Friday, July 31, 2015

The Hills are Alive and Look Beautiful!

The back of the Von Trapp's"house"
The wedding church

THE GAZEBO!
Interior of the wedding church


Salzburg: Special "The Hills are alive" edition

Salzburg, July 31, 2015

After Jocey was safely off the ground, happily headed back to family and friends in Hartland, we went to check into our flight to Zurich, Switzerland by way of Dusseldorf, Germany.  Don't ask.  As we were checking in there was a major power outage throughout the airport. Computer terminals still functioned, but conveyor belts did not, so none of the luggage could be moved.  Everything came to a stand still.  It was hot, and tempers were on edge.  We were flying a German airline which meant that a few of the German passengers were convinced that the whole thing was an Italian conspiracy.  Bottom line is that we ended up in Zurich about 30 minutes later then planned but the good news was our luggage arrived with us.  We collected our rental car and headed for Salzburg.  Before the trip Tim had done a calculation on mapquest and determined it would take about 4 hours to drive from Zurich to Salzburg.  It took closer to 5 and a half. It was probably a breathtaking drive, but as most of it was done after dark we will never know.  The fun started when we arrived in Salzburg as our rental car did not have GPS.  Have you ever looked at a German map? Ever tried pronouncing German street names. It's like talking with your mouth full of Weiner Schnitzel! At 1:00 in the morning we are stopping people on the street for help in finding our hotel.  We are lucky we weren't arrested.  Like much of our travel, we just kept blundering along and finally found the hotel. The hotel and area around it certainly looked better in the daylight then at 1:30 in the morning.

Today's major event, and why we are blogging tonight, was "The Sound of Music" Tour. Tim  picked this one out.  Lynda was happy to go along because, 1. she does like "The Sound of Music" and 2. the brouchure promised a bus ride into the Austrian country side.  She did say she refused to do any of the "sing-a-longs" on the bus.  What a party pooper.  Actually, she did get into the spirit of things, eventually, and joined in enthusiastically on "Do, Re, Me". The tour visited several of the sights where filming for the movie took place. This may shock you, but none of the filming was done in the home where the Von Trapp's lived or the church where the Captain and Maria were married. The Abbey in the movie is actually the Abbey that Maria was in, but, of course, we did not go there.  Two different castles were used to represent the Von Trapp estate, one for front exterior views and one for back exterior views. Robert Wise, the movie's producer, actually wanted to use the original house but at the time of filming the house was owned by a religious sect and they were not happy to have the film crew there, hence, plan B: two houses.  Our first stop was the rear exterior house.  It is a private residence now, owned by Harvard University believe it or not, so we had stand on the other side of the small lake you may remember from the movie to view the house. But still.  Maria and the kids fell out of the boat into the lake there.  Leisl and Friedrick kissed in the gazebo there. An aside: in 1991, the owners of the home donated the gazebo to the city of Salzburg and it was moved to a public park.  Our second stop was the public park to view the gazebo.  We did gather round our guide and sing the first line of "You are 16 going on 17".  At least, most of us did. More inside movie stuff. The gazebo we saw was used only for exterior shots.  It was too small for the choreography of the song. Leisl actually injured her ankle during rehearsal. So an exact replica, one and a half times larger, was built on the sound stage in Hollywood for the gazebo scenes.  Next, we did a drive by of the front exterior house.  It is also a private residence and there was no where for us to park a bus and walk up to get a picture.  It looks a rather bit less imposing in person then on the silver screen.  Our last stop was the church where the Captain and Maria's wedding took place.  It is in this lovely village about 45 minutes outside of Salzburg.  Along the way there was a stop for pictures of some drop dead beautiful scenery.  Once again, it was exciting to immediately recognize the outside of the church as well as the inside once we entered.  It really is a beautiful church. Lynda was so caught up in the moment that she walked down the entire length of the main aisle, holding her book like a bouquet of flowers. We were given extra time in Mondsee, the name of the village, to visit a local souvenier shop for "Sound of Music" cd's and dvd's, plus copies of the books that the real Maria Von Trapp wrote. Ugh!  We did take time to sample a famous Austrian apple strudel. On the way back to Salzburg we watched an interesting video of behind the scenes stuff about the movie with the women who played Leisl as the narrator. This video was unfortunately interupted for a couple of more sing-a-longs. Once back in Salzburg, our guide gave us a quick bonus tour. Next to our drop off point were located the Mirabel Gardens, supposedly world famous gardens, but maybe not so much as Lynda had never heard of  them.  At any rate, these gardens were used for part of the famous "Do, Re, Me" scene in the movie. We saw the fountain where the children walked around on the edge and the steps featured at the very end of the song.

