Italy - the Beginning AND the End

Finally a moment to sit down and wrap this up. Our trip to Europe started and ended in Italy. We flew into Marco Polo Airport - Venice and stayed one night in Marcon before driving to Croatia.

 We stayed in this lovely hotel in the city of Marcon. It was easy to get to and was right across the street from a large shopping mall. The mall was a perfect place for us to safely walk around after arriving to ward off jetlag. Funny story...even funnier than that TINY little car we drove all week...as we left the airport and were finding our way to the hotel, Chris got pulled over by the Italian Police. Complete with crisp blue uniforms, epaulets, sash, shiny shoes...you get the picture. Of course because we are not in a tourist area he speaks no English and obviously we speak no Italian. As we both are silently FREAKING OUT he demands our passports and drivers license. I wasn't 100% keen at this point to be driving in Europe anyways, but I kept my "I told you so" to myself as I ran through my head the scenario of someone having to bail us out of Italian jail 10 minutes into our trip. After what seemed like 10 hours, he came back to the car, handed us our i.d. and sternly told us to "GO!" Whew. Crisis averted and a FABULOUS way to start our vacation I might add. We never did find out why we got pulled over....and we'll never know.

After a so-so night of sleep we headed for Croatia. It was exciting to see our first glimpse of the Italian countryside.

I was very taken with the wild poppies that grew everywhere. As with our entire trip, it was often very difficult to find a place to pull over and take pictures. Driving in Italy was a bit tense to say the least. And after our "near arrest" we weren't taking ANY chances.

We decided to make a stop in Trieste, Italy. It was our first glimpse of the beautiful Adriatic and we pulled over as soon as we saw that beautiful blue water.

 Of course, we wouldn't be us if we didn't say "There has to be a way to get down there."

 Sure enough, there was...a steep, rocky, narrow way down there.

It was worth the climb as it was oh so beautiful. We do love the ocean...it was the exact same color as Chris' shirt! There were sunbather's everywhere...nude sunbathers. It was actually a bit hard to snap a picture without getting someone nude in the shot. I was telling the kids and Chris' sister Joanna, who was here visiting,  about a guy that was completely nude, sitting cross legged and eating a sandwich. I think they thought I was kidding until we clicked on the next picture.

 OMG! I wish I had a recording of Joanna's HYSTERICAL laughter when we discovered the nude guy sitting cross legged eating a sandwich on the far right side of my picture. Oops. Gotta love Europe.

 Oh yeah, we had to walk BACK UP. Gasp. Gasp.

 We were thrilled to happen upon our very first castle just outside Trieste.

 Chris was a good sport and pulled over our little baby car so I could snap a picture.

 We decided to delay our day a bit and wander in and see what it was all about.

This castle served as the residence of Archduke Ferdinand Maxmilian of Hapsburg and his wife Gertrude of Belgium. It was built by Carl Junker in 1856 out of white Istrian stone. We have some friends here in Blair with the last name of Junker...I wonder if they're related???

We wandered outside the castle and took in the beautiful architecture and grounds.

 This is one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip. The castle was stunning against the blue sky.

The grounds were quite lovely and were designed to mimic the Romantic Period according to information posted.

 Afterwards we wandered into downtown Trieste which is right on the edge of Italy and Croatia.

 Trieste is more of an industrial town with an active shipping harbor, but gave us a great feel for "real" Italian life on the coast.

Oh look! Another castle up on the hill.

 Loved the long row of scooters parked on the narrow street. Perfect mode of transportation if you ask me.

We had a lovely lunch on the water and Chris dove right into his first weird meal of the trip. Here he shows off his big pile of fried minnows. Mmmmm.

We were glad we took the time to visit Trieste. It was a great way to get our "feet wet" and start our adventure.

