we didn’t enjoy….oh boy did we enjoy. First of all not seeing rain in about 3 months will make you do the happy dance no matter what. But some of the other guests of our b&B told us of a wonderful place almost on the outskirts of the village. They are a couple of brothers that are from Sicily. They are twins and they are hilarious. We all loved them instantly. They are bakers and everything we tasted was wonderful. Tomorrow we go there for lunch or dinner I think. But this morning I had a wonderful something that had the lightest dusting of dark chocolate you have ever seen and tasted like heaven. Not at all sweet, just heavenly. And then I got a dream fulfilled. Do you remember in the movie “Chocolate” with Johnny Depp that wild hot chocolate concoction that she served to Dame Judy Dench. OOOOOhhhhhh yah baby that is what I had. It was the most wonderful thing ever…..at least till tomorrow. The twins are comic relief as well as great cooks. We loved the place instantly and will be going back every morning until we have to leave. The rain became very heavy and we had to make a run for the room. When we finally got to the room we were completely soaked form head to toe. After a quick change we were on the road again down to the village. We found a great place for lunch….it is at the top of a turret that looks out over the sea. We had a wonderful lunch of cheeses and fish and pasta. Of course the wine was great and our waiter was the cutest Italian. Because of the rain we were the only one’s in the place and that was the best. He sat and chatted with us for a bit an then off he ran to get us a wonderful cake and after lunch drinks that were on the house. We were hoping that Linda would go all cougar on us and take this bit of Italy home with her. Tomorrow they say it will rain again. We were hoping to go to Montoroso tomorrow via the trails. But we were told that these trails are even more difficult than the last trails we did. If that is the case and it’s raining we are not to sure we are up to the task. But as you know, we never know what is next to happen.

Oh and by the way, take a look at the pic of the dilapidated house. Don says this would be a great fixer upper. Hahahahahah

Italian weddings and cemeteries!

Yet another day of complete beauty and challenge. We hiked up to the cemetery in our village of Vernazza. It looks out to the sea at the very top of our village. In America we would build something else….maybe a restaurant or a condo, but they chose a cemetery and it is amazing.

But I am skipping ahead a bit. Before this, earlier in the day, we were graced with an Italian wedding. As we are walking the streets of Vernazza this morning, we see Gulianno the owner of our b&b. We chat with him for a moment and he explains that a wedding will be going on in the church this very morning and soon they will ring all the bell’s of the church to signify that a new couple is wed. Then the couple will come to a near by balcony and throw candy to all the people below. Gulianno tells us that he must go now to get a good place to catch the candy. His daughter Sophia is tugging at him saying “Guli…Guli…andiamo, andiamo” This is her pet name for her father and it sounds a bit like she is saying “Julie…Julie” and she is telling him to “come on, come on” She is ready to find her prime real estate for catching the candy. It is a grand celebration, with these fantastic popper things that as best as I can tell, you pull the string and confetti flies out with a wonderful loud pop. We have a great video and the pic’s that Linda took were voted the best in our nightly viewing party.
So this was a very poignant day. We saw in the beginning of the day the birth of life between two people and at the end of the day the Italian cemetery. It was interesting on the way to the cemetery we went a back way, it was obvious that many of the local’s lived in this part of the village and on one of the alley ways there is this very frail woman sitting in a chair talking with family. My imagination is going wild at this point because I know nothing….but I tell you that I believe this woman has lived her all her life….and as life slows her down she does not use these mammoth stairs quite as much and then soon she stays only on this small alley with her family and friends. And they bring her all that she needs. And then one day she will go to the place that we are walking to this very day, to be with her family and friends.

The last of Lucca and the first of Vernazza!