We hope this quick, bonus edition of the blog hasn't bored you. Tim, in particular, found the tour to be exciting and great fun and was anxious to share it with you.  Tomorrow we will get back to more mundane travel news about Salzburg and include a review of our dinner/concert tomorrow evening featuring Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  Maybe the "Sound of Music" Tour looks better now.

Guten Tag

Thursday, July 30, 2015

The Last Days of Rome

St. Peter's Square - The Vatican

St. Peter's Basilica

The Pantheon

Piazza Navona

Jocey at Trevi Fountain

Jocey in Trastevere, Rome

Arreviderci Jocey and Italy, Guten Tag Austria

Rome, Italy    July 27, 2015

Monday morning we had an uneventful drive from Montepulciano to Rome through the beautiful Italian countryside. Our rental car has GPS which is a godsend because it directed us very efficiently and quickly to our rental car drop off point.  GPS would have saved Tim much stress over the years but he would not have some of the wonderful stories to tell of his driving adventures  in Europe.  We took a taxi to our apartment which is located in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome.  The neighborhood is a warren of small little winding streets.  For a long time it was a working class neighborhood but in recent years has become the location of many restaurants, bars and lower end of the market shops.  Our apartment is tiny, our least favorite of the four we have rented.  After a brief meeting with our landlord we went out exploring.  Tim was still not feeling well so he sat and sipped a Sprite while Lynda and Jocey shared a pizza.

We really did not do justice to Rome.  There are two reasons. 1. The intense heat has finally got the best of all three of us. 2. Tim has had a bug since Sunday.  Tuesday we walked to the Vatican and joined the line to enter St. Peter's.  It was a humungous line but moved suprisingly quickly.  By now, Jocey was suffering from a migrane so we were a pretty miserable lot.  Even so, we were in awe of the beauty that is St. Peters'.  We marveled at Michealangelo's "Pieta".  Pope John Paul II's tomb is located in the main bascillica. We also went down into the crypt where all of the rest of the popes tombs are located. Most impressive was a view of the location of the the remains of St. Peter.  Upon leaving St. Peter's the plan was to visit the Sistine Chapel. We were all whipped so we went back to the apartment where we all took naps.  Later in the day, we walked across the river to the Pantheon, what we think is a very underappreciated landmark in Rome.  The Pantheon is an impressive domed structure that is actually a church. It is also the resting place of the remains of Victor Emmanuel, considered the father of Rome.  Jocey, feeling better after her nap, was very impressed with the Pantheon. It was a short walk from the Pantheon to the Piazza Navona, probably our favorite spot in Rome. On our first trip to Rome, in 1984, we stayed in a hostel run by Dutch Nuns for non-catholic visitors that was located just off of the Piazza Navona.  The Piazza is a huge open plaza surrounded on all sides by wonderful  restaurants and numerous souvenier shops.  At night it comes to life with the central part of the plaza covered with artists either trying to sell there art or offering to do sketches of the tourists.  In 1984 we had sketches of both Jil and Jeff done that still hang next to their senior pictures at home. Five years ago we surprised Jil and Rob with a sketch of Madison and on this evening we had a sketch done of Jocey.  Besides the artists, there are also entertainers on the Piazza.  It really is a wonderful place to visit on a night in Rome.  We completed the evening by having dinner at a trattoria across the alley from the entrance to the hostel that we stayed in all those years ago.

