Lake Como - Part 2

We walked down to the lake and decided to pay for a boat ride around part of the lake. Duane was busy taking pictures outside on the boat, but Heidi and I were too cold so we opted to stay inside where it was much warmer. We really enjoyed this beautiful ride.

Eating out all the time was expensive so when we could find a grocery store we bought food and took it back to our room. You can see me pushing their very different shopping carts. When you walk in you get just a handle with wheels and then you go pick up a basket and it hooks onto the front of the cart. We thought as we were looking around that it was pretty funny finding a loaf of bread that said American sandwich bread. We had to get a picture. There were many items we didn't even know what they were. While we were shopping we had a funny thing happen. We all went into separate aisles looking around. After a while I went looking for Heidi. An Italian man approached her and started talking to her. He asked if she had bambinos and then pointed to his ring finger asking if she was married. She told him no. He then wanted her to go with him to have a drink. She told him she didn't drink. He asked her what her name was and she told him Heidi. Then she asked him his name. He told her his name was Lucifer. We laughed afterwards about it. She said, "Wouldn't you know I have to go to Italy to find the Devil!" Oh well, it was worth a good laugh.

Some beautiful shots of the lake.

Another picture, which shows you how cloudy and gloomy it was. That's OK. We had a great time there. This is the end of my blog posts about Italy. As you can see, we saw so many wonderful things. It was a fantastic week!

Lake Coma - Part 1

Well this was our last day in Italy, except when we came back to Milan to fly home. We left Venice and rode the train to Milan and switched trains and then went on to Lake Como. Lake Como is in northern Italy by the Italian Alps. It is a beautiful place for sure. As you can see Heidi and I are on the train ready to leave. Duane went outside the train and took our picture. The picture on the right is just to show you how beautiful and green the countryside is. The whole country looked like this. It has the deepest green I've ever seen. All this grass just grows voluntarily and no one has to watch it or take care of it. It just grows on its own. I asked someone about it and they told me that this is grass now, and then when summer comes, farmers will plant crops in place of the green grass and everything will be yellow instead of green. I'm glad we got to see it all green. What I wouldn't give to live in a beautiful green place like this. I just want one yard of green grass like this. Is that too much to ask?

We stayed at Hotel Larius which was about 3 miles from the train station. We kind of had a hard time finding it but we finally got on a city bus and asked the driver where it was but he didn't speak English. Another man overheard me talking, or should I say trying to talk to the bus driver. He told us when to get off the bus and then said he'd walk us to the hotel. He took us down allys and narrow streets and Duane said he was a little nervous that the man might lead us somewhere and maybe we would be robbed or something but oblivious me, I was just thinking wow, this is a long way and isn't he a nice man. Well believe it or not, we finally found the hotel and Duane tried to pay the man for helping us but he wouldn't take any money. He was just a nice guy afterall. Lucky for us. This hotel had two dogs which greeted us and the blonde lab made friends with Heidi very quickly. She loved this dog. The hotel also had a restaurant in it and we were given breakfast with our room fee. We ate and then took off for the day.

This was the only day during our whole trip that was rainy and cold. We walked down to the lake in the rain. We were very cold but it was so beautiful.

Lake Como is a very big lake. I counted and there are 34 villages surrounding this lake. We were pretty short on time so we didn't get to see that much here but what we did see was absolutely beautiful.

Venice - Part 7

This is the view of the edge around Venice. Venice is built in the shape of a fish. More open water is all around it.

We took a ride on this boat to go around the outside of Venice. The top left is a picture of our boat. The top right is another Italian man with his eye on Heidi. I can tell you that Italian men are very forward. This man never cracked a smile but he rarely took his eyes off Heidi the whole time. The bottom pictures are just pictures looking back to Venice.

More random shots of Venice. All the gondoliers wore either red and white stripped shirts or black and white stripes. It would have been fun to ride but they are very expensive, therefore we stuck to the public transportation boats.