Next morning we got up early for a fantastic bike ride on the wall of Lucca. This was so much fun. Linda, Rachel and I rode the wall and laughed the entire way. This was a total blast that I could do again and again. I love the fact that the people of Lucca have made the wall of Lucca….something that was used to fend off the enemy, is now used for family and friends for exercise and socializing.
Ok so now we are off to the train station to get to Cinque Terre. We arrive and Rachel’s words are still hanging in the air…..”only a gentle slop with very few steps”. What a big fat liar…hahahah it was 250 huge steps with only a few gentle slops. But as we were to find out soon enough, this was only the beginning. We have walked so much, I just know I will have model legs. We took the train to Motarossa, this is one of the most modern villages of the five. Beautiful beaches and the water the color of jade or emerald’s.
The next day was up with the dawn to make our first hiking run. But run we did not do….OMG….the trail from Vernazza to Conglia was kick butt. Up, up, up we went sweating all the way. By the time we made the village we were stink ball’s. But the view’s were fantastic….(hey look mom a new word)….yes fantastic. Every picture is a postcard. The hike was 2 hours and for most of you mere mortals it would have done you in. But we were on a mission and we continued on after some water, café and muffins to all 3 of our southern villages. Cognila, Montarolla, and Riomaggore. Each village so beautiful when asked later which village was our favorite could not be answered. We had a wonderful lunch in Montarolla. Don and I had a homemade pasta with a whole lobster…..total yum. Linda a scampi pasta and Rachel fried fish. Now for all you at home. Don’t be thinking about your fried catfish, cause now you are way, way, way off the mark. Think of the lightest batter you think of….maybe a tempura, then lighten that by half and you might get a notion. Then the fish was not your catfish. There were sardines and whole baby octopus and calamari. It was fantastic…there is that word again…..

By the time we made it back to our village we got the provisions for the night….wine, bread, salami and fruit for the morning, we were way ready for showers….and trust me, so was every villager we met. After showers we got to what has become a nightly event. Sitting outside and having our wine. Download the day’s pic’s and then a bit of our bring home dinner. Then the show begins. We look at Rachel’s computer of all the pic’s of the day. And none can believe that we did this or saw that or lived through it all.

Best laid plans

Ok so was I right about your best laid plans. Olivia, Fiorenzo’s daughter and Marizzio, Anna and Fioenzo’s friend have to cancel so it is a total score. Rachel and her friend Raluca get to fill the void and come with us for a wonderful dinning experience. Fiorenzo made the most wonderful lasagna as our first course and the second a fantastic….(look mom a new word) fantastic roast beef perfectly pink in the center and cut the thinnest I have ever seen. It was a fantastic evening. Everyone was so grateful for the best meal of the trip.

Bicycles and Raluca

Today in Lucca we talked Don into riding a 4 person bicycle.  What fun....I was in charge of driving....just what I like.  The bicycles all have bell's that you can ring when someone is getting in your way.  Sooooo you know how much I love being "child like".  So I was ringing at everyone.  Very fun.  We laughed the whole way.  Then Raluca, Rachel's friend, met us for lunch and walking through the streets of Lucca.  Raluca is wonderful.  She is Romanian by birth, but now lives and works in Florence.   We all went to lunch at a wonderful place in the amphateater.  Don and I shared a wonderful lasgna bolagnese that was out of this world.  The pasta was so thin and the sauce so light. I will have to try my hand at it when I get home.  Then we went to the Palazzo Pfanner.  Beautiful palace with wonderful gardens.  Now we hurry home to shower and change and off to dinner we go with Linda to Anna's and Fiorenzo's home again for dinner.  Rachel and Raluca will share a meal before she has to head for home.  Florence is a one hour drive from Lucca.  I hope to meet her again someday.  She was a delight and I enjoyed the little time we spent together. It only makes me want to spend more time with her. 

The party has arrived!!!!!

The party has arrived!!!!
Finally our travelers from the west arrive and so does the party. You can’t believe the stamina of these two. After 24 hours of pure travel, very little sleep and pie-eyed looks from both of them. After a quick shower they are fresh as a daisy and ready to take on Italy. I prepared some meats, cheese, olives and bread for the hungry travelers, to try to wash away all the ugly airline food they had to endure while on their travels. We dine via our veranda off the upstairs kitchen. That helped, but of course the wine was the first to come out and as I thought 4 bottles, 2 red and 2 white was not enough for this party crew. So off we go down our 79 steps to the “alimentari” which means small grocery store. More wine and something sweet for Don. Back up the 79 stairs and now it is time to prepare a bit of dinner for the weary travelers. Pasta, a simple salad and bread and of course the wine was the meal of the evening. Rachel made a wonderfully simple dressing with only Italian olive oil, vinegar, and a peach I had bought at market. Just a dash of salt and dinner is served. Wonderful! We talked, and laughed about all our travel adventures we had to traverse in order to get to this spot and got down to the business of living Italian for a while. Which by the way, that is something Don and I come to the very same notion, that as soon as we stepped a toe back into Italy, we didn’t feel any longer that it had been 2 years since we had last been in Italy. It felt like maybe a month or two. But certainly not 2 years. It felt familiar. That was the word we both used. And that is a very good feeling.
Today I want to rent bicycles and ride the wall of Lucca. Only 3 euros and we can see all of the historic wall of Lucca. Don seems to be in a bit of trouble though. Seems he thought that he could concoct some story that the bicycles rented for 50 euros, so that would dissuade me from wanting to bicycle the wall. But Anna came to the rescue, finding out from the shop owner that indeed it was only 3 euros. So after my tail of woe to the girls about my lying husband and the bicycle. They are on my side and we plan to pedal Lucca today.

