Important Announcement

Due to SEVERAL issues with blogspot, we are changing web hosts. From now on, this blog can be found at www.thanks4blogspot.wordpress.com

And yes, it is being updated more frequently, because wordpress is much easier to use. The end.

Second Honeymoon: Villefranche sur la Mer

Last summer, in honor of our second wedding anniversary, J planned a second honeymoon for us in France. The trip was long and complex, and he was completely proud of himself for planning it. We only went to the places we could reasonably reach by train, but we still managed to spend time in Nice, Villefranche-sur-le-Mer, and several cities in Provence including Arles and Orange. The first part of our trip was "beach time." We flew into Nice and ate a late lunch (see J's picture below) and then travelled to our tiny hotel in Villefranche-sur-le-Mer.

Villefranche-sur-la-mer is a gorgeous spot near Cap Ferrat. We had a great time with our tiny hotel room and the rocky beach. We would take turns swimming in the beautiful water and sunbathing. My husband knows me far too well to take any pictures of me in a bathing suit, so there aren't many pictures from this location. However, here's a picture from the walk back to our hotel:

We stayed in an area that wasn't ridiculously expensive, but with the help of a bus, we managed to go to a gorgeous restaurant that was on the Cap Ferrat. Here I am, trying to pose and look chic, despite my prominent freckles. J did a great job with the reservations here; the food was amazing and the clientele was ridiculously good-looking.

Believe me when I say that the sunset was among the most romantic experiences of my life. Unfortunately, we forgot we had a camera until it got dark. It was still a gorgeous beginning to a romantic vacation, however. The next day, we went to Morocco, which will be the subject of my next post, if only because we took more pictures!! :)

Testing

Apparently, Word now allows you to write blog posts? If true, this would be awesome. So I'm checking it out. Here's a picture from Ireland as we experiment.

Venice

Shortly after Jonathan's business trip to Milan, we found ourselves traveling again in Italy. However, this time our destination was less business-like and more romantic. Venice is famous for many things-- squid ink, canals, gondolas, and, in the summer, TOURISTS. Jonathan and I really wanted to spend some time in Venice, but we weren't too thrilled at the idea of sharing the city with thousands of people, so we decided to take a three-day weekend in the late spring and enjoy as much art, culture, and pasta as we could manage before summer madness set in.

After a long train ride, we arrived in Venice. Thanks to the Rick Steve's guide books, we had arranged a walking tour of the city with a man named Alessandro Schezzini. Although we were not supposed to be the only ones on the tour, the rest of the group never showed up, so we had a great time learning about the "real Venice" from our own personal Venetian. He also took us to eat the Venetian version of "aperitivo" snacks called "ciccheti" all over town. EVERYTHING was fried, but it tasted really good!
Here are some pictures of the sights we encountered with Alessando, including a real gondola/gondolier.










The next day, we felt ready to explore on our own and move beyond Venice itself to the famous islands of Murano and Burano. I was determined to own some Venetian glass! So we braved the rain and Jonathan's mosquito bites (seriously, if you ever go somewhere with mosquitoes, bring him along! I got 2-- he got 26) and set out on a day trip to the islands. Although the factories and glassmakers on Murano were fascinating, it was really the tiny island of Burano that captured our hearts--and gave us our first experience with Acqua alta-- high waters!! Usually,there's a lace factory/museum, but it was closed for renovations.
Burano:



After our island adventures, we were cold and wet, but we still wanted to explore Venice. We went to the Frari church and enjoyed looking at Titian's Assumption of Mary with a (thankfully English-speaking) tour group. It's fun to eavesdrop on these tours if you happen to be in range-- this particular group was focusing on art appreciation and I learned a lot about the theory behind the piece. It was fascinating!
Then, J and I tried to rush to the Ca D'Oro before it closed. We made it, but the tour guide suggested we save our money and come back that night--it happened to be "night of the museums" in Venice and all the museums would be open from 9 pm until early in the morning. We thanked him profusely, almost left-- and then he let us in the bottom floor for free anyway! :) Here are some pictures of the beautiful "canal-front" mansion-- the upper floors have been turned into a modern picture gallery, so these are the only remaining parts of the old Gothic palace. I thought the floor was amazing!

























