mmccann

We headed straight over to Murano the next day, to see the legendary glass. Sam refused to follow the crowds stepping off the boat to a glass museum where we were all being directed by an enthusiastic promoter, even though I was afraid we would not get to see a glass blowing demonstration! Instead, we began wandering the island, looking at all of the glass do-dads, enjoying the atmosphere. Almost immediately Sam saw a blown glass bowl with blown glass fish in it. He fell in love. Sam is not a consumer, and hates shopping. I have very rarely seen him want anything (except the occasional computer game). Generally he buys only what he has to, only when he really has to. I have certainly never seen him want anything just because it was pretty. But ... read more

Sam had wanted to see the painted houses of Burano since the first day he read about them on the Internet. We decided a day off the main island would do us well, and so after a charming little breakfast at our B&B, we headed out. We took the Vaparetto#1 to the Fond Nova stop, then got on the Vaparetto to Burano. The ride was long and hot but there was so much to look at, it didn’t matter. Finally, finally the Vaparetto hit Burano. We hopped off, with everyone else, and started walking. We walked around that whole little island, loving the little coloured houses. It was stiflingly hot, so there were a few gelato stops and a few moments of sitting in the shade under churches but I am happy to say no further ... read more

Breakfast was served in our room at 9am, a simple fare of coffee, croissants, and jam. We ate it and our remaining fruit looking out our window to the Grand Canal. Then we set out to do what we had heard was the best thing to do - wander the streets of Venice. Our hotel had provided us with a perfect little pocket map to Venice, which we used to navigate for the next six days and which I wish I had as I write down these memories. We decided to start at the Customs House (the “Dogana di Mare”), where once upon a time every ship entering Venice had to check in. Now there is a statue of a little boy holding a frog, which is under guard by day and locked up at night. ... read more

I’ll admit it. I was getting tired of travelling. I was still loving Italy, loving everything we were seeing and doing, but walking into the luxury hotel at San Giminano, enjoying their buffet breakfast, knowing that the town was so small we didn’t have to rush to anything - it made me realize I was kind of tired of roughing it, and kind of tired of sightseeing, and kind of tired of the pace travel requires no matter how slow you take it. That, and we had received the official word that our house had closed and everything went smoothly, and Sam’s mom was minding the shop. All of it kind of made me a little homesick. But we had more to see, and as tempted as I was to sit on our gorgeous balcony all ... read more

We got a later start than expected. We ate breakfast on the terrace, finishing all of our supplies, and rested for a bit, then picked up final paninis at Il Forno for our lunch. All this leisure resulted in missing the last train I had carefully planned our potential routes around. though I had carefully planned the shortest route to Lucca, all of the plans fell apart and we ended up waiting half an hour at the Vernazza station, then another forty minutes at La Spezia, and then having to train all the way to Florence, only to turn around and get to Lucca, changing trains three times. It was a long journey, but not so bad after all. We got to our B&B in Lucca around three, dropped our stuff and headed out to explore. ... read more