Wednesday morning we started the day at Trevi Fountain.  It is said that if you stand with your back to the fountain and throw three coins over your right shoulder into the fountain you will return to Rome.  Who are we to argue. It worked for us.  Unfortunately, to do this, the fountain has to be open. It is currently closed for repair and refurbishing.  There is plexiglass surrounding the fountain so you can still see what it looks like.  Jocey said it would be impressive when operational.  We were amazed at the number of tourist there to see a closed fountain, but, of course, we were there. After lunch, Jocey and Lynda visited the Cappuccin Cyrpt. This crypt is the repository of the bones of all the Cappuccin Monks since the 1500's. In one room all of the thigh bones are arranged in an artful design, the next room will have all the femurs, etc.  The Cappuccin's must be some fun group of Monks. From there we took a taxi to the Colosseum with the plan to see how long the line was to get in.  Once we pulled up to the Colosseum Jocey announced that she had seen enough so it was back to the apartment where the adults again took long naps.  Wednesday evening was spent strolling about Trastevere and enjoying one final dinner together in Italy.

As we write this blog on Thursday morning we are at the Rome airport, having entrusted Jocey to Delta Airlines to safely return her to her parents.  We will catch a plane to Zurich, Switzerland, collect a rental car, and drive to Salzburg tonight.

Jocelyn has been a wonderful travel companion. She was always willing to explore with us and was even comfortable enough to go out on her own for very short excursions.  We saw very few sites that were new to us, but loved watching Jocey experience them for the first time. We are also looking forward to hearing what she told her parents about her travel experiences with her grandparents.

Our next report will come to you from Salzburg.  In the meantime, we recommend that you watch the movie, "The Sound of Music" so that you are in the proper frame of mind for our next blog.

Ciao/Guten Tag

Monday, July 27, 2015

Views of Montepulchiano

Montepulchiano at Night

View from our Montepulchiano apartment

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Lost Day in Montepulciano

Montepulciano   July 26, 2015

Saturday morning we left Florence driving through the lovely countyside that is Tuscany. Jocey was doing yeomans work at reading and watching the scenery at the same time.  She multi-tasks just like her grandmother. We stopped in one of our favorite Tuscan towns, Greve in Chianti. Unfortunately, it was market day so  we could not enjoy the beauty of the town square.  One of the reasons we love Greve is the butcher shop that has been in business since some time in the 1700's. There are legs of ham hanging from the ceiling everywhere in the building.  Jocey was less then impressed with the cheese cellar.  We bought some of their homemade salami's to give Mienrad Fleurer, our friend in Switzerland. We continued our trek through Tuscany through intermitent showers.  Our next stop was Badia a Coltibuono. We believe that Badia is home to an order of Friars. They produce their own excellent wine and olive oil as well as run an excellent restaurant that we have dined at on several occasions.  Our destination was Montepulciano, a lovely hill town in the eastern part of Tuscany.  Interestingly, we drove out of vineyards and olive orchards into an area of large wheat fields.  Our instructions from our landlord was that there was a car park a mere 100-150 yards from the apartment.  He neglected to tell us it was straight up hill. To add insult to injury the apartment was on the third floor of the building with no elevator. There was urgency to getting the luggage to the apartment as there were very dark clouds moving  in with rumbles of thunder. The apartment is beautiful.  We think Jocey wants to stay here forever. The women folk collapsed with their books whilel Tim found a nearby bar for a very welcome cold beer. When he returned to the apartment Jocey was still reading in her room and Lynda was napping.  After Tim dozed a bit he suggested that he and Jocey go find a gelato. While walking about the city eating our gelato we discovered the Museum of Torture. There was no doubt that Jocey wanted to go in and that grandpa would accompany her. Parts of the museum were really quite disturbing.  We won't go into any detail here but if you are interested, we will talk to you when we get home. But be forewarned. Tim did not sleep well last night.

