Looking back on venice

Dan and I arrived in Italy on April 6th, 2010 and a few weeks after we arrived we visited Venice.  I am posting this now because I didn’t have a blog back then to post it

When we first got into Venice we got on the water taxi and took that to the main Square in Venice. These are some pictures that were taken while on the boat.

 

St. Mark’s Basilica in the main square.

Dan’s lunch- Pizza

My lunch- 4 cheese gnocchi

Since this first trip to Venice we have been back there around 6 other times. It’s so big and there is so much to see and so many shops!  It’s a quick hop on the train and only an hour away, it’s always a great place to go when you have nothing else going on and want to get out and do something. There are small islands around Venice that you can visit by ferry, we haven’t done that yet, but hope to soon. I will also post some other pictures of places we visited before I got the blog started.

Miramare Castle and Trieste

Yesterday Dan and I headed towards Trieste since we haven't been there yet and we wanted to get out and do something. We attempted this in the summertime, it didn't end well. We travel with the car Dan bought here because we don't want to put miles on the Lexus and the parking spots here are tiny and we try to avoid door dings anytime we can. When we tried to go in the summer, traffic was stopped on the autostrada for about and hour and half. The highways over here don't have nearly as many exits as they do in the states, so we were stuck there, roasting in the 95 degree weather. His car has A/C, but from all the stopping and going, his clutch was getting hot and barely wanting to go, so turning off the AC made it a little better. Not a good experience. Yesterday was a lot better though, it was cloudy but overall a good day, no rain at least.

First we stopped at Miramare Castle, which is just northeast of Trieste. We parked and walked along the waterfront getting pictures of the castle.







The front of the Castle




They wouldn't let you take any pictures inside the castle, like most places here. But it was great. The castle was built for Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian and his wife in 1856. Her "apartment" which was more like different rooms in a house were on the first floor along with his office, which looked like the inside of a ship. It's pretty neat to wander through these places and think how old all the stuff in the room is. The castle sits on 54 acres, most of it being a huge garden. We walked through the garden, heard peacocks, but didn't see any, saw a lot of cats and a swan.













Dan and I then went on to Trieste, we walked around the city a bit and went into some different shops just to kill some time.




We came across the ruins of an ancient Roman Amphitheatre.



Some other pictures of the City







Overall, we had a good time. We wish it would have been a more beautiful day, but we will go back when it's clear and get better pictures. I'm sure visitors would want to see this as well, so it's only a matter of time before we go back.

I also took some pictures of the leaves on a tree in our back yard. I'm surprised it still has leaves, but it does and they are beautiful!