Last day in Italy

All good things must end, and so ends our 40 day, 9 city tour through northern Italy and Austria.  There is not doubt that Venice is a place to visit. It is so usual.  The fact that some people thought to build a city in 100+ islands in the middle of a lagoon is strange.

Fruit and fish market at Rialto.  Went for an early morning walk, no t many tourists but the local busy.

 Plenty of seafood, as you would expect from a fishing village.  Fresh fruit and vegetables every morning from all over Europe at the markets.  All ship in by boats.

Monument in front of the cemetery island on the way over to Murano. 

 People will tell you about the glass at Murano, but until you get here you have NO idea of how much.

Canal at Murano

 Murano is a short bus ride (by boat) across a canal to another couple of islands.  The forced the glass makers off the main islands in fear of fire.

The obligatory ride in a gondola, but it is not worth the money.

The gondola ride is very quiet.  To see in the back streets of Venice is an experience,but it is expensive.  $80 for the gondola for 40 mins if you are lucky.

Sunset across the Grand Canal.

Our  Last Supper in Venice..

A very different dinner. Food was good, the tide was in and the canal not so busy.  Gold foil on my desert, got Amy's attention.

Crappy T-Shirts to remember the trip.

 A cheap memory of our time here.  Wait the the rest of the kids get theirs!

Ravenna and Venice

John and Amy did their cooking class in Bologna. They made pasta and learnt how to make different sauces. Amy is rostered on to make dinner at least once a week now. They both had fun and have a certificate and apron to prove they did the class.

 Watch out Masterchef here we come!!!

We moved on from Bologna to a smaller place called Ravenna for a couple of days and then to finish our holiday we are now in Venice. Ravenna is famous for its mosaics. We managed to fit in quite a few mosaics (they are magnificent) while in Ravenna.....unfortunately we had to visit a church or two to be able to check out the mosaics. We enjoyed our time here. Our motel was on the mall so everything was easily accessible.

 Amy in downtown Ravenna and one of the mosaics.....just in time for Easter.

We got to Venice by train on Saturday...our last train trip of our holiday (luckily most were without too many headaches).

Venice sure is an interesting place...no roads, no cars, just canals, bridges and boats...and so many tourists - all with maps open and curious looks on their faces. Maybe Easter has something to do with the number of tourists. We were amazed that everything is open over Easter...even on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Since we've been here we have managed to get lost (no surprise!), visit the Rialto markets, check out San Marco Square (along with quite a few of the other tourists in Venice), travelled on the ferry to Lido (and dipped our toes in the Adriatic Sea), got some culture while visiting the Peggy Guggenheim Art Collection, caught the gondola across the Grand Canal, had some yummy meals and went to Murano and bought a few small pieces of glass - it is everywhere.

 Amy and John in San Marco Square.

 On Ponte Rialto.

A typical Venetian scene.

 Guess who found Amy in Venice....not a Cadbury egg to be seen.

 We met this interesting character on Lido Beach.

 Selfie of the day.

 Amy liked this painting so much at the Art Gallery she bought the T-shirt.

Checking out some of the sculptures.

We will be back in Oz on ANZAC Day and back to school next week......see you all soon!

Bologna and Parma

We moved on from La Spezia to Bologna ..... on the day the regional train crews went on strike. We hung out at the train station for a couple of hours because they said they may go back to work at 11 o'clock. This was not to be so we ended up catching a fast train back to Torina and then from there to Bologna. What should have taken a couple of hours on the regionale train ended up taking nine hours ... what better way to spend a Sunday in Italy.

We are here for four nights. We have wandered around the streets (without getting lost!!) and done a bus tour. Bologna is famous for a  few things .... their food culture (John and Amy are doing a cooking class today.....how to make different types of pasta and three different sauces), the fact that the world's first uni was founded here in 1088 and their two towers.  

Bologna's iconic towers. The smaller one has a lean .... but is not nearly as spectacular as the Pisa tower. 

The girls were quite happy to pose for this pic, but there was no way they were going to walk the 500+ steps to the top....even if the view is spectacular.

Bologna - from one of the local hill tops......terracotta as far as the eye can see.

Parma was our destination yesterday. (the regionale trains are back on track) We took the advice of our trusty Lonely Planet guide and headed to Trattoria del Tribunale for lunch....one of the best yet. We wandered around their antique markets (if only we had more space in our suitcases) and checked out the local church and baptistery, (from the outside only - we're getting a bit over churches. To quote Amy - "Seen one church..you've seen them all")

John and Amy after enjoying their delicious lunch. We even managed to fit in dessert....pannacotta with strawberry coulis, creme caramel and lemon sorbet...Mmmmmm...we shared, of course.

 The church in Parma.

One of the beautiful shop windows. The shopkeepers go to so much trouble to make their shop windows look good for Easter. Would love to be here to see what they do for Christmas.

We are off to Ravenna tomorrow for two nights (apparently the city has eight World Heritage Sights and it is very close to the Adriatic Sea), then Venice for four nights and then home. 

