Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice

http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/education/kids_day.html

On Sunday Ann-Marie and I went to Venice to the Peggy Guggenheim Kids Day thing that they do on sundays. It was even in English! We had a tour of the museum, saw some Picasso and Salvadore Dali paintings and a bunch of others I can't remember right now. Anyway, Ann-Marie then went to work on some art work herself with the help of some interns who work there. She had a good time, I think.

Stephanie with the Wild Boar in Florence

Here is Stephanie rubbing the bronze wild boar's nose. I guess it brings you good luck or something. You can see there is a market in the background. Tons of handbags. I think I bought a Pinnochio marionette for Ann-Marie at this market.

Ponte Vecchio in Florence

Here is a photo of the Ponte Vecchio Bridge in Florence. Ponte Vecchio means Old Bridge in Italian. The bridge goes over the Arno River. When you walk over the bridge (it is pedestrian only) all of the shops along both sides are full of gold and diamonds and very expensive goods.

Stephanie and me in Verona near the Arena

As you can see there is an Arena in Verona that is very similar to the Collesium in Rome. This Arena is still in use for Opera preformances in the summer.

We really enjoyed seeing Stephanie and hope Stephanie enjoyed the places we took her. We went to Padova, to an antique market and several churches. We went to Verona, to see the big Colleseuim style Arena, the Julliet apartment, and more churches. We went to Florence to see...well lots of stuff (including several churches). She went to Venice and fed the pidgeons, got lost and bought a big Venitian Mask. She went on a wine tasting to the famous Lake Garda and went Proscuitto tasting too one day. But most of all we all got to spend some time together and that was real nice.

I was trying to add a bunch more pictures but we have extremely slow internet here and so it will have to wait for another day. Check back soon. Next weekend we're going to Stockholm.

Pictures of our Cinque Terre hike

Cinque Terre trip

Cinque Terre was beautiful. Ann-Marie and I hiked from Riomaggore to Manarola to Corneglia to Vernazza (4 of the "5 Lands"). We started at Riomaggore (pictured here). At the beginning while at Riamaggore when we first got off the train there were big waves hitting the HUGE rocks at the coastline. The air smelled of morning salt and was cool. As we started out on the trail, before we made it to Manarola we walked the famous "Via Dell'Amore" which translates loosely, I'm sure into something like "Walk of Love" whereby thousands of visitors scrawled there love notes to their lovers on the walls of a tunnel promanade type thing (which was lit by windows open toward the sea). Inside while we walked there was a man playing "Strangers in the Night" by Frank Sinatra, I think. He was playing it on an accordian. I remember there was one older couple dancing cheek to cheek. At the 'end' of the Via Dell'amore was a special seat in which lovers were lined up to sit on while getting their photos taken together.

Ann-Marie and I kept walking along this very easy stretch of the 'hike'. We had put on our bathing suits under our clothing because we were not sure of how we would change if we should find the perfect beach. Our backpacks contained our own snacks, water and lunch, plus some sandals to change into after our swim. We had some tissue and some sunblock, the camera and shades.

We saw some very large lemon trees with literally thousands of lemons on them. We saw some olive trees (no bloom that I could see). We saw many cactus that

were as large as a car. There were a lot of flowers in bloom and the cactus even seemed to have some sort of fruit on them. We weren't bothered by too many bugs (actually I really don't remember any). The trail starts getting more challenging past Manarolla, right before Corneglia. In fact it gets very steep. There are portions of the trail that are very thin to walk on, meaning you have to step aside so people going the opposite direction can pass. Some areas have steep drop-offs and some have a fenced area so you can't fall. Over all the trail was probably the best I had ever been on considering the view and the various challenging parts of it. Of course it may have seemed more challenging to me due to the 5 year old.

The hike between Corneglia and Vernazza was the most difficult, but our guide had warned us earlier in the day to go in the direction that we went in rather than start from the other side. We swam in the Gulf of Genova in Vernazza when we arrived- boy was that refreshing! I bought some Cinque Terre wines and Ann-Marie picked out a pirate t-shirt and a stuffed animal before we got on the train to meet back up with our guide and group for the day. It was the perfect day trip- but next time I want a few extra days.