camanoescape – The Wagnerson's Travel Adventures

Today is Tuesday, May 7th, it’s 11:45 pm here and I’m very tired so excuse the short post.  We said good bye to Venice and our home on the Canareggio Canal for the past 5 days. We took the bullet train, the Frecciargento at 125 mph from Venice to Bologna, the Italian capital of good food.  After eating lunch and dinner here tonight, we all would probably agree with that description of good food.  This city is so interesting.  Buildings that were built one thousand years ago are all around.  You see it in the doors, the windows, the roof lines.  We walked around two leaning towers and are planning to climb to the top of the tall one tomorrow morning. 

Should be some great opportunities for viewing.  Doug discovered a head attached to a building that he swears is me after I let my beard grow.  I will let you be the judge.

A final thought.  For desert tonight, we had what is called moscarpone…a wonderful, light cream cheese and shaved chocolate concoction that can only be described as a taste of heaven.  Wow…..If the three of us hadn’t insisted that Doug leave with us, he would have remained at the restaurant eating bowl after bowl after bowl of moscarpone.  It was that good!  Ciao!

Had an encounter of the seedy kind today. I was innocently purchasing some wine at a local market when a large commotion erupted behind me. Apparently some dastardly subject attempted to DOUBLE BAG the rest of the groceries (tequila) we had purchased. I turned around to find Wags caught red handed by the ever vigilant grocery clerk with TWO PLASTIC BAGS surrounding our tequila. “You have to pay for extra bags”!!!! She shrieked. Other more lawful shoppers looked on in disapproval, tongues clucking…I quickly attempted to quell the uprising by pealing out 5 euros, hoping to keep Wags out of the Venezian prison system, but he was too quick, ripping the offensive extra bag from the bottle and flinging it back on the rack. We sauntered out of the store at a dead run.

No long term harm done, the Venezian Polizia only followed us for a few blocks. Apparently they understand English pretty well, as they quit tailing us after I told Wags that I’d take out the tall skinny one if he took out the one that resembled Sylvester Stallone. He apparently didn’t want to try his luck with Wags any more than spawn of Popeye and the Village People did the other day, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

In the previous post, ignore the computer code nonsense in the post.  I can’t figure out how to eliminate that stuff.  Skip to the youtube link below the nonsense and click on that to witness firsthand the craziness that is the Grand Canal on a Monday afternoon in Venice.  Those poor gondoliers, but really, those poor schmucks in the gondola who are paying good money to experience that unique type of fright!

Imagine being a gondolier trying to maneuver amongst the big power boats.  Yikes!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i19Llt8grUw&feature=youtu.be

Here is a classic example of wine pairing……Doug pairing a bottle of wine with both sour cream and regular Pringles!

After 4 days in Venice we made it to St Mark’s square. Unfortunately it was in the middle of the worst weather we’ve had so far. Reference Dale’s entertaining photos. Weather and umbrellas aside, what an amazing place. I couldn’t count how many times we said, “look at that,” or “come see this.” Without realizing it, we had arrived just in time for evening Mass. I have never even been in a Catholic church before. And between the Latin and Italian, I basically understood nothing that was being said. But you didn’t need an interpreter to understand the reverence in that place, And when they sang Gloria Gloria In Excelsis Deo we joined in. Awesome experience. After that we walked in the rain, again assisted by those wonderful umbrellas til we finally ducked into a great little trattoria to dry out and have a snack before beginning our quest for dinner. Remember, it’s all about eating our way through Italy. We’ve got a pretty good start.

We went to Saint Marks square in Venice this evening.  We even went in and sat through the evening mass in St. Mark’s Basilica.  It was very cool.  However before the mass, as we arrived at Saint Mark’s square, so did the wind and the rain and everyone cleared out.  It was like Moses parting the red sea as the people just seemed to move away from us.  Of course maybe it was Barb and her dangerous wielding of a fancy new umbrella she bought at the square when the rain and wind started.  I am sure glad that my camera has automatic image stabilization.  I was laughing so hard I could hardly hold the camera still to take pictures.  What follows is an assortment of camera shots of the two umbrella carriers in our party tonight.  One has a red one and one has a multi-colored one.  See if you can spot any difference in the way they are used……..It is like one has lived in the desert all of her life and sees the umbrella as a source for collecting rain water to save for a later day.  Hmmmmm.  Anyway, here goes.

On Saturday, May 4th, When we left our hotel in the Jewish ghetto area of Venice and took the vaporetto to the island of Murano, little did Doug and I realize what we were getting into.  Oye vey!  We were both thinking of perhaps procuring a nice little sample of Murano glass to take back home with us to remember this trip.  Unfortunately, Lynda and Barb were thinking on a much grander scale.  Not sensing that Doug and I were ripe enough for the killing yet, they took us on a shopping spree……in and out of every shop we see.  I finally got to the point that I would just step inside the shop and wait there as Lynda and the others would forge on ahead.  The rule apparently is that you have to at least “enter” the shop with the other person to have it qualify as “shopping together”.  After an hour or two……(or maybe it was ten hours) of this kind of “shopping together” I was willing to agree to about anything to call off this legally acceptable albeit disguised form of water boarding. I voiced my surrender.  Smiling and nodding knowingly at the effectiveness of their methods, the women marched us back to the shop with the BIG pieces of glass artwork that we had been in hours before.  I don’t really remember what it was that I bought……by that point my mind was numb, my eyes were glassy and my feet were achy.  I figured I had to buy my freedom and was more than willing to do whatever it took by credit card to accomplish that.  I do remember that they ship and we can expect a package to arrive at my office later on in the month.  Lord knows what that contains. 

Escaping the island of Murano, we headed by vaporetto to the island of Burano.  This is a very cool little island known over the centuries for its lace factories.  Since Lynda’s and my 39th wedding anniversary is approaching next month and the item assigned to this milestone is lace, this journey seemed like a perfect match.  The houses, stores and restaurants in the town are all painted in different bright and very vivid colors.  Legend has it that the wives of the fisherman who lived on the island started this tradition of wild colors by painting their houses a different but bright color so their husbands could see and identify their own respective houses while out at sea. 

What I didn’t know until I got here and saw it with my own eyes, was that the island of Burano has its own leaning tower, just like Pisa!  Built in 1704 this tower leans 5–6 degrees and seems like it will fall over.  So far it hasn’t fallen.  The amazing thing is that the bell tower still works.  On the hour it starts ringing for about 2 minutes or so.  I took some video that I will try and post of the tower bell ringing.  Hopefully this works as I have posted the youtube link on the bottom of this post.  If this link works and you enlarge the video to full screen, you can see the bells inside clanging back and forth. (maybe right click on the link and choose open link in new window) This 51 second video also captures a little girl who started swaying back and forth with the bells as soon as they sounded.  She kept it up for entire two minutes.  Very cute!   

At dinner in Burano, we were all so wooped, that we decided to take a private water taxi back to our hotel so we’d get there in 15 minutes as opposed to the 2 hour process it would take us with the vaporetto.  The cost was worth it.  Very very tired.  We can’t keep up this pace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HAwsRxR4nSw