This morning the first person up was Tim at 10:00.  By noon we had ventured out to find lunch. During lunch there was discussion of what to do the rest of the day. Lynda and Jocey wanted to drive out into the country side, find a quite place to sit and read.  Tim was not feeling well and wanted to go back to the apartment.  Which is what we did.  Tim slept and read. Lynda read and did laundry. Jocey read.  Only Jocey felt like going out this evening so we sent her on several trips to pick up pizza and coke for our evening meal.  She did this quite willingly.  We actually had to stop her from going out again.

While we did not see much of  Montepulciano, after the whirlwind of Venice and Florence, it was probably a good idea to have a quiet day before we head to Rome tomorrow.

Ciao

Friday, July 24, 2015

Florence - or Firenze? - in Pictures

The Duomo 
Ponte Vecchio

Ponte Vecchio at night

Enjoying David's behind

Is this Florence or Firenze?

Florence, Italy  July 24, 2015

Leaving Venice, we schlept all of our luggage aboard the vaporetto headed for the train station.  We needed to take the train to the next station, about a 5 minute ride, where we would collect our rental car.  As we left the train and were negotiating all of the stairs to make our way to the exit, a young Italian man grabbed some of our luggage and helped us to the exit.  He even carried part of our luggage to the rental car office. When Lynda offered him what we thought was a generous tip, he made it clear that we were being ungenerous. He left with a sizable tip and we were left feeling chagrined that veteran travelers like us can still get taken in if not careful.

Our rental car is wonderful; it has air conditioning.  Our apartment in Venice had AC but it did little to cool down the apartment.  In a matter of moments, we were all gratefully shivering in the car. The trip to Florence flew by quickly with Jocelyn marveling at the scenery when we could tear her away from her book.  The rental car also has GPS. Lynda entered the address for the car park our land lord had given us.  We would never have found the car park without the GPS. Lynda and Jocey were in fits of laughter as Tim drove down narrow streets, or possibly sidewalks, doing his best to avoid hitting pedestrians. Later, as we walked about Florence, we discovered that Tim was just a block from driving across Ponte Vecchio, the famous hundreds of years old bridge across the Arno River. The young man, Michael, that met us at the apartment could stand to take instructions from Francesca back in Venice.  There were no offers of water, no bottle of "Welcome to Venice" sparkling wind in the fridge. Just a quick profunctory introduction to the "need to knows" of the apartment.

After Michael left, we all did a quick check of our various social networks and left the apartment.  The first stop was a restaurant/bar for a much needed cold beer and a snack. The first order of siteseeing business was the world famous Duomo, the major cathedral of Florence.  It is as famous for its exterior design as its interior.  Maybe more so.  Lynda purchased tickets that included the Duomo as well as the Bapistry next door. There was no line for the Bapistry so we went there first.  We have described the inside of the Bapistry in previous blogs. The domed ceiling is made up of a series of gold leaf frescoes that depict stories of the Bible. It is breathtaking. Lynda could sit for hours gazing at the different frescoes, Tim could sit for minutes.  Jocey evidently has the shopping bug because, while she thought the Dome was beautiful, she was ready to move on to a small leather market we had driven by or possibly through.

Before taking Jocey to the leather market, we took her to the previously mentioned Ponte Vecchio.  We are sure you have seen pictures of it.  We'll try to get back for a picture.  It is the only bridge across the Arno that the Nazi's did not destroy during WWII.  During a major flood back in the 1960's it was also the only bridge not damaged.  Obviously a charmed bridge. This bridge is lined on both sides with small shops that have been the home of gold traders, and now, high end jewelry stores, for hundreds of years. Jocey was mesmerized by all of the jewelrey and she and her Grandmother stopped at literally every window to browse.  At one point Jocey elbowed Tim and told him to listen to what Grandma liked with the idea he would return to purchase the jewelry for Lynda. Tim tried to explain that Grandma wasn't into jewelry.  He also told Jocey that in all of the trips we have made to Florence he has never seen Lynda spend so much time window shopping on the bridge.