Also, Rachel’s friend from last trip, Raylucca, is planning a day trip to Lucca. It will be great to meet her finally. Our hope is to get everyone together for dinner somewhere. But the day has yet to tell us what it will be. For all the planning in the world all you can do is enjoy all you can and deal with the rest. I plan to do just that. Ciao per ora. (bye for now)

Wonderful Lucca

We arrive in Lucca check into our bed and breakfast and first things first....call Anna.  Wonderful Italian friend that she is, Fiorenzo prepares a wonderful home cooked meal.  First course a wonderful pasta tortallini, second course a wonderful salad, peppered and olive oiled tomatoes and pork chops.  Wonderful!!!  And for dessert.....3 different kinds of ice cream or gilato.  We had a wonderful evening and even was able to speak to my mom via skype.  Anna and Fioenzo laughed as my mom took the computer around the room to show us our kids...hahahahah.  It was wonderful.
Monday Anna and Fiorenzo took us to Pisa....wonderful sights and and by the pictures you can see we are always having fun.  Ciao per ora....A domani.  (bye for now....till tomorrow)

OMG!!!!!!!!!!

Ok followers this is a story only people of the airline world would believe.  It starts out with a hurricane somewhere to the east.  How could that possible effect our plans to travel to London 2 days from now.  Well as any airline employee can tell you or someone in politics, everything has a ripple effect to everything else in this world. So as hurricane Irene runs it's course hitting ALL of the east coast as it dots along. Everyone there starts to run west....anywhere to get away from her wrath.  And if they are going to Europe then maybe they must rebook their reservations.  And maybe the next best connector to Europe is good ol DFW.  And that my friends is just what happened.  So here I am at work Friday morning take a look at our flights the next day and WHATTTT....our lovely flight is now oversold......aaaaahhhh so is the next day....aaaaahhh so is the next day. OMG!!!!! I look at every place in Europe

....Paris, Frankfurt, even Madrid. We are sunk. But then a ray of hope. I look at this evenings flight and wow. There are seats, not a lot but a ray of hope. But I have to work in the morning. So I kick it into overdrive and start calling everyone I know to get off Saturday. After a couple of hours of hard calling I get the first piece of good luck and get the day off. Call Don, get him on red alert. And the race begins. We had started packing so that was great but still....................... so much to do. All the while looking at our flight seeing what had happened to all those other flights was slowly happening to ours. It filling up! Now it is oversold. But the ray of hope is still there. Weather! As any airline person will tell you, weather can do one of two things. May the possible impossible or make the impossible possible. This story is to long already but after broken seats and delayed departures we didn't get out on the flight I thought we would get out on but we did get out on the very last flight of the night and the most unbelievable part of it all was in the final moments, we actually got business class and even together. Now that is amazing!

So now we are here in London in our unbelievably over priced hotel. Showered and scrubbed and soon to get our over priced dinner, sleep the sleep of the dead in our over priced bed. Tomorrow they say our Britsh Airway's flight looks pretty good. We should get on. Stay tuned for the next adventure to Pisa tomorrow I hope. Ciao per ora..A domani. (bye for now...till tomorrow)