After these adventures, we were hungry but didn't want to get lured into a tourist-trap restaurant (which are legion in Venice). We still had time on our vaporetto passes, so we headed towards the less-touristy region of the city. I honestly don't remember the name of the area (or the restaurant where we ended up eating, for that matter), but if you think of Venice as a fish with San Marco square as the eye (and you should, since even their marketing does), we were in the tail. We found dinner at a restaurant where they barely spoke English, and it was not only excellent, but also authentic and filled with the families who actually still live in Venice (a shrinking number). Here are some pictures from the walk we took looking for a place to eat!







After dinner, we decided to take advantage of the museum night and head to the Accademia. We loved the price tag (free), and the art was really interesting, since it was by far the largest collection of medieval religious art I had ever seen. By the time we left, it was midnight, so I headed back to the hotel and Jonathan pushed on to the Ca D'oro to look at the canal at night.
He really enjoyed looking at the Grand Canal at night.

The next day, Jonathan had 23 mosquito bites, so he's not in a lot of the remaining pictures...and we both had a cold (complete with fever!). Still, we soldiered on to go on Rick Steve's grand canal tour. I was very excited to see Wake Forest's house. See pictures below:



























Afterward, we went to see an Italian opera singers protest at the Fenice. They were going to perform a "free" version of La Traviata for everyone to fight cutbacks from the government's cultural budget. I REALLY wanted to go, but our train left an hour after the opera started, so we had to pass. :( Overall, we had a fabulous time, but the evening we left was the beginning of "busy season" and it was insane how many people started streaming in from the train stations and airport boats. We highly encourage you to visit Venice--but book your vacation during the off-season. We could easily see how this city would give a bad impression if you were walking through the crowds and got caught in a few tourist traps.

Florence / Siena

Back in the Spring, I had the tough assignment to go work in Milan for the week. So, being one of the fashion capitals of the world, I sensibly decided to leave my wife safely at home and without credit cards and went by myself.

OK, not exactly true, but I was smart enough to go to a cash-basis only! Anyway, we had previously travelled to Milan in the Fall, which you can see in a previous blog posting, and we didn't really see much in the way of new or exciting things this time around to add. The greatest benefit of all was being able to drive down to Florence and Siena Friday afternoon, and that is the subject of this post.

In the picture above you see the iconic image of the famous cathedral, The Duomo, that towers over this city. The picture below is a little closer and was taken from our hotel doorway! Good job on the hotel, honey!

You probably are already aware that Florence was one of the primary cities of the Italian Renaissance. The Duomo is a symbol of man's renewed confidence as they incorporated a space for the dome in the blueprints for this cathedral before they even had the mathematical ability to build a dome this big! Their confidence was well-placed.....even if it took them 600 years after the cathedral was built to actually complete the dome. Today, it is still the largest brick and mortar dome in the world.

Here are a few more pictures of the cathedral.

Here you can see the bell tower beside the cathedral.

Ashley, taking over the post:

Below, you can see the illicit photo that Jonathan managed to take of Michaelangelo's David. Formerly, this statue was outdoors, but pollution and pigeons were taking a toll, so they moved it into the Uffizi and put a copy outside. I think you can see fairly easily that the original is a masterpiece, even with our somewhat shaky picture. Technically, the Uffizi gallery has restrictions on the number of visitors who can be in the gallery at any time. However, after having an amazing lunch in a little tiny deli (no pictures allowed, sadly), Jonathan and I decided to just drop by the Uffizi and SEE if we could get in. We were not expecting much, since the line for the Accademia was around the block. But we got incredibly lucky. We actually walked in. While J thought the David was the highlight of the trip *and it was, of course, I was also impressed with the musical instrument display inside the museum-- Stadivarius cello, anyone? Very cool.

After the Uffizi, we enjoyed walking around Florence. The Rialto bridge is in the background, although Jonathan wouldn't let me buy any jewelry. :(

Barcelona

I know, we promised. More frequent updates. Well, with Ashley now in the US I have nothing better to do. We've been busy...if you didn't already know, my job has a so-called 'busy-season' and that doesn't change whether in the US or in Switzerland, despite earning overtime. And, Ashley has just recently finished up her final paper for her master's degree, which the university was kind enough (or desperate enough for tuition $), to allow her to finish from abroad. So, yeah, we've been busy. If any of this is news to you, perhaps you should be checking out facebook every once in awhile! I know, I'm one to talk, not even having an account and all. I just use my wife's account to stalk my friends and make sure I'm not missing anyone's birthday. Anyway....on to Barcelona, with Florence & Venice to (hopefully) follow shortly thereafter.