We finally made it to the small leather market where Jocey went nuts.  She looked at leather jackets, purses and change purses. Her money must be burning a hole in her pocket because we had to keep reminding her to remember prices because we were going to the Central Market tomorrow.

After a rest and naps we went out to dinner.  The only reason we mention this is because Tim did something he has never done before.  While perusing the menu, Tim noticed a dish made with Tagliatelle, a type of pasta, and another dish that had a gorgonzola sauce.  He asked our waitress if she would ask the chef if he would put the gorgonzola sauce on the tagliatelle. Tim's brother has mentioned that he orders dishes not on the menu on occasion but Tim had never tried it. The waitress seemed a bit unsure but both Tim and Lynda enjoyed tagliatelle with gorgonzola sauce for dinner.

This morning we went to the Galleria Accadamia for the sole purpose of seeing Michaelangelo's "David".  In our minds it is one of the masterpieces of the world of art.  Despite seeing the statue many times we are still overwhelmed in its presence.  We know Jocey also was impressed.  Next, we visited the aforementioned Duomo and we were correct is observing the the exterior is more impressive then the interior. We are sure the Medici's would not want to hear us say this as they paid for a lot of the interior decor. After lunch we headed to the Central Market.  The Central Market is a large building that takes up a whole city block, full of fruit, vegetable, meat, fish and seafood stands. In the surrounding streets, stalls are set up each day selling all manner of leather goods.  Jocelyn was in seventh heaven.  But be warned.  Do not attempt to negotiate with her.  We watched her bartering with a leather merchant over a wallet for her purse. The merchant's starting price was 30 euros.  At one point in the negotiations he showed her the price tag neatly tucked away in the wallet out of view showing a price of 33 euros trying to convince Jocey that he was giving her a great deal at 25 euros. After at least 10 minutes of back and forth, Jocey walked away with the wallet for 16 euros.  As we said, you negotiate with her at your own peril. Tim and Lynda also made minor purchases and did not get nearly as good a price as Jocey.   After the intensity of the leather market we returned to the apartment. Later, while Lynda napped, Jocey suggested to Tim that they go out for a gelato. She did not have to ask twice.  We were surprised to discover that it was raining and while we were out heard rumbles of thunder.  Hopefully, this will break the heat.

Tomorrow we leave Florence, driving to Montepulchiano, a lovely hill town in the middle of Tuscany.  We will probably stop in Siena for lunch on the way.  Check back in a couple of days for a report of our adventures in Tuscany.

Ciao

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Venice Sights

Making Murano glass

Tim and Jocey in Burano

Two gorgeous women on the Accademia Bridge overlooking the Grand Canal

Outside the Peggy Guggenheim Collection

The back streets of Venice

Jocey in front of a mask shop

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Shopping in Venice Jocey style