Time really does fly when you are having fun. Though it will be great to see everyone again none of us are sure about having to go back to school.
                        Work v Holidays.....Holidays win every time.

Pisa and Lucca

We had a long day out and about in Tuscany today. First stop Pisa. Saturday in Pisa is market day. We came across loads of markets......many antiques, fruit and veg, local artists and junk! We bought a few little bits and pieces before heading off to find the tower.

Here's Amy trying to steal an Arctic Monkeys poster on the way to the Tower. Not a success.

The Cathedral with the Tower in the background. So much marble. On the train trip to Pisa you could see the mountains where they had quarried marble and there were big blocks of it stockpiled along the way.

John and Amy in front of the Tower. We didn't take a pic of us trying to push/hold up the Tower. We just took photos of people taking photos of people doing it.

Next stop....Lucca, the walled city. We hired a 4-person bike, got a flat tyre, managed to get caught up in a demonstration, helped celebrate Volunteers Day (with everyone else in Lucca - it was quite a party atmosphere) and missed our train home. All in all, a long..... but good day!

 Amy getting excited cos we were about to hire our bike. The one with the yellow roof. Look out Anna Meares here comes Amy O'Farrell.

 ...and we were off and racing around Lucca's wall. Pity about the "flat"....we were going so well.

Going through the tunnel into the old part of Lucca. It is like a maze. Amazing!

We are off to Bologna tomorrow. "Spag Bog" will be on order for sure. Oops..maybe we should ask for "tagliatelle al ragu" instead.

La Spezia and Cinque Terra

We moved on from Turino and headed to La Spezia. Our motel is just across from the train station. It made our job of dragging our "getting heavier every day" bags rather easy. It is a lovely place...the staff are friendly....the furnishings are very 1930s and grand.....and Amy has voted the brekky the best yet!! Not a fan of twin beds though.
We wandered around downtown Le Spezia on Wednesday afternoon. It has the biggest naval base in Italy, and some other luxury boats in the harbour. It was very relaxing and great to see lots of people out and about just going for a stroll and having a chat with their friends.

                                                         Hotel Firenze.....twin beds (ugh!)

 Amy (loves Milano .....or so the t-shirt says) and John at the fountain in Piazza Garibaldi (downtown La Spezia). It is very lovely except for all the rubbish tucked under the rim.

 

Here we are wandering along the boardwalk near the harbour. We had a chat with some old fellas who couldn't talk any English (and our Italian is poor). They got that we were 'Autraliano' cos we heard them telling someone else about us later on. We all laughed and got on famously.

Thursday and Friday saw us 'trekking' Cinque Terra. We caught the train to Riomaggore. We checked out some of the local sights, got lost (as is usual) and then decided to walk over to the next little town, Manarola. Good plan, except the blue trail along the coastline is closed (there have been quite a few landslides on the trail) so overland it was. It was only about 500m but we all had our tongues hanging out and doing lots of puffing and panting by the time we got to our destination. There were many steps and it was straight up..or so it seemed.  It took us about an hour and a bit to go what takes about two minutes in the train through the tunnels.

Riomaggiore

                                                        The start of our trekking adventure.

                                        The middle ... with tongues hanging out....but what a view.

The descent .... and more steps! 

Manarola .... our destination. Phew!! It was HARD work.

More steps..in Corniglia this time.....heading to the train station and home for the day.

On Friday we just did our trekking around the towns and then caught the train to the next town.We did Monterosso and Vernazza today.  Here are some of our favourite pics.

                                 Monterossa has the only beach for bathing. No surfing though.

                                                                           Monterossa

"Selfie" of the day

We are off to Pisa and Lucca on Saturday. Bet you can guess what at least one of the pics will be next time we blog.

Our last few days in Turino

We have spent our last few days in the Turino district and head off tomorrow to La Spezia to walk along the Cinque Terra coastline.

We caught the train to Alba this morning. It definitely wasn't one of the fast trains but we got there eventually. As it is not tourist season there were no tours operating (it is famous for truffles and wine) so we just wandered around, had a great lunch and did some window shopping. Everything closed down until about three o'clock so window shopping it was - good way to save money. Eventually John did find a truffle shop open so he did a little bit of shopping and bought some of the local wine and a truffle. We found a great bakery and bought some biscuits for tonight's dessert. Yum!

Next time you are in Alba, Italy we would recommend this place. Great place for lunch.

When we got back into Torina we eventually found our way into Mole Antonelliana (cinema museum). They had a special exhibition about Academy Award winning actresses. It was worth the wait...4th time lucky. John and Amy caught the glass lift to the top of the building and think it was probably something they should have done on Day 1 as the view was terrific and it would have been a great way to get their bearings early on in our stay. Didn't take the camera with them though...oops!!

 Here's Amy having a bit of fun in the museum.

John took this pic just down the way from where we are staying.

Goodbye, Turino.