The days ahead

Ok so we are just a couple of days away from Italy 2011.  Here is the break down. 
This time we will be going primarily to Cinque Terra, staying in the village of Vernazza  and then to Venice, one week in each. But of course non revenue travel can kick your butt so we start a couple of days early in order to make sure we can make our reservation, but in doing so we find that we have new wants. Those wants show up as our friends from our last Italy trip in the form of Anna and Fiorenzo. Anna tells me about a month or so a go that they will get married the last week in September. So now we would like to get to Lucca for a couple of days of fun with them. So at this writing we will be traveling on Saturday the 27^th of August from DFW to London's Heathrow and then we will see if British airways can get us to Pisa on Sunday the 28^th or must we stay with the brits for a night and take the 29^th BA flight out.  All of this will soon be known to all and be in our history.....but for now.....nobody knows. As we find out from everything from the internet to friends in "the know"  London's Heathrow is a madhouse, and the fact that we are trying to make an hour and 20 min connection between AA's terminal 3 to BA's terminal 5............"are you crazy....there is no way!"  That is the concensis.....sad really....but such is life.  Soooo what can one do but leave a day early just in case.  Now let's be clear here....our reservations in Vernazza are on Wednesday, we gave ourselves 2 extra days to get there for those reservations.  But as I said the "wants" won over the thought of "you can still make your reservations in Vernazza".  All we could hear was," but we will miss the fun in Lucca".  So it is all BA's fault.  If they had more than one flight out a day, or if they had had the good sense to make it an hour or so later in the day....please really....what were they thinking, we wouldn't be in this mess right now. So because of the insensitive planning on their part we have to leave another day early................HOW RUDE!

And by the way, for any of you that didn't hear the wonderful story of Anna and Fioenzo.  They are a wonderful Italian couple that live in Lucca Italy.  We met on our last trip to Italy.  In my continued quest for all things fun, I decided to learn as much of the Italian language as I could before our trip.  As you all know I have been mangleing our language for years so why not another language, why not Italian.  So on my quest for all things Italian I found a wonderful website called Livemocha.com   This is a wondeful free site for learning any language, and in that learning spree I found Anna.  She helped me with Italian and I with her English, however I must say she helped me much more than I could ever help her with English....she knows it very well.  But they opened their hearts and home to us.  We had dinner out and at their home, they took us on a wonderful trip to Rome and soooo very much, much more.  I can't believe what a wonderful adventure this relationship has been and continues to be.  As a side note, my mom took on the task of making the wedding gift for my wonderful Italian friends.  With very short notice I was hoping that my mom could make them a couch quilt.  Not only did she make a fantastic couch quilt she even stiched an Italian message of good wishes for them on the quilt.  I got it in the mail in record time and just talked with Anna and they were even on time.  They recieved the quilt the very day the US mail said they would.....Go America!  Anna was so thrilled.  She couldn't believe that my mom could do this for them.  But they don't know my mom.  One day I hope they do meet and they will know what everyone knows.

11-days till Italy and we gotta do some planning

So where else better to do some hot and heavy planning for our trip to Italy......Nonna Tata's in Fort Worth Texas.  The best REAL Italian food in North Texas.  This place is the bomb......really reminds you of Italy, and the food.  Donnatella is the chef, owner and gotta love it, she is from Italy.  Teeny tiny place, only cash and bring your own wine and glasses.  Love that too!  That way I get the wine that I love.  And that we did, but this was big planning too as you can see by the second pic.  Donnatella was kind enough to let us put my homemade lemoncello in their freezer til after din din and then "cin cin"!  Since she was so kind to allow that, we gave the kitchen folk a bit of a taste test.  Donnatella was very kind to come to our table and give us a thank you and job well done on the making of this fabo Italian lemon concoction. 
So now we are ready for the adventure.......the count down begins....10....9....8....yahhhhh can't wait!

Lucca 2009

So this was 2009 in Lucca with great food and wine and more wine.  I can hardly wait till we get there, check out that pizza!!!!!!  We just gotta find this place again.  I bet we do and I will get the name of the place this time.

Soon we are off to Italy!

In just a little over two weeks we will be off to the wilds of Italy for fun, wine, food and more wine.....and more wine.  Rachel, Linda, Don and I will hopefully see my friend Anna and Fiorenzo in Lucca before we go to our first stop, Vernazza in beautiful Cinque Terre.  There we will stay with Gulianno in his bed and breakfast for one week.  Rachel stayed there on her last trip and loved it.  Then we will be off via train to Venice for the next week of fun.  Sooooo let the count down begin.  I will give ya a little update on all as we go along.  By the way, Linda just emailed and got us tickets to the Venice opera to see "La Traviata"!!!!!! Can you believe it.....Yaaaahhhh baby....ciao!