Venice, Italy    July 22, 2015

We got a later start to the day today because (1) we all slept in and (2) because of technical difficuties in posting the blog last night we had to finish posting it this morning.  Besides the vaparettos on the Grand Canal, there are several places where you can take a traghetto straight across the canal.  A traghetto is nothing more then a gondola without all the singing.  It costs just 2 euros per person versus 80 euros or more for a gondola ride with the singing. In addition to the vaporetto stop just down from our apartment, there is also a traghetto stop.  This is convienent because the Peggy Guggenhiem Collection is right across the canal from us. That was our first stop this morning.  The Peggy Guggenhiem Collection is in the house that Peggy Guggenhiem lived in the last 30 years of her life.  All of the art in the house is from people Peggy was acquanited with and had befriended at some point.  The works are all late 19th century and 20th century.  There are the usual suspects, Picasso, Miro, DuBuffet, Dali, etc., as well as works by artists we have never heard of but liked their work. Additionally, there was a retrospective of the work of Charles Pollock, the brother of Jackson Pollock. Lynda knew, but Tim did not, that Charles Pollock was a famous painter in his own right.  We were fascinated to discover that Charles spent several years at MSU on the art faculty.  There was a copy of a letter and envelop that Jackson sent to Charles with the address being Michigan State College, and a picture of Charles working a printing press on the MSU campus in the 1950's obviously after the name change. Much of Charles early work was very different from the work we associate with Jackson Pollock, but as Charles got older his work began to look more like his brother's.  All three of us enjoyed the Collection.  As always, Tim and Lynda found a work or two that required Lynda to create a diversion so that Tim could steal said work or works.

After lunch we headed off in search of another modern art gallery but along the way, Jocey hijacked the afternoon.  During the Carnivale, our Mardi Gras, Venice is awash in masked balls. We passed a number of shops specializing in masks. Jocey fell in love with them. We lost track of how many mask shops we visited before Jocey finally made a purchase. Then her shopping turned to clothes. Tim does not remember seeing Lynda spend so much time clothes shopping.  By the time all of this shopping was done, Jocey and Lynda were exhausted. Not so much Tim.  All he did was continue to master his people watching skills and occasionally offer approval of clothes purchases. Both of us were thrilled to have her take over the afternoon.  While Jocey and Lynda returned to the apartment to rest, Tim went on to see the Bienalle Art Festival we had originally scheduled. The Festival turned out to be located in a large exhibition center that seemed a bit overwhelming, so Tim also returned to the apartment.

At the risk of sounding whiny, the weather,  specifically the heat, has been unbearable. Temperatures remain in the mid to upper 90's with the heat index over 100. We do more walking then we are accustomed to, and, with very little breeze, it saps our energy quickly.  The weekend forecast is for thunderstorms that will hopefully break the heat wave. We have said very little about evening meals other then Jocey's cuddle fish encounter. We have found two wonderful restaurants the last two nights and enjoyed excellent meals.  Jocey continues to be very adventuresome in her food selections. The evenings would have been magical if the temperature had been 20 degrees cooler.

We leave our apartment here in Venice tomorrow morning, collect our rental car and drive to Florence. Friday we have an appointment to see David.  We look forward to it.

Until then, ciao.

Bon Giorno from Venice

Venice, Italy    July 21, 2015

"Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote and I know I shall be happily infected until the end of my life."

We came across this Michael Palin quote on our last cruise and published it at that time on the blog because it pretty much sums up our feeling about travel.  We are now in Venice with our 14 year old grand daughter, Jocelyn Phillips, hoping to infect her with the bug.  It seems to have become a tradition that when one of our grandchildren turn 10 they travel with us, sans parents, for the first time to Chicago.  When they turn 14 or 15, we take them to Europe.  The first two such trips have been to Italy.

Our two flights to Venice were uneventful except for one minor incident that you may find interesting. Our flight out of Detroit was delayed because a family of four lied to Hom eland Security officers about the amount of money they were taking out of the United States. The family was removed from our flight and we had to wait for their nine (!) pieces of luggage to be off loaded from the plane. When we arrived at the airport in Venice, Jocey was intrigued that we had to take a water bus from the airport to a stop near our apartment. The water buses in Venice are called vaporetto's and we have a vaporetto stop a mere 50 yards from our apartment. Francesca greeted us at the vaporetto stop and took us to the apartment where she spent over an hour going over the details of the apartment as well as information about doing the tourist thing in Venice. Our apartment overlooks a small canal off of the Grand Canal that is one of the main routes for the gondolas. As we write this blog entry we can hear a gondolier serenading his passengers. Unfortunately, it is a poor rendition of the old Dean Martin tune, "Volare". On second thought, it is kind of cool. By the time Francesca left, Lynda and Jocey were ready for naps as neither had slept on our two flights. Tim did a bit of exploring, looking for the necessaties of life: bottled water for the apartment, the closest gelato shop, nearby pastry shop and restuarants.

