Venice - Verona - Urbino

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Tis a long haul from Roma to Venice so we decided to break the journey in half by staying somewhere in between. Urbino was the lucky winner with a pit stop in Orvieta enroute.
In a continent spoilt for beautiful towns, these two more than hold their own.
Orvieta, I'm not even sure if it is in Umbria or Tuscany, is conveniently off the main tourist trail, giving it a far more relaxed feel, with the exception of about 10 screaming school groups. Orvieta seems the school excursion HQ of Italy.
Urbino is the shining light of the province (are they called provinces in Italy) of les Marches. The name implies an urban sprawl but the reality is far more beguiling. The old city sits high on a pedestal standing sentry over the beautiful countryside. It's population of 30 odd thousand comprises 20 000 uni students, the town's biggest earner, who inject an energetic buzz into the city centre. Getting to Urbino was the tough part. Tomtom really struggles with roadblocks. So do we. Fortunately the hills of les Marches are a nice backdrop when hopelessly lost.
And so to Venice.
There appears to exist 2 totally conflicting impressions Venice leaves on its visitors.
GROUP A - bandy around the formula positive adjectives. gorgeous, unique, romantic, Sylvania Waters etc (the Sylvania Waters part was a joke by the way)
GROUP B - tend to use less flattering rhetoric. Crowded, expensive, dirty, cliched etc.
For the record, pencil us into group A.
It's Ooh Aah VENETZIAAAAA!
Crowded? There are plenty of people but serenity is just a couple of blocks stroll from Piazza San Marco. The Grand Canal is a hive of activity, but an entertaining hive it is. While the back streets/canals can be a lonely treat.
Dirty - it's not Switzerland but nor is it India. This is Italy so we have to cut these latinos some slack, except for those damn flying lice ridden rats. Get rid of those pigeons!!!
Cliched - perhaps, but most cliched destinations have earnt that status for a reason and Venice's reason comes up and clubs you over the head. It's stunning.
Venice is actually made up of over 100 islands so a visit to a couple of other islands is a must. Murano and Burano were ours (and most others) choice. Murano's raison d'etre is glass and all its permeatations. For such a heavily touristed place, the majority of the glass work was very pleasing on the eye and not overly kitsch. That old adage applied - I might not know art but I know what I like, and I liked what Murano had to offer. Still didn't buy anything though.
Burano is dazzling. Penny mentioned in a previous blog the heavy council restrictions on restoration work in Italy, right down to them choosing the colours. No such problems in Burano. If you ask the council inspector what colour you should paint your house, the answer will be, " whatever colour you want, just paint it LOUD!" I've always championed the impact of uniformity in architecture and colour schemes. Burano is uniform in its nonuniformity (is there such a word). If you painted your house this garishly back home, you may as well stick a red light on the porch as well. Yet somehow it works in Burano.
Listening to Italian radio, a lot of stations are committed to playing what some might consider dinosaur music, those "wonderful" hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. One track that gets way too much airplay is My Shirona from a band that really knew how to stand the test of time. So when The Knack came through the speakers one more time and with the Bryan Ferry/Avignon incident still fresh in the memory, I sensed another sign brewing. Scouring the book of maps, there it was, MY VERONA! (I know it's drawing a long bow but I'm just exercising some editorial license).
Verona is an easy day trip from Venice, so we punched it into Tomtom and let Jane do the rest. We had no prior knowlege of Verona except for THAT balcony. Verona has much more to offer and is - here comes the broken record part - a magnificent city. For one thing it has its own Collosseum, the world's 3rd largest. It is still used for concerts with Pink Floyd having played there. The biggest plus is that handles about 5% of the human traffic that its Roman counterpart is forced to endure. And what about that balcony. Basically it's a balcony of approximately 2 sq meters. Wow! With a buch of us gawking up at it. I fought the temptation to turn thespian for just a few moments and let rip my most motivated "Penelope Penelope, where for art thou Penelope". Seeing as it's done about 100 times a day from other cornball tourists like ourselves, I left my B grade effort on the scrap heap.
Tomorrow we leave Italy and a new adventure starts when Tomtoms programme expires - we're on our own. Considering Marco Polo, Colombus, Magellan and co. navigated the world's oceans using the constellations (how'd they do that during the day and when it was cloudy at night), surely we can negotiate Eastern Europe with a book of maps in broad daylight. So, as that magnificent band of the 70s Slade said, "goodbye to Jane". Slovenia here we come.
To be continued.
Yeatesy.

Urbino with its 20 thousand students makes staying and eating in this town quite reasonable. Our B and B accommodation, usually a room, turned out to be a 2 bedroom, self contained apartment on the hill overlooking Urbino, with restaurant attached. This restaurant didn't serve pizza and pasta like just about every joint in Italy, but a creative/unusual blend of sweet/savoury/bizzare menu. eg eggplant wrapped in chocolate.
We arrived in Urbino on the day of their ceremony to honour a person's contribution to society. This year this happened to be a one armed American jounalist/war correspondent. Any excuse for some good old fashioned medieval pomp and ceremony, which turned out to be entertaining to the extreme.
On to Venice. 400 bridges. I think we crossed all of them a few times over at some stage whenever we were lost trying to navigate to Piazza San Marco (should have brought Jane along).
On this visit I'm sure the pigeons outnumbered the tourists. I can't see the attraction of buying food to feed the rats with wings, but many others can.
The place seems to have more charm than I remembered from last time, perhaps because I've had more time to savour it. I loved the ferry rides to the other islands and getting lost amongst the back streets. These 3 days in Venice will leave us some lasting memories to leave Italy with.
A quick day trip to Verona was an unexpected treat. The day we arrived the town was in full swing with its food and wine festival. No real need to buy lunch after all the free samples we gorged on, although we still managed to find a really cute cafe where we sampled some Italian tapaish type snacks and tasted some extremely yummy local whites.
Full of local delicacies and a glass or two of wine, we wandered around the collosseum which was a hive of activity readying itself for an upcoming concert. I assume it was a concert and not back to the good old days of humans flaying themselves with swords, spears, pestles, maces, tridents or whatever other gruesome weapon was used amongst those gladiatorial types wearing skirts and mohawked helmets.
Before signing off, I have a general question to ask. Do piano accordian players know any other tune than "besame". Gaz said it means kiss me in Spanish. It doesn't seem to matter where in Europe we go, they all play that tune, especially popular in Venice.
Penny

More images at:

www.colvinyeates.zenfolio.com

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Photos

Venice
The many faces of Venice

Urbino
View from our B&B.

Orvieta
On route to Urbino

Urbino
Cutting costs on accommodation in Italy, usually means a compromise or two!

Urbino
Procession for the Urbino annual awards

Urbino
The castle

Venice
View overlooking Venice at dusk

Venice
The Grand Canal

Venice
Piazza San Marco

Venice
Gondola with a few embarrassed aussies

Burano
Psychodelic town

Burano
Piant it LOUD

Burano
Typical window

Verona
The Colleseum