 

At this point I am now switching to the END of our trip....Venice. What is there to say about Venice? We were in the area, so we had to go - just once. I kind of liken it to Las Vegas. I'm glad I visited once, but don't really care to ever go back. Venice was the following: amazing, historic, beautiful, crowded, expensive, old, amazing, beautiful, crowded, and I will end with amazing. We truly are glad we went. The day was stunning and perfect and it was the best possible way we could end this trip.

 

 I'm not going to do a lot of explaining in this section. We went to Venice without a plan or very much knowledge, to be honest. We just wanted to enjoy it and take it all in - every nook and cranny. We didn't stand in long lines for museums, we just wandered...the entire city. I had blisters on the bottom of my feet to prove it.

Venice is mind-boggling old and there are churches EVERY.WHERE. So many, we often felt lost and didn't know where we were or what we had seen and not seen.

Thank goodness I married a man who can read a map. This is the quintessential shot..."What church is this?"

 

The architecture was breathtaking at every turn. It was pretty overwhelming and after a while I just stopped taking pictures because I couldn't possibly capture it all. We notice a distinct "Moroccan" flare to many buildings.

 

 We arrived quite early in the morning and enjoyed peacefully meandering the colorful streets.



 Poor Chris, we looked endlessly for a purse for Olivia on this trip. FINALLY we found the perfect one on our last day. It was not easy to find a small, brown, leather, cross body purse...as you can see everything was orange, white and lime green. SCORE!

 We had so much fun exploring all the narrow streets that were away from the tourists. Its amazing to think people actually LIVE here and everything, I  mean EVERYTHING has to be brought in on hand trucks. No vehicles at all.

 

Posing under the Rialto bridge...one of 400 and think we crossed them all. Not a great picture because it was swarming with people.

 I will state for the record that we did NOT go on a gondola ride. And this is why...the canals were bumper to bumper gondolas. Not at all the "romantic" voyage we all have in our heads. And expensive...holy smokes, not worth an entire paycheck.

The glassware was amazing and shops and shops were filled with it.

 It was quite a trip to be meandering the narrow, dark streets for so long and then step out into this.

St. Peter's Square is just how we pictured it. Vast, crowded, pigeons everywhere.  The basilica was undergoing renovations but it was still AWE-SOME.

 Venice has shops everywhere from the tacky touristy stuff, to high-end fashion. I had to laugh when we stumbled upon H&M, one of Olivia's favorite stores. If you zoom in on the picture you see my reflection and a smiling Chris who is glad his wife is just taking pictures and not going in any of the stores.

 We were glad to get away from the crowded square and back to the quaint parts of Venice.

Chris was the official passageway tester. I always made him go around the corner first.

 I wonder if anybody has noticed that this clock tower is about to fall over????

There was the cutest little old Italian couple walking in front of us holding hands.

 Like I said at the beginning...there were delights around every corner.

 Speaking of delights....Holy meringues. I love meringues. We make them every Christmas and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw these.

 They were as big as my entire face!!!

And I ate the WHOLE THING. Delish. Best thing I ate.

Crowded.

We had enough of the crowds and ventured to a quieter part of town, the Venetian Arsenal.

The Arsenal was a complex of state-owned shipyards and armories clustered together in Venice. It was responsible for the bulk of Venice's naval power during the middle part of the second millennium AD. It was "one of the earliest large-scale industrial enterprises in history. (thanks Wikipedia)

According to Wikipedia, the Arsenal was constructed beginning in 1104. That's not a typo. ELEVEN-OH-FOUR.

Pretty cool to be able to drive your boat or gondola right up to a restaurant!

 Chris kept wanting me to take pictures of people's laundry. I guess in his mind, this is was Europe looks like. I apologize to the owners of the underwear.

 After the Arsenal we wandered through a city park where you could tell the locals hang out. (and sleep on the benches. ugh)

 More amazing glassware. Probably the hardest thing to try and travel home with, although we managed to bring home a few treasurers in one piece.

Look at that poor guy in the khaki pants looking exhausted in front of yet another beautiful church.

Coolest door knocker we ever saw.

Ahhh, Venice. The City of Love. Perfect ending to a perfect trip!