tempi buoni, buoni amici

You know your trip to Italy is going to go well when 2 minutes before boarding, the airlines exchanges your economy center seats (which are 6 rows apart from each other) for #1A and #1B in FIRST CLASS! Oh the blessings of knowing people in high places! We had no hesitation in letting our Steward throw away our uneaten salads from Wendy's to make room for our 5-course meal awaiting us. And there were no complaints from me about sleeping fully reclined with a REAL pillow and blanket. Scott was especially grateful for the complimentary slipper socks after realizing he had a hole in the big toe of his sock. It is amazing how pleasurable a 10 hour flight can be with a little pampering and a few flexeril!

We flew into Venice and try as we could, we could not pass up a quick nap at our centrally-located hotel. Therefore, we did not accomplish much our first day in Venice. However, we made good use of our time during the next 3 days.

The only mode of transportation in Venice is by boat. We bought unlimited Vaperetto passes which allowed us to get anywhere we wanted. We had some rain the first few days in Venice. Between that and having so much to see and do, we did not have time to go on a Gondola ride but we got plenty of pictures of others enjoying them!

The Rialto Bridge
We traveled with two of our favorite people, Butch and Heidi Parker. Heidi worked double time this trip as tourist and travel guide. She spent months planning and organizing our Italian adventure. She did a fabulous job and will give Rick Steves a run for his money when her line of travel books hit the stores! This is the Rialto Bridge where Butch gave Heidi a new wedding ring, but not until after he not-so-subtlety excused me from their presence.

The main square in Venice is St. Mark's Square. This square is always full of people and/or pigeons. We discovered that pigeons love plum pudding!

Also located in St. Mark's Square is the Clock Tower. This is the first digital clock ever made!

St. Mark was chosen as the patron saint of Venice. He is always represented as a lion. St. Mark's Basilica is also located in St. Mark's Square and holds the famous horses that were stolen from the Hippodrome of Constantinople along with other relics.

One last sight we visited off of St. Mark's Square is the Doge's Palace.

We took a day trip from Venice to Padua. While there we toured Scrovengi Chapel which is known for its 40 frescos of Christ and Mary painted by Giotto.

Scrovengi Chapel

Padua is an affluent college town. We think this is the University. While trying to find the University we happened across Galileo's home!

Our third day in Venice was a Sunday, the day the cruise ships like to drop off thousands of tourists on our little island. The crowds were crazy so we decided to take another day trip to another island. The owner of our hotel suggested we go to Burano. This turned out to be one of my favorite spots of the whole trip. Burano is a small fisherman's village. The houses are still all painted in bright and differing colors, they way Venice used to be.

Burano also has its very own leaning tower!

After our outing to Burano we got off at a wrong Vaperetto stop. The nice part of that was that we got to see a completely different side of Venice. We saw were most the locals lived and we stumbled across a very bizare modern art museum. It was in an open warehouse with some interesting, yet disturbing, art displays. I wish I had taken more pictures but at that moment, I just wanted to find a way out! All I got was this picture of a Barbie chair.

We made one last stop to the frari Cathedral before leaving Venice and it was well worth the time. Here we saw art from Titian, Veneziano, Bellini and Donatello.

Then it was time to say good-bye to Venice. We traded in our Vaperetto passes for some wheels...and some sweet wheels at that! We were pleasantly surprised when our rental car turned out to be a BMW.

Everyone had an job. Butch was driver, Scott was Navigator and the Heidi's were the official hecklers from the back seat.

Our first stop was Verona, a quaint and affluent town about 1 1/2 hours east of Venice.

We saw a 1st century Roman arena that is still used today for concerts and operas.

Scott had to fight an ancient Roman for my honor. Good thing he packed his sword.

Verona is most famous for being the hometown of Romeo and Juliet. The current film "Letter's To Juliet" was filmed here. The movie shows this statue as well. The folklore is that you are to rub Juliet's right breast for luck in love. After publishing some of the photos I took of Scott in the Louvre in Paris, he wasn't willing to give me additional blackmail material from Italy. He kept it clean.

Juliet's balcony and the wall where people leave letters to Juliet

Just like the movie, there really is a Secretaries of Juliet Club. This is the room where they really meet and respond to letters that are left for Juliet.

This is a favorite bridge for lovers. To prove they are committed in their relationship, they will take a padlock, hook it to a bar on the bridge, then throw the key in the river. This represents that their love is forever and cannot be undone.

