Thursday, July 9, 2009








Photo's - 1)Steve keeping us on the right street, 2)Hannah & Jacqui at the Roman Baths 3)on the gondola, 4) yummy things from the patisserie 4) us all on the Grand Canal

Vicenza

We have a lovely little apartment in Vicenza, right on a bike path so we can watch all the locals ride by & say buon giorno to them. Just a few hundred metres from the apartment there is a really nice patiserrie, spagetteria, pizzeria and amazing little grocer (who will make up delicious bread rolls if you buy all the ingredients) – so you can imagine what the theme of our time is in Vicenza – FOOD.

On Monday we went to a local pool, that happens to also be ancient roman baths – so we swam in a 2000 year old pool (it was nice and clean). We were singing the praises of the GPS, as we would never have found this place with only a map. All the signs at the pool with the rules were in Italian, so we had this feeling that we were inevitably breaking the rules, and it turned out we were right. The lifeguard yelled at us when we were getting in the water because Nikki, Hannah & Jacqui were wearing boardshorts, and that wasn’t allowed (perhaps it was a crime against fashion). Steve was ok to wear them, but the rest of us had to remove our boardies. We enjoyed swimming for about another half an hour before she started yelling at us again, and it turned out we weren’t wearing swimming caps – we figured this was a good time for us to head back to the apartment anyway. We know the lifeguard was only doing her job, but she was the first person we have come across in Italy who wasn’t warm and welcoming, even if we weren’t doing the right thing. Steve had to make a phone call on Monday morning (Nikki had left a stack of medication in the fridge in the hotel in Milan) and enquired about a pay phone, only to have one of the locals take him back to his office & let him use the phone there (it turns out the town isn’t very big and he was a friend of our landlord).

On Sunday when we were checking out of our hotel in Milan, we noticed that there were riots on the TV at Vicenza. There were violent clashes between police and people protesting against the expansion of a local US base and also people protesting against the G8 summit, which will be in Italy this week. We were thankful when we got to Vicenza to see that the protests were actually no where near where we were staying, and had moved on elsewhere.


Venice



We are staying about 40 mins from Venice, and decided to do a day trip there. It was a lot of fun, although a bit of an adventure because the GPS didn’t recognize a road that was a few months old and we ended up doing a 40km detour to get there. We caught a few vaporetto’s (water buses) around Venice and neighbouring Islands, ate gelato, wandered the square of St Marco, and got lost in the little laneways and canals (actually we tried very hard to get lost, but Steve knew where we were on the map the whole time). Hannah & Jacqui bought masks to match their formal dresses (which we decided to ship home rather than risk them getting damaged on our long trip), and even got to meet one of the little old ladies who made Hannah’s mask. We succumbed to the romance of Venice and took a gondola ride with a gondolier called Mario – he was very kind, but didn’t sing – apparently there are two types of gondoliers, lovers and singers, and he wasn’t a singer! We finished up on the island of Murano, where we all bought a few little pieces of famous Murano glass to bring home – they will be accompanying us on our trip as it is too expensive to ship them home (paper mache masks are much lighter).



We stumbled across a type of health food shop in Venice, and thought it was worth asking about the medication Nikki had lost in Milan (it is industrial strength acidopholis to counteract some of the nasty side effects of the chemo level of antibiotics that she is taking for the Lyme Disease). We were so excited when we were able to buy some & the lady working in the shop seemed excited for us .We are sure she went home saying “tourists get excited about the strangest souveniers”.



It seems the G8 is a hot topic here in Italy, as we came across about 50 police in riot gear, just milling around near the Piazza San Marco. We had seen a group of Chinese people walking around the piazza surrounded by police and the media, but hadn’t understood what was going on, until one of the Policemen told us that it was the Chinese G8 delegation. When we were in Germany last year Barack Obama gave his famous speech in Berlin (we were in Mainz, but watched it live on the TV). It now turns out that Barack Obama will be in Italy (at the G8 conference) whilst we are in Italy this year – he seems to be following us!

We loved Venice so much we are thinking of going back again, as Nikki wants to do some sketching and Steve & the girls have lots more things they want to see, but couldn’t because Nikki was too tired on Tuesday.

We hope that you are all well, and enjoy reading your emails and blog comments. Our internet access this week is sitting in the garden of our landlord, so it is a bit hit and miss depending on whether he is home, how the signal strength is from his 3rd floor apartment and how long we feel we can stay before we overstay our welcome – also we have 1 laptop, and 4 people used to checking their emails, blogs and facebook.

Ciao

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello All...

Glad you are having a great time and that the LONG flight(s) weren't too bad...

Pictures are great, food Looks WONDERFUL, and the smiles on your faces say it all...

Miss you heaps already, keep enjoying yoursleves...

Sharon and Owen (and Boo too)

Veugens said...

Sounds like you are having a fantastic time - as can be expected. Very envious of you in Venice, and swimming in a Roman bath. One day it will be our turn ...
Great to see your pics too!
love from Rob, Anton & Jamie

Denise said...

Wonderful to read all your news and see the photos! I have a good friend who lives in Venice (she's American, partner is Italian) ... she loves it, and it sounds like the feeling is mutual for you too!