After naps and showers we set off to give Jocey her first taste of Venice.  After a gelato, we headed toward San Marco Piazza.  Along the way we went in a hope that sold Murano glass. Jocey was very interested in the pieces we saw and we told her it was just a small sampling of what she would see tomorrow when we visited Murano.  San Marco Piazza is a huge square (actually it is rectangular in shape) that is the location of the Basillica of San Marco as well as the Doge Palace, the home of the early rulers of Venice.  When we first entered the piazza all Jocey could say was "Wow".  She was suitably impressed.  We wandered about the piazza and sat on a bench and luxuriated in the atmosphere and the people watching.  Hunger finally forced us to move on in search of a restaurant.  In Venice, if you don't follow the signs to major tourist attractions it is very easy to become lost. Our family see us as seasoned travelers who always know where we are and where we are going so Jocey was impressed when we quickly became lost.  She soon joined the fun of being lost and exploring Venice.  We were actually able to find, almost by accident, one of the restuarants that Francesca had recommended.  When we traveled with Madison several years ago she ate only pizza.  Jocey promised us before we left that she would be more adventuresome in her eating.  She lived up to her promise tonight, ordering pasta with cuddle fish.  It turns out that cuddle fish uses black ink as a defense mechanism so the spaghetti she had was black.  She really enjoyed the pieces of cuddle fish in her dish but did not like the pasta.  We are not sure if that is because the spaghetti was a homemade, rustic pasta, or because the spaghetti was black.  What ever the reason, we certainly had an entertaining meal.

After a day and a half of traveling we were all in bed and asleep by 10:00.  Tim was shocked  the next morning when Jocey and Lynda woke him up at 6:00.  By 8:00 we were on our way to San Marco Piazza, the closest location of a ticket booth for the vaporetto's.  Venice is actually made up of a bunch of islands with Murano being the closest to the main island and also one of the largest. This was our first stop of the day.  Murano is famous for being the home of all of the glass works factories, more accurately, furnaces.  Practically all of the shops on the island sell Murano glass with some of them owned by the glass artists themselves.  When we first visited Venice and Murano 14 years ago most of the glass was still being produced in the traditional designs of the past.  We did find one artist, Simone Cendense, whose work was more contemporary that we liked.  We have purchased several small pieces of his that grace our home. Because of Jocey and Lynda's early start to the day, most of the shops were not open when we arrived on Murano.  But after visiting the few shops that were open and resting with bottles of water, Cendense's shop finally opened.  A young women explained several pieces that we were interested in and then took us back to the furnace room where the glass blowers, and the master himself, were working.  She explained to us what the men were doing.  We did not stay long as the heat from the furnaces was very intense but all three of us thoroughly enjoyed watching the pieces being made.  We visited a couple more galleries and left Murano without any purchases.  Our next stop was the island of Burano. Those of you who are loyal readers of our blog and have studied the blog because of the fascinating facts we present and the erudite observations we make of the places we visit, will remember that Burano is famous for the lace making by the residents of the island.  Tim has no interest in lace work and Lynda has only a passing interest.  However, Jocey seemed quite taken with what she saw, pulling Lynda into one shop after another.  Tim remained outside refining his people watching skills.  After several purchases and lunch we were all hot and tired and so we returned to our apartment we drank much water and some of us napped.  We will go out later this evening when hopefully it will cooler to do some more exploring and find a nice place for dinner.

Tomorrow the plan is to visit the Venice Bienalle, a months long celebration of the arts, and the Peggy Guggenhiem Art Museum.  Will report on those and other exciting things we encounter in the next blog posting.

Ciao