Plugged back in to the net in Heathrow

Hey all my loyal readers!
The last 5 days have been a whirlwind of activity, and I've had no access to Internet on my computer. I DID get Internet use of my BnB's computer, but that was for limited amounts of time. So, I am going to do my best to catch you up before my Mac battery dies in 28 minutes, umm, 27 minutes (I didn't bring a UK power adapter, only European).
We had a nice and windy (that's wind-ee) drive through the hills of Tuscany to our next BnB, Villa i Cipressi. Unfortunately, we decided to wait until we got most of the way there to figure out exactly where it was located. Turns out their address was on a street unknown to our Tomtom GPS, or Google for that matter. We figured we'd just get close and use the directions from their website (read them, they are lovely and vague). After asking, searching, and a breaking for dinner, I finally got ahold of the booking agent for the BnB (thanks, Euro SIM phone!!). She met us at a restaurant, led us to the Inn keeper, who then led us up, and I mean UP, to the villa. It was 5 miles off the "main" road, and the last 1000 feet was dirt and stone. BUT WOW, it was worth it! Beautiful, quiet, friendly owners, large room, great shower, and amazing view. The same alergic reactions that plague me when I visit PA in the Spring hit me just as hard in Tuscany, however, so I filled my handkerchief a few times (sorry bout that).
The following three days we visited downtown Florence, taking in the extremely old and popular sites. We managed to squeeze in climbing the Duomo (so worth the 460 steps), the 2 hr line at the Uffizi (our reservation didn't go through), and the incredible David at della'Accadamia. Each location we had an audio tour from Rick Steve's, courtesy of his free iTunes podcasts (had some for Venice as well). It was nice to just walk along and get his commentary, although at times it was a bit irreverent, even for my tastes.
Tuesday night we toured a winery with the wedding party (oh yeah, we came here for a wedding), and had a private dinner for 31 one (the whole wedding attendants), very nice.
Wednesday we managed to squeeze in that visit to the Accadamia before the 3:30 Wedding, and glad we did. It was our first time driving into the center of Florence, as the previous 2 days we drove to the end of the local bus service and rode in to avoid the chaos of Florence driving (and insane parking prices). I lucked out with a free street space near the Duomo (unheard of), and with the help of Tomtom, found our way back out of the city and to the wedding with 10 minutes to spare.
If we could have only gotten those 10 minutes when we arrived at the Milan-Malpensa airport on Thursday... NEVER miss a flight on EasyJet. After returning our rental car, waiting 15 minutes for the 10 minute bus ride from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2, we missed check for our EastJet flight by 10 minutes. Next available flight? June 1st. When is the flight to LA from London? May 30th.
We learned a really tough lesson on this one. I simply didn't allow for the time to get from one Terminal to the other. I scrambled for 2 hrs, pumping Euros into the Internet kiosk (no WIFI at all), and finally managed to locate a flight on Lufthansa through Munic on Friday morning at 7AM. No matter what I tried I could not book the flight on that darn terminal, so I was forced to have a ticket agent at Malpensa do it for me, and pay in Euros (OUCH, lost out big time there), paying 1.58X more than I needed to. So, crisis 1 averted, we needed a place to stay other than the floor of Malpensa airport (been there, done that). Just about every local motel that didn't cost 200 Euros was booked that I could find online. Then I had a brainstorm, what about the site I used to find our BnB near Florence? It worked, I found a place 5 minutes away, I called, he was available, and picked us up in 10 minutes!!
Just like every place we stayed on this trip (all independent BnB's in private homes), it was clean, quiet, and with very nice quality bathroom fixtures and shower. Biggest surprise was the beds, they were separated single beds (like on I Love Lucy), but they were VERY comfortable, much more so than any before. Not only did Roberto pick us up, he had breakfast ready for us at 5AM and drove us back to the airport, all for 80 Euros. Just awesome.
I am sure Amy can give all off this her own POV, and hope she will when we return. My battery is slowing tanking out and I want to give her a chance to use my computer. We now wait for our 2PM flight to LA on Virgin Atlantic, and everything is good in the world.
Thanks for reading!