We went to Barcelona when it was still freezing cold in Lausanne. Our first day was still cold in Barcelona, but after that it warmed up and was a great trip. Of the places we've been so far, Barcelona felt by far to be the most livable.

If you ever go to Barcelona, you will repeatedly encounter one name over and over again...Gaudi. It's impossible to avoid, from the 'street of discord' to the the Sagrada Familia (the cathedral) (trust me, you'll recognize it when you see the pictures below). It doesn't take much to understand why he's a big deal, as his buildings are immediately recognizable. They're actually really cool. So we'll start off with the obligatory tour of Gaudi with pictures from a tour we took of one his famous apartment buildings, pictures of another apartment building from the outside, followed immediately by the cathedral, and finally concluding with the park. Then we'll get to the rest of the city.

Gaudi Apartment buildings:

'Street of discord'

I think you can tell why. Every architect threw up their buildings side by side on this main avenue while they were competing with each other. The result is a cool and drastic change from one building to the next up and down the street as the traditional competes with the modern. The building in the center below is known as the mermaid building.

Next, is another apartment building that we actually went inside and toured (you can tour the mermaid building above, too). You can tell the pictures from Friday because the sky is overcast. So we decided to knock out our indoor activities. This turned out perfectly since the rest of the weekend was great weather. So you can immediately see what makes the building so recognizable. This building is now closing in on 100 years.

In the next picture you will see the interior courtyards, which are designed in a way that allows every apartment unit in the building to receive natural light into their inside rooms.

Some picture from the crazy roof of the same apartment building:

In this picture from the roof, you are looking down on one of the main boulevards in the city. Barcelona is very easy to get around. It has a very simple grid pattern for the entire length of the city.

In yet another picture from the roof, you can see the shadow of the Cathedral, our next destination.

Sagrada Familia (the cathedral):

You know how all those old cathedrals took 100s of years to build? Here's an example of one that is still being built. Just like with those old cathedrals, when engineers and architects retire in Barcelona, it is very common for them to begin working on a volunteer basis to help complete this cathedral. It is very much a community effort.

As you can see, this thing is kinda crazy....cool, but weird. I think I prefer a 'normal' cathedral, but it is still pretty cool. This facade is the only facade actually completed by Gaudi. The rest was constructed after his death. They also began using concrete, which you'll be able to tell in the next few pictures.

Second facade built using modern concrete. The 3rd facade is one of the final phases and was in progress when we visited. After that, they still have left to build something like a dozen or so spires. I don't have the exact number....google it yourself!

Finally, we come to the suburban park designed by Gaudi. This park is a failure. During the early 20th century, he was commissioned to design a neighboorhood and the company would then sell the individual plots. However, it didn't work so well. So now, it is all turned into a park, with the common community buildings that were built, along with the few houses actually constructed before they threw in the towel. Lucky for us, because it is a cool park and was very close to our hotel.

Original community structure designed to function as the weekend market.

With the boring part out of the way, we move on to the other part for which Barcelona is famous - tapas!

If you want to make friends in Spain, the quickest way to do so is remark loudly and frequently how it is essentially the Mexico of Europe. They love it when you say that, trust me!

They don't even speak Spanish (Castillian) in Barcelona! "Please" does not even equal "por favor"!. Barcelona is like the Dixie of Spain. They lost their civil war, but still rebelliously fly their own flag, speak their own language, and often threaten to become a separate country. Also, in reality, Spanish food is not hot & spicy. But, no matter, because they have tapas bars (which are not bars as we use the term), which are basically little appetizers that are very cheap. We had a lot of fun tapas-bar hopping for dinner. Because each tapas in so cheap and small in size, you can afford to take some risks on something you may not like, while being safe with your other choices. Although, good luck finding one that you don't like. After we tried the first few 'adventurous' tapas, we found they were all good. From that point on we went all-in, 100%, on the ones we had no idea what we were eating. This includes the stop at the seafood only tapas bar, which had some things that looked like the predator-prey role should have been reversed and it looked like they should be eating me!

Following are pictures from us roaming the streets looking for the next interesting tapas place:

You thought you were done with Gaudi? Not quite. A random piazza with a lamp post which is one of Gaudi's first works.

Chocolate

Barcelona was the first European city to have chocolate because of their South American colonies. Here is a picture of me eating the darkest of the dark chocolates you will find. For some reason, Ashley loves this picture. Or maybe it's because she knows shortly thereafter I licked the dish. Not really. OK, really.

More pictures from the top of the mountain park. This is a huge park that has an old citadel along with Olympic games structures.