Category: Italy

Friday 11th –

 

Woke up by 6:45 a.m. to get ready and head to the airport.

Fiji had to have his food and water supply stocked up and Bernard and Allan required a weekend spritzing.
If those plants live it’ll be amazing considering the sporadic care we give them 😜

Mike woke up and wanted toast made for him while he got ready.
Not fair that he got to sleep in and only comb his short hair into place but yet hasn’t got time to make his own toast … But I made up for it by sleeping the whole time he drove to the airport 😏

Car parking, shuttling to the airport, check in lines, security, Starbucks, food, the usual airport going ons before the 1.5 hr. flight.

We were welcomed at Marco Polo airport by Marco and Damaris Rania (friends of Mike, Damaris just moved to Italy from Holland).

They had waited on the weather to decide what they would take us to see and it was fairly nice out so the islands around Venice were decided upon.

First stop, Murano, where glass was found.

Thus, the tourist attraction on Murano is all the blown glass.
Supposedly back in the day the glass blowers caused so many fires that they all had to move to that island so they would stop damaging so much.

The shops were packed with creations from wall to ceiling, making Mike have to walk hunched over and feel a bit like a bull in a china shop 🙈
The art achieved with the glass is truly breathtaking and I (very) happily purchased a blown glass pen and ink set😀🖋

 

Another fact that may not be known about me is I love pens and notebooks 📔 I may not have anything to fill them with but I find them very tempting to buy none the less😏
I believe mom likes them too though so I come by the attraction honestly 😉

From Murano we headed to the island of Burano which is known for its lace and colorful buildings.

It didn’t disappoint.
One house would sometimes have a different color on every side as well as a new color on each level!

Back to Venezia.
The churning of the boat motor mixed with the gentle back and forth of the waves tried its best to lull us to sleep on the ride back but my feet were aching too much to sleep and Mikes bladder was about to burst 😜

The sunset was impressive but as usual the phone pictures don’t do it justice.

Restaurant searching began in full force as Mike wanted real Italian pizza and not some over priced, fake tourist food. The rest of us wanted the real deal too though😉 We read many menus and walked down many streets…eventually asking a man at a fish store what restaurant he would suggest. We followed his instructions and ended up enjoying some Italian (Marco) approved pizza👌🏻

 

 

As a Canadian it’s a little odd reading two pages full of pizza flavours and most are just a variation of red sauces and cheese. Oh and can’t forget the horse meat option 😳

After supper it was a walk back to the car for our bags and then a farewell at the ‘water bus’ stop.

A boat ride of around 45 min. got us to the island of Lido, followed by a short walk to get us to Hotel Rigel.

It was an older building with fabric covered walls, old night stands and wall thickness perfect for eavesdropping 😜
Though the decor could border on frightening the price included wifi, luggage holding, breakfast and was close to the water bus stop.
I was exhausted.
I asked Mike to turn the heat down and before he got there and asked how low he should put it, I was asleep.
That doesn’t happen often for me 😏👌🏻

 

 

Saturday 12th –

 

We woke up early enough to be ready in time for our complimentary breakfast but due to my un-agreeable hair Mike went to breakfast alone and brought me a tray of food back up 😏

We headed to the water bus to take us back into Venice.
Sunshine, blue sky’s and aqua waters surrounded us 😊☀️💕

We took our time walking and discovering all the little shops and streets.

Many shops but all so similar you have to choose what ones you go in, by gut instinct 😜
We chose some good ones 😊

Gelato seems like a must when you’re in Italy so we checked that off the list pretty early on in the day 🍦💕🍦

At one point we decided to take a sit in the sun and watch the boats and gondolas pass by.

We were blessed with a lovely +13 day but it felt warmer since there wasn’t much of a breeze👌🏻
I told Mike if we ever build a house we should merge styles from all the places we go together.
It’s going to be an eclectic house, haha 😜
But inspiration is everywhere!
A new color or window design on the houses, different balconies, old doors, water stained steps going down into a canal, colorful boats docked all along the way.

 

 

Eventually we decided we had walked enough and should boat to the next stop.
We didn’t feel like waiting for a boat so we just hopped on the one at the dock and decided we would be happy with wherever it took us.

