We left for
Italy the beginning of May. It’s now mid-June and I’m finally getting around to writing about it.
That sounds about right.
In
Italy, the beginning of May means that the trees have already been in full bloom for a few weeks and the pollen is extremely high.
When we landed, Mike and Katie picked us up from the airport and we headed to post to get temporary ID’s.
As we were leaving the airport, we could see fluffed balls of pollen that looked like snow flakes swarming all around us and sticking to the high grass.
After stopping by post, we went back to Mike and Katie’s apartment to drop off our things and then headed out to the see the town of
Vicenza.
It was here that we were first introduced to gelato.
The best way to describe it is, the perfect middle of the road somewhere in between Italian ice and ice cream.
I know we have it here, but it doesn’t compare to the real thing.
Anyway,
Vicenza is not a tourist town but it does have historical attributes and it was nice to get out and walk around after being on the plane.
We saw the main sights and stopped by their city park to walk around a bit, but the plane ride had worn us out.
We tried to stay up as late as we normally would to help ward off the jet lag and it seemed to have worked.
Our second day Mike had to be on post in the morning, so we slept in and when he came home we headed to the train station and made our way to Venice.
When you arrive in
Venice by train, the station opens out onto the
Grand Canal and the first impression you see looks like a post card.
All the buildings come right to the waters edge with small posts to tie their boats to and you see the water taxis and gondolas rowing by.
We started to make our way to St. Mark’s square and Mike decided to take us “the back way”.
Since
Venice is a city built with the water ways in mind, the streets seem to have taken a back seat.
We wound our way through, what we would consider alley ways that, at points were only wide enough for one person to walk through at a time.
As we made our way through this seeming maze there were jewelry shops, food markets, wine shops and other various tiny shops to purchase daily needs.
I don’t think I would be able to find any one of those shops again, even if I had GPS and a Sherpa.
When we emerged from this labyrinth, we stepped out into
St. Marks square just to the right of the church looking into the square.
As we made our way to the center to take pictures, we noticed a man covered in pigeons.
We were then told that we good purchase a bag of bird seed and the pigeons would land on you and you could feed them.
For some strange, twisted reason this struck Katie as a good idea and then somehow she convinced Patti to go along with it.
As soon as they purchased their bags the birds flocked to them like a Hitchcock movie.
Patti put some seeds into her hand, stretched out her arm, and like a biblical plague she is nearly attacked.
Upon seeing this, the convincer chickens out and hands her bag of seed to Patti who once again is absorbed in a cloud of squawks and feathers.
At least the pictures came out funny.
After that, we walked around to the shops in the square and made our way back to the canal to take a water taxi back to the train station.
It was interesting to see the sights from the perspective of the water way.
Anything that we would have a vehicle for, they would have a boat for.
We saw someone moving into one of the apartments along the canal and they had a small boat filled with their belongings – suitcases, a dresser, even a mattress.
On the way home we stopped at a small restaurant just outside of
Vicenza where they didn’t speak any English.
I’m glad we were able to spend the first week with Mike because we never would have been able to experience half of what we did without him and it was just more fun.
We defiantly wouldn’t have been able to eat at this restaurant.
The food was delicious.
It was light, but still filling and full of flavor.
The menu was all in Italian.
I wasn’t brave enough to try something that we (and by we …I mean Mike) didn’t know what it was.
We did so much walking and I was so hungry that my stomach would never have forgiven me.
I had linguini with ham and a light cream sauce which was quite good, to say the least.
I’ll write about the rest of our trip soon.
After the Fall Festival we took Katie over to West Cornwall to see the covered bridge. The West Cornwall Covered Bridge was built in 1841 and stretches over the Housatonic River. It's absolutely beautiful in the fall, with all of the hills around it and the trees beginning to change. While we were there, we decided to check out this cute little cafe across the road called the Wandering Moose Cafe. If you're ever in West Cornwall, check it out. Thay have excellent milk shakes!
If you'd like to see more pictures from this weekend, stop by our Flickr site. The link is posted on the right hand side of the page.