The Venice Experience

As we prepare for the next leg of our journey to Florence, and wait for our laundry to line dry, we reflect on the amazing experiences we've had in Venice. Two days, Four Gelatos (each), 6 paninis, a swanky lunch at the Hotel Cipriani (as suggested by Joe Cirpriano), 3 Vapperetto rides, a few raindrops, and a million bridges later, we are exhausted but satisfied we've experienced Venice to the fullest.


Let me just tell you what we did NOT tour before you ask: The Basilica, the Campanille, The Acadamia, and Doge's Palace. The crowds surrounding these attractions were just too intense, and we much rather enjoyed the quiet, non touristic areas of the city. We wandered far into the Jewish Ghetto, and WAY far into the Castello, along the Arsenal on the north side of the island where NO tourists go (for good reason). See this photo.


We enjoyed Venice at night when we returned after a very brief nap to see a Vivaldi concert, and our Italiano is amazing, but only when ordering Gelato!

First Day in Venice

We had a wonderful day of leisurely strolling through the narrow streets and alleys of Venice.
Since I had been to Venice before, I loosely guided Amy but let her choose the path and let her keen eye for photography be our guide. The weather looked threatening much of the day, with occasional rainfall prompting us to deploy our rain gear, but most of the time it was great, with plenty of periods of sun.
Rather than posting individual photos within the blog, since it is too difficult to choose, I will just give you the link to our Picassa Album of all the photos from the trip. The only photos not posted are from Amy's Hasselblad, since they need to be processed from the RAW format when she returns home (and they are HUGE files!). The images are a combination of photos from our Canon S3 and Blackberry Curve phone.
Enjoy...

Amy & Geo Do Italy

The jetlag entry

I am writing this while laying in bed at 4AM in our lovely BnB in Marcon, Italy, just outside Venice. Actually, I wrote most of this 24 hrs ago while sitting outside the Malpensa airport near Milan, but didn't have an internet connection with which to post it...

It is 3AM, we just arrived in Milan at the Malpensa airport. We have no Euros, can't hire a taxi. Can't rent a car, the shops are closed. So, we sit outside (ed. slept inside) on a bench until 7AM for the car rental companies to open. Oh well, that motel we prepaid for was probably infested with cockroaches anyway, LOL!

We've past the 24 hrs of non-stop traveling mark now. Even though we aren't actually moving, I still count this as traveling since we have no place to call home until we reach Venice this afternoon.

Things we've learned the hard way so far about traveling Italy:
1) Get your Euros ahead of time at your bank, you must call the bank with 3 days notice to get the exchange. The exchange rates at the kiosks in the airport are a total rip off.

2) Give yourself a day before you catch your next flight out of London. You never know if your plane will get diverted to another airport due to severe thunderstorms, causing you to arrive 3 hrs late, when nothing is open.
PS, don't fly late in the day so you don't run into the nothing open issue in the first place.

3) Use a REALLY good underarm deodorant because 10 hrs on a plane is rough on everyone around you in a 10' radius. Actually, I stunk BEFORE I got on the first plane.

4) If you can avoid it don't prepay for your Motel/Hotel. You can't be sure if you will make it to said motel after multiple flight delays.

5) Carry a lot of healthy snack bars and fruit to hold you over between rare opportunities to have a decent meal during transit.

6) Even on Virgin Atlantic, eating the Vegetarian entree gives you bad gas.

7) Givn a choice between sleeping on a metal bench or paying a crazy taxi fair to and from your motel room just for 6 hrs of sleep, choose the motel, because driving 6 hrs on little sleep really sucks.

OK, so that sounded rather pesimistic, but all in all we really are having a good time! We took a very leisurely route half way to Venice to see the country towns and avoid the insane toll road rates, and REALLY love having our TomTom One GPS unit with European map. It makes it effortless to take countless detours without getting lost. We stopped along a lakeside park and I took a 2 hrs nap on the grass with the gentle lake waves lapping nearby. Our BnB in Marcon, Venetto is really nice, clean, quiet, and very reasonable at 60 Euro/night. Here's their website if you are interested: http://www.vrbo.com/151976

Birds are starting to sing, I'd better get back to sleep for a few hours...
Ciao!

George