More beautiful shots of Venice in the evening. Good night Venice. We loved visiting you. You are a beautiful, unique, and romantic city.

Venice - Part 6

As we walked around Venice, we wondered where the children play. I know I wouldn't feel comfortable allowing my children to play outside unsupervised. There are canals everywhere. The only time we saw children was when they were with their parents. We were taking a boat ride and I met the two little girls on the top left picture. They didn't speak English but their mother did a little. One was 6 and in 1st grade and the other was 8 and in 3rd grade. They wanted to talk to me so badly. I tried hard to communicate with them. They kept looking to their mother to try and interpret for them. I tried to tell them that I taught 3rd grade. We had lots of smiles and a warm friendly conversation even if we didn't speak the same language. They were so cute. The girl and boy in the top right were playing on their scooters in a square. Children, no matter where they live still are the same. They were adorable. We took several movies of them playing. As we were shopping, we noticed the little boy in the bottom two pictures. He had his eye on some toy in the window. He was oblivious to the rest of the world.

Some more pictures of the Grand Canal. The top left picture shows the boat where I met the little girls on. The bottom left picture is a picture of our hotel. It is the building to the right of the dome. It was so nice.

Now here's a funny story. We were walking along and a gondolier saw Heidi. He immediately wanted to talk to her. He was 6'9" tall. He started talking to her and another woman came up to him to ask a question. He turned around and said, "You get a beautiful woman and you want to talk to her and another person comes up and asks you for information." He then turned around and yelled at the woman and told her to go away. The other lady just laughed and walked off. Then he turns around to talk to Heidi some more. He asks her where she's from. She says the United States. He said, "Oh, I want to take my gondola to Austin, Texas and start a business there. You give me your phone number and I stay with you." (NOT) We all laughed and took their picture and started to walk away. He yelled, "Give me your email and I stay with you." Sure Tex, I don't think so!!!!!!!!!

The public boat you see in the picture is how most people travel in Venice. They have 3 different boat systems. They have the slow boat which stops at almost every stop along the canal. You pay a fee for the day or however many days you want to have tickets for and you can hop on and off wherever you want. Then they have a faster boat, which are the same boats but they don't stop as often and then they have boats for residents which are a lot less crowded. There are many tourists there.

Venice - Part 5

We are continuing on seeing the results of this beautiful glass blowing. Part of the show room we were allowed to take pictures, but their most beautiful pieces were in a different area and we were not allowed to take pictures of that area. I'm not sure why unless they don't want anyone to steal their ideas.

The glass is very beautiful but very expensive. We had kind of planned to buy something from there but the cheapest pieces in the room where we were not allowed to take pictures was $2,000 to $3,000 even for the smallest pieces. Wow, a little out of my price range.

A beautiful day and a beautiful ride back to Venice.

One of the traditions in Venice is 40 days before Easter, they have Carnival. Everyone in the city wears these kinds of masks and parades throughout the city. Some of them are just beautiful. Heidi couldn't resist and bought one. She had to hand carry it for the rest of the trip but it was worth it to her. Shopping there was very fun but we didn't buy much, except gelato, of course.

Venice - Part 4

Before I forget to say, if you want to look at these pictures in a bigger view just double click on the picture and you'll be able to see them better. There was so much to see in Venice, that we took 3 to 4 times as many pictures as anywhere else in Italy. The top left picture was a large tower we went up in, to get a bird's eye view of the city. In Venice there are not a lot of open spaces but one larger open area is a place called St. Marco's Square. The rest of the pictures above are pictures of that area. It is an open area where many people gather to socialize and shop. There is also a large cathedral there.

Here are a couple of pictures of the view from above and a couple from the ground. It was a very bright, sun shiny day.

