Blogs from Veneto, Italy, Europe - page 9

The benefits of being Europe based is popping over to Venice on an hour flight from Geneva. Murray having just returned from a work trip to Algeria, stayed in the airport to meet us for our flight out, poor him! Venice is definitely one for the bucket list. We were impressed with how clean Venice was, as often European cities are not. We stayed on the main Island (45mins from the airport, 27 euro return trip ferry per person) which was great as everything we wanted to do was within 20 minutes walking from our accommodation. On the first day we wandered the maze like streets, often getting stuck at canals, having to locate a bridge to get over them. It was very hot and we did have a moment of 'what were we thinking doing ... read more

I went to Verone for a conference. I like going to conferences to catch up with previous colleagued and friends. It is especially nice e^when the conference takes lace in a nice little town. Verona is most known thanks to Shakespear famous novel "Romeo and Juliet" and also for its Opera festival (during opera are played in the huge arena). Social events at this conference were great: we got a city tour, a dinner in Lazize and one in a great mansion in the country side. Verona is only a 6h train ride from Geneva, so at the end of the conference Alex joined me for a long weekend. It's a very pleasant city. You can see all the major sites in a day: the arena, apparently the biggest in the wolrd still use for shows ... read more

15 June - Our group traveled by bus to Verona, setting of Romeo & Juliet. The city is divided by an S-shaped River, Adige, crossed by several bridges, the most striking of which is Ponte di Castelvecchio. Like so many Italian cities, there are remains dating back to Roman times visible in random archeological digs spread around the town. Verona was a strategic location along trading routes going both east-west and north-south, so it changed hands several times, from Romans to northern Barbarians to an independent city-state , to Venetian control, to Austrian takeover, to Italy today. So there is a lot of German/Austrian influence in the culture and food here in Northern Italy. On this Friday the city was quite crowded, but our group managed to follow a local guide through the cobblestone streets and ... read more

June 8, 2018 I'm loving Verona - it's not so crowded and it's easier to walk around. Susan & Joe (on the concert tour with me) are going to the radio museum and I decided to tag along with them. We wanted to take bus #11 which picks up at our hotel, but a little elderly Italian woman was trying to tell us to go across the street (which is not really across) to go the right direction. We didn't understand and got on the bus going the wrong way. We rode to the end of the line, and then he turned around and we went back to the hotel. Then Nancy, Diana, & Mike got on. They didn't know where the correct bus stop was either and they flagged down the bus. Oh well, we ... read more

May 30, 2018 Today we left beautiful Lake Bled in Slovenia and traveled to Italy. I really wish I had more time in Slovenia. I read the section in my Rick Steves travel book about the Julian Alps (named for Julius Ceasar) which are in the NW part of Slovenia. This area is very close to the Italian and Austrian borders and had many battles during WWII. And it seems to be very beautiful too. Before I move on to discussing Italy I want to say a few things about Croatia & Slovenia. I always felt safe there, it's clean, the only graffiti I saw was in Split and Ljubljana, the people were always nice, never rude, and the places we visited were beautiful. Cars always stopped to let us cross the roads (not so in ... read more