Il Viaggio di Marco a Italia

Venice Again

17-24 Agosto 2005
So much for daily (or even weekly posting). Turns out that that if you come to a country for three months, it becomes more like living here than vacationing here. So, I stopped taking pictures for a while. Of course, I do have fresh fruit for breakfast every morning and fresh bread, cheese, and awesome wine with dinner every evening, so it's not quite like home.

I did have a few grand adventures (but no pictures). I went to Florence and saw the Uffizi gallery and the statue of David again. I found a map of local footpaths and hiked up to the summit of Monte San Michele. I watched the Il Palio on TV on August 16th. The Tower district won it - first time in 44 years (if I heard it right). The Il Palio is a bare back horse race in Siena among the 17 neighborhoods there. Each neighborhood has its own flag and colors. Siena turns the central square into a track and has the race twice a year. The entire square (one of the largest in Italy) is filled with screaming Italians waving colorful flags.

On August 17th, I biked up to the Prato Magno mountains (5 hours) and then along the gravel ridge road. The ridge road is all above 5000' in a high meadow. Prato Magno means "main meadow". The views from there was all breath-taking. I'm hoping to go back with my camera before I leave.

My cousin Monica came on August 18th for an 11 day visit.

Moinca on A Bridge In Venice

I picked her up at Florence airport and on the way home, we stopped off in Greve for some wine tasting. We ended up meeting two traveling teachers from Michigan that we tasted wine with. They had come by bus from Florence, so we invited them to dinner at our place and a ride back in the car.

The four of us cooked gnocchi, tortellini and stuffed squash flowers and enjoyed a fine meal on the veranda with some of the wine that we had purchased.

On Saturday, we drove up to Padova (pronounced PA do va) on Saturday morning, picked up Kerri and Neil (my friends from Torino), and headed up to the Dolomites. In Padova, we were stopped when they closed the streets for the start of a huge bicycle race. It looked like some big multiday stage race with a few hundred bikers in it. We watched them all zoom by and then then continued on to the train station.

After getting Neil and Kerri, we zoomed up the Autostrade (I'm a professional Italian driver now!) into the Dolomites and... 2 days of rain. :-(

So, the hiking was a bit of a bust. We did go out for a wet 3 hour walk. The woods were nice, but it was so rainy that we couldn't really see anything. We took pictures anyway.

Then, since the rain wasn't letting up, we bagged staying there and drove down to Venice (and nicer weather) on Sunday evening.

Part II: Venice (again) Well, Venice is certainly one of my favorite cities! I love the lack of cars. And it seems I'm getting to know it pretty well. I no longer need a map to get lost there.

We arrived in Venice on Sunday evening and stayed for two nights. We went to San Marco (of course) to see the Doge's Palace. The Doge were the ruler of the Venetian city state in the 1300-1500s.

The Doge's Palace



The Doge's Palace (Renaissance style)


The Doge's Palace: The front and right wings are Gothic; the left is Renaissance (built 100 years later).


Statue in the Doge's Palace


The Doge's Hall of Justice. Diplomacy with the other powers of the day was carried out here.


Ceiling Fresco in the Doge's Palace

The tour was nice. We learned all about how Casanova was imprisoned there and how he escaped. It was interesting becuase he cut a hole in the roof of his cell and simply walked out the front doors in the morning. Well, we thought it was simple, until we tried to leave the palace ourselves. Seems finding the front door is no easy feat! We wandered around following cryptic, conflicting signs for over half an hour.

Kerri and I did a short waltz in the huge ballroom in the palace until we were yelled at by the guards. Two people complimented us on our dancing and thought we should have been allowed to continue. One was an American from New York named Sara.

Upon leaving the tour, we discovered that the rain had flooded the square.


San Marco is the lowest point in Venice.

We had met two art students in the Dolomites from Venice, so we looked them up once we got there and we all went out to dinner. Along the way, we (re)bumped into Sara - from the Ducal Palace, so she came along as well. All in all, there were ten of us at the table for five. The restaurant was La Zucca (The Pumpkin). The Pumpkin Flan there was heavenly!


Mark, Sara, Nicki, and Joyce

Jason, Sara, Monica, Kerri, and Me

After dinner, we all went to Campo Santa Marguerita to hang out. We ended the evening at a dance club. Some people had to be carried home.

All over Venice are street statues (not really sure what to call them). They stand perfectly still in the blazing sun in way too much clothing wearing masks and, for a small donation, will interact with you.

The last wonderful thing about Venice is all the flowers. Many of the windows are streets and filled with them.

Monday after lunch, Kerri and Neil took the train back to Torino and Monica and I drove back to Figline. Seems I scared her a bit when I fell asleep at the wheel. I didn't understand the big deal. After all, the road from Venice to Bologna is straight for 100 kilometers. Anyway, she drove from Bologna to Florence - the curvy road through the Apennines mountains. We were both quite exhausted, so we stopped at a market and bought ready-to-eat food to have at the villa. Most of the markets have homemade food all prepared that you can buy by the kilo (or etto - a tenth of a kilo). It was quite tasty. I think we were both in bed before 10PM.

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