Always An Adventure

Before I left I had said to John I thought it was ridiculous to expect to be blogging while on vactation. Its time to enjoy ourselves not to be on the computer. And here I am doing it even before John. (Youll have to excuse the lack of apostrophes etc. as Im using a ratty old Italian keyboard and just hitting the space bar and left shift key takes effort. I have no idea where the apostrophe key is and english doesnt use this: " ç " which is where it should be). So, why am I blogging. Well, as it turns out, the easiest way to buy train tickets in Italy is on line (even if your Italian). You print it off and hop the train without needing to stand in line or play with another machine to get a ticket.

So, how is the vacation so far? Fun. We survived the flight and got our bearings quite quickly. Things havent been too difficult as almost everyone speaks excellent english. Our luggage did get lost, but it was delivered yesterday to the hotel in Florence and we now have a new appreciation for clean clothes.

We spent our first day in Venice and it was lovely. We had a great tour of the "secret" areas of the Doges Palace and our guide was a great story teller. The attic room contains all the armour that they have decided not to put on display in the public museum and John was very impressed. We got to see all the bones of the building which is very impressive.

We spent the next day in Florence and had a good look at the major Medici sights. It gives a real good idea of why people were pissed. The ostenatious display of wealth is truly shocking. A few years ago they unearthed some of the original burials to preserve the sites. They have taken the clothing off Cosimo de Medici and his wife Eleanor and laid them out flat for preservation. Amazing clothing. There is also some saint bits. I never thought much about this before, but Catholicism is kinda creepy that way.