After Verona we headed to the Ortesi where we would spend two nights and one full day. Ortesi is in the Dolomite Region of Italy. I had never heard of this area so I had no expectations or ideas of what it would be like. This turned out to be my favorite area of Italy! It felt like we had left Italy and entered Austria. The most common spoken language there was German. The homes looked German as well. The entire region was breath-taking. It was covered with green hills set against the contrasting white with pink- hued mountains that jet straight up to the sky.

Our traveling friends, Butch and Heidi Parker

Gelatos! After breakfast, lunch and dinner most days!

We stayed at the Hotel Digon while in the Dolomites. Run by the cutest little German family. It included breakfast and a 5 course meal at night.

This is the view from our hotel window. Imagine our surprise when we opened our window that first morning after arriving at the hotel in the dark of the night.

We spent our full day here driving the loop around the major mountain regions and visiting a few of the little towns in between. We even got out for a little hike.

One of the highlights of this day was watching a shepherd with his sheep dogs.

The Lagazuoi Tram took us to the top of the Lagazuoi Mountain pass which is about 8,000 feet high.

The boys were stupid, I mean, brave enough to walk out to the edge of one of the cliffs.

After leaving the Dolomites, we made a stop in Bulzano to visit Ortsi, the Ice Man. Ortsi is over 5300 years old and was found intact, frozen in the Italian Alps near where we had just visited. This is what scientists have determined he would have looked like 5300 years ago.

This is what he looks like today.

After our quick stop in Bulzano, we were off to our final destination...Lake Como. Our hotel was in Menaggio but we made good use of the Ferrys and visited many of the cities along the Lake. This is the view of Menaggio and Lake Como from our hotel window.

This was our favorite little square in Menaggio. We would come down each morning, pay the cover charge for our table, drink our hot chocolate (aka melted candy bar), eat a chocolate croissant and read in the sun. Italians know how to live!

Bellagio on Lake Como

Serbelloni Villa

Villa Carlotta

Verenna on Lake Como

Scott, Butch and I hiked, and I mean hiked, up to Castle Vezio. They have adorned the castle and it's grounds with plaster ghosts molded from real tourists.

Dinner that night was a real treat. We ate a restaraunt that was way up in the mountains of Varenna. It is impossible for tourists to find so the owners meet you in the town square and drive you up to the restaraunt.

We took another day trip by train from Menaggio to Milan. We had a tour set up with a large tour group for the afternoon. We normally are not big on tour groups but this was the only way we could get tickets to see DaVinci's Last Supper.

Statue of Leonardo DaVinci

Midevil Castle in downtown Milan

This is the Galleria - the shopping center of Milan. It just so happened to be Fashion Week when we were in Milan. This happens twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring. The city was bustling with super models and cat walks everywhere.

The Duomo of Milan. The third largest in Europe. Construction began in the 13th century and it took 600 years to finish.

The famous Scala Opera house.

And finally, the highlight of the trip...DaVinci's last supper at the Santa Maria Delle Grazie chapel.

This of course is not my photo of The Last Supper. No cameras were allowed. In fact, they only let groups of 25 people in at a time to see if for 15 minutes. If you dawdle at all at the end of the 15 minutes, they will push you out. I know.

The last day of our trip was a Sunday. I love to going to church when we are in different countries. It always amazes me how familiar it feels. This was the perfect ending to a perfect trip. The closest chapel to Lake Como happened to be in Lucerno, Switzerland, about one hour away from Menaggio.We assumed the branch would be German speaking since it was in Switzerland, but it turned out to be an Italian branch. That was a relief since all four of us speak spanish. Due to the similarities of the two languages we were able to understand much of the meeting. It was their Branch conference that day and the Stake Presidency was there from Milan to make them into a ward!

After church, we took our time driving to Milan by stopping in Stressa. Stressa sits on Maggiore Lake. Stressa has several islands that you can ferry out to and tour different villas. We only had time to visit Isola Bella (Beautiful Island). This villa and it's gardens were to grandest of any we had seen.

Isola Bella and it's Villa

This was the grotto of the villa, ornately decorated to hold horses and supplies.

Then by some miracle, we found our way to Milan, turned in the rental car, caught a shuttle to our hotel and caught maybe two hours of sleep in between the fireworks (actual fireworks...outside....what were you thinking?) What an amzing trip! Not even a 10 hour flight home in Economy class could ruin tha fabulous time we had in Italy!