It took us back to Lido 😏
But we were fine with that.

We stopped at a grocery store to look around and even if we hadn’t been sure we were in Italy, I’d bet we could have come to that conclusion by checking out the entire isles worth of pasta selections and tomato sauces 🍝 😋

I found Ritz crackers so we bought some to take back to the cottage since we haven’t found them in Holland✔️
Then to find a place to have a late lunch.
I had found a restaurant that had good reviews online… Only to find it closed down in person😏
So we walked and searched and ‘Hosteria Pizzeria Ai do mati’ was the venue chosen. It didn’t disappoint 😊

We started off with fried mozza and the first drinks of regular size I’ve seen since I’ve been in Europe I think 😋 For the main course Mike chose carbonaro pasta and I chose gnocchi with a tomato meat sauce. The gnocchi was melt in your mouth fresh 👌🏻

We had our grocery purchases to take back to the hotel so we decided to drop them off aaand take a small nap 😉 Having the balcony doors open gave us the taste of the summer we so desire, It was great ☺️😋

The beach had to be seen as I had read it had shells, so we walked about 10 minutes from our hotel and found it.
It was cold 😬
The sun had disappeared and the wind had replaced it.

But, it had shells!

Because of the cold we didn’t feel like staying to search long but there were many shells so it wasn’t hard to fill my bag 😏👌🏻

We decided to get pizza to take back to eat at the hotel from the same restaurant we had eaten at earlier.

We settled in to eat and maybe watch some tv but there was only one English channel, which didn’t work 😏

 

Sunday 13th –

Made it downstairs in time for breakfast, only to find the buffet table empty of any such fare.
So, back to the room to pack up and back to check if anymore food had been brought out.
Thankfully a few croissants and breads had been re stocked and we were able to get a cappuccino and espresso.

I think I like espresso 😎
It’s so much stronger than what I’m used to though.
The taste lingers and it’s mostly bad with hints of a good coffee undertone but as soon as the one little sip is down I couldn’t help but think I’d be okay with having a bit more 😏
Plus, I really do think it helps wake me up, if only momentarily.
Its more than regular coffee does for me anymore😁

It was windy out so the enclosure of the boat was welcome.
We stayed on the boat as it took us further into Venice, enjoying seeing the buildings and structures alongside the canal from the water.

We got off and walked some new streets and some familiar ones from previous walks.

I always find that street musicians brighten the atmosphere.

We went through San Marco square again, supposedly a James Bond movie was filmed there 😏

I really don’t know how Mike can keep us on route with all the little streets and corners we go down but somehow he does and we made it back to a water bus without a problem.
He’s handy to have around 😉

Our transportation passes were going to expire by 3:00 p.m. so we had to go back to Lido to get our bags from the hotel.

I slept most of the boat ride back and then we went to get food before heading to the airport.
We ate at the same restaurant for the third time 😏
It was good but we were both getting a little tomato sauce/pizza’d out 😜

Our last water bus ride took us back to where we had started out at P. le Roma, where we then took the real bus to the airport to wait for our flight… in 5 hours.

We made it to each and every stop shown above.

It was a bit early to be at the airport yes.
It was chilly out, we were getting tired of walking and didn’t want to spend more money so the airport wasn’t a bad place to be 😁

It was time for a burger again.
Chicken for me, beef for Mike and onion rings for the both of us.
Though I prefer to eat my onion rings WITHOUT the onions 😜

After we landed in Amsterdam we got our shuttle to take us to the parking lot.
Before we could get there though a police officer decided to have a little chat with our speeding driver 😏
It was entertaining though also slightly ridiculous since our driver was being a loser and the cop still let him off 🙄

We got back to the cottage around 1 a.m.
Fiji was overjoyed.
He wanted outside but he wanted inside.
He wanted me but he wanted Mike 😋
Mike was exhausted so he went to bed and I tried to pet Fiji enough for him stop his meowing as soon as he couldn’t see us 😏
(Allen grew immensely while we were away!
I never thought i’d be someone to get excited about a plants growth 🙈)

 

It was a good weekend 😊💕