Just a short ways away is an island called Murano Island. They are famous for making beautiful glass. We took a boat ride over to the island for a tour. Our tour guide, bottom right, told us that the men who are the glass blowers are sons from generations back. Their fathers and grandfathers all worked as glass blowers and pass this trade down to the next generation. They work blowing glass their whole lives. They are extremely talented and make absolutely exquisite glass pieces of all kinds. It is extremely expensive but oh so beautiful.

These men really have a gift. The picture on the top left is a man that took a hot piece of glass and in about a minute, took some tongs and pulled the glass into a beautiful glass horse. I couldn't believe how easy he made it look and he did it so fast. What an art!

Venice - Part 3

For our memories as well as sharing with you, I wanted to show you the inside of our hotel and the room. The lobby was nice and what you can't see is a small area on the other side with tables and a kitchen in the back where we had breakfast in the morning. The name of our hotel was Hotel Antiche Figure.

Our room had velvety fabric covered wall, a fancy glass chandelier which you can't see and a cool view of the narrow street.

The bathroom also had chandeliers and marble. Most of our hotels had a towel warmer and every hotel in Italy had a bidet.

The lady in white is Natasha. She was our favorite lady that worked the front desk. She was so helpful and so friendly. She came several times to our room to bring us a heater or blankets, or to tell us how to work things. She gave us lots of directions and suggestions plus information about Venice. She was great!

Venice - Part 2

Here is an example of one of the many bridges that cross the Grand Canal. Notice that they are wide enough that they actually have shops on the bridge. They have individual stores.

As we walked and rode around in boats, we just couldn't get over how unique this city was. It was very cool.

It seems that the building could be a combination of private homes or apartments in the same building as commercial stores and businesses.

The gondolas were fun to see. Instead of parking spots for cars, they have the piers sticking out of the water to make parking spots for gondolas and boats.

Venice - Part 1

Venice was our favorite city in Italy. The top left picture shows us crossing the causeway on the train to get to Venezia, the Italian way to say Venice. The top right picture shows the train station. As we came out of the station we looked to the left and saw the first bridge to cross. We walked across the bridge over the Grand Canal and the bottom right picture shows what was on the other side of the bridge. Our hotel was the second building on the right of the dome. Our travel agent did a fantastic job picking out this hotel. We literally walked out of the station, crossed the bridge and walked about 4 or 5 building down and we were there. Our room was beautiful and the people at the desk were so friendly and helpful. They were great. Venice is very old but it has such charm. I've heard people hate Venice or they love it and not much inbetween. We LOVED it!!!!!!!!

We went up in a big tower that overlooked the city and from above, it looks just like any other city that is built on land, but this whole city it built on the water. From this view you can't tell that there are canals everywhere but believe me, there are.

Heidi is giving you a great idea how close the buildings are together. She is not sitting on the ground. She's in the air, feet on one side and her back on the other. The Grand Canal is wider, but there are many narrow streets of water, which I guess I should call canals.

Here is just one example of the many canals. There are over 450 bridges in the small city. The amazing thing is how the water comes right up to the walls of the buildings.

Florence - Part 2

We went to see "The David" by Leonardo de Vinci (top right) in a museum where the original is kept. In florence they actually have 3 other Davids which are almost as big as the original. It is simply the most beautiful statue. It is amazing how you can see every muscle, and even veins. What a beautiful statue. As you can see in the bottom right that there are a lot of motorcycles in Europe. I never saw any large cars. If they have a car it is small. We figured it out and found out that gas there is about $7.00 a gallon, (and we think we have it bad!)

The bottom middle pictures is me with a live statue. They have so many statues in Florence that when you walk up to this guy you think he's a statue and then he sticks his tongue out at you and you realize he's a real person dressed to look like a still statue.

The streets in Florence are very narrow and the buildings are tall. When you are walking down the street you can't tell if there is a huge cathedral around the corner. We did get lost a few times.

The stained glass windows in so many places were beautiful. The gold doors in the background of the middle picture has a name which I can't remember, but they are famous. Heidi said she studied all about them in a class at BYU. Each picture tells a Bible story.