http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Europe , Italy , Friuli-Venezia Giulia en-us Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:41:42 +0000 Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:41:42 +0000 www.roominfo.it http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-427052.html Nous sommes arrives par les montagnes du Nord de lItalie apres avoir traverse lAutriche. Les montagnes sont si belles et on commence a voir des champs de citron enfin je crois... Nous sommes a Venise. La ville est tres touristique ce qui est un peu dommage... Par contre cest tres beau. Comme Nic le disait il nlty a pas tant de choses a faire. Cltest simplement agreable de marcher le long de http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-417413.html We got a reasonably good start to the day today heading down to the post office to do some final mailings. After this we had lunch and finished packing and weighing suitcases we are flying to France as well as cleaning up the house.In the afternoon Joshua and Benjamin joined Luigi in the fields and spent the afternoon cutting hay with the tractor. The weather has turned very summer like thoug http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-404139.html With just two days left in our stay we have several people to get together with to say goodbye today.In the morning we headed over to Evy's cousin Anna and her husband Gianluigi's apartment which is just a short distance from the house we are staying in. Their apartment is huge and very nice with high ceiling and a large balcony. Anna had kindly bought goodbye presents for our children as well a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-404138.html Though we have met virtually all the relatives now there are some that we only met briefly at the family reunion and have not spent much time with. Today we had been invited to Anna and Bruno's house for dinner.After doing school work for most of the afternoon Bruno picked us up at the house to take us to their house near Udine for dinner. On the way we stopped off at a high vantage point and t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-404136.html Evy's father has a sister who emigrated to Argentina. A few years back one of her daughters Lucia moved back to Italy and she lives in Codroipo. Evy called her recently and we have plans to see her tonight.We spent the morning today doing school work before heading to the cousin's for lunch. After lunch we took a tour of Luigi and Giuditta's new house which is being build next door.Later the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-404135.html Today was rainy and cloudy. As we will be flying to France next week we need to mail some things home to lighten our load. Evy and I headed off to the post office in the morning to get some idea of what it was going to cost to send home school books that we have finished with. In the end it wasn't too bad but like all things official here seemed to take an inordinate length of time to accomplis http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-404133.html Some of the things that Joshua and Benjamin need to do for their school work are difficult to accomplish on the road. We have taken advantage of our longer stay here to get some of these projects such as the ones involving paints done. In math Benjamin has been asked to build a large Geodesic dome out of rolled up newspapers. We took advantage of the rainy weather today for him to build this in http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-404132.html We have all worn out some of the clothes that we packed eight months ago so Uncle Giovanin's family has kindly agreed to take us shopping today at a mall near the city of Udine.The mall was quite a decent size and we were able to buy an ethernet card to fix Paolo's computer before taking a tour of the many clothing stores. Prices in Italy seem to be somewhat higher than at home though we eventu http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/Udine/blog-404131.html Today marks the eight month point in our journey. Evy's cousin Laura picked us up at the farm this morning and drove us to Luciano and Teresa's house for a BBQ. Their house is recently built and next to a large field that was bright yellow with the crop of canola planted there. Here we also were joined by Evy's cousin Fausto and Barbara as well as their baby girl Alice who is just getting over th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/Udine/blog-404129.html We have made plans to get together today with Aunt Lucine's children and grandchildren so shortly after 2 pm Luigino Evy's cousin picked us up and took us to cousin Loretta's house where we met up with the rest of them. After this we headed off in two cars to visit a large villa in Codroipo called Villa Manin.Villa Manin was built in the 1700s and has a very formal symmetrical design with twi http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-404128.html With our apartment in Grenoble now booked we need to send a postal order to the owner to hold the reservation. As well Joshua left his red sketchbook of ideas not unlike da Vinci's in Florence and we need to send money to cover the mailing of it. The mission of the morning is therefore postal orders.The post office in Flaibano has only one person working there and there always seems to be a li http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-403769.html After our two day trip to Venice we slept in this morning and then went to Evy's Zia Mine for lunch. Zia Mine is getting quite elderly but seems spry and full of life. We had a great lunch which she cooked on her wood stove. After lunch Joshua wanted to go outside to go bike riding. Benjamin said he was going to go along to ldquosuperviserdquo but a few minutes later it was Joshua who knocke http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-403768.html We headed over to the farm this morning to use the INTERNET. We booked an apartment in Grenoble that we have been considering and looked into the cost of flying there rather than taking the train. As it turns out it is somewhat cheaper to fly not to mention much faster though the flight will take us to Lyon and we will still need to catch a bus or train the short distance further to Grenoble. I http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-403764.html We went to Giovanin's farm this morning and used the INTERNET to book a place to stay in Venice next week. We also got some details on an apartment that we are considering in Grenoble. Around noon Sandra picked us up to take us to the family get together in the town of Vidules. This family reunion was quite a large production taking place in a local restaurant with a long table. With some of the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-403763.html We need to check with the railway for information on times and prices for the train to Venice so we took advantage of a run Luigi was making to Codroipo. After finding out the train times we visited another pharmacy here for yet another attempt to find something to deal with my allergies. I have kind of given up hope finding anything over the counter here that works. It would seem that things th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-403761.html Today was a rather uneventful compared to yesterday and relaxing day of school work. Joshua has been eyeing a miniature fousball game at the local store so we bought it for him and had a few small tournaments. We also went over to the farm to use the INTERNET as we need to book a place to stay next week in Venice as well as a place to stay in Grenoble France next month. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-403759.html After such a full day yesterday we spent today catching up on school work including a diorama that Benjamin needed to complete for part of his language arts course. We had been putting off some assignments just due to the fact that required so many materials that we needed to be somewhere for more than a few days. Later Joshua and Benjamin worked together on a stopmotions animation. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-403755.html It was a beautiful day this morning and I went out early to take some photographs. The house were we are staying has vineyards out the to one side and spring wild flowers all around it. On such a clear blue morning it is a wonderful place to wake up.We hadn't managed to get a hold of my parent's for Easter so in the afternoon we headed over to the farm and called them over the computer using sky http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/Gemona-del-Friuli/blog-403616.html Benjamin and Joshua woke up to a reasonable haul of chocolate this morning despite our travelling status thank to the kindness of Aunt Mine and others. After breakfast we headed over to the farm to join Giovanin and their family for church.The local church has a reputation for painfully long services so thankfully we were going to another church in a different town. Compared to the church in F http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Friuli-Venezia-Giulia/blog-403615.html