Here are photos of the second day in Venice, when we visited the islands of Murano and Burano. Each island has it’s own different personality! Very enjoyable.
Today has been a nice lazy day at home, with a nice walk into the Parco di Monza and gelato in Vedano.
Here they are, for you to enjoy! Today I went through the first day of Venice photos, and posted my favorites. I hope they give you a little flavor of the city and what we experienced. The rest will come soon.
Today I also did my first clothes shopping here in Italy. I asked Paola, one of the women I work with here, some good places to go. I wanted to get a couple more skirts for the hot weather to wear to work and for travel, so much cooler and nicer looking when you can’t or don’t want to wear shorts! She pointed me to an outlet store nearby and a good mall. I didn’t find anything at the outlet store but did have some luck at the mall. Sizing is different and the average body type is different here so it was interesting at first trying to guess what size to try on. After a few visits to the “camerini” I had it narrowed down to a range of 2 or 3 sizes.
I can tell I’m getting used to the more expensive prices here, because I was happy to find two skirts and a shirt I liked at a couple of different stores at a “good price”. On the “cheap” end of things, really. It was Euro 70.00 total – which equates to around $100 at the current exchange rate. Now, at home, my favorite stores are Ross and TJ Maxx and don’t like to spend more than $20 on any one piece of clothing – and that only occasionally – so this is a lot for me! But that’s the price we pay for living in Italy – literally.
Venice. What a feast for the eyes, food for the creative soul. What an amazing place to see, to experience, to photograph. It made me want to stop and take in every view, explore the city at all day to see how it looks in every light. I think this ranks up there as a place that everyone should visit in person before they die… along with the outlying islands of Murano and Burano that we also visited.
This weekend I intend to sort through the 898 photos I took to find the very best to share with you all. Until then, I updated my profile pic as a teaser. Sometimes I can’t believe that we live in Italy and we are able to just walk out the door with our suitcase and get to a place like this in a couple of hours.
This has been a crazy week for me, and as soon as we arrived home from Venice on Tuesday evening I was working and on the phone to Corvallis. We had a big meeting on Thursday between my company and the company we work with, had visitors in from Corvallis so lots of meetings, dinners, etc. and I am tired! I look forward to a calm weekend at home, sorting through pics.
The weather is hot here, unseasonably hot I hear. Today we are just “chilling” at home, trying to stay cool before Brandon has a birthday party to go to in a couple of hours.
Yesterday we spent an enjoyable day in Pavia, a town about an hour’s drive south from our house. It is a beautiful little town, with some interesting sights to see and a history going back to Roman times. Unfortunately there is not a lot of information on the town in English but Patrick managed to research the history a bit online. Between that and the map we bought of the city when we got there, we saw a lot of interesting things!
As always, visit Patrick’s blog for more details on our day and the places we visted, and go here for my photos of the day. I tell my stories more with pictures than words, so that is what you are going to get from my blog. 🙂
And maybe some comments on the creative process as I explore that more… Like the fact that I noticed yesterday that I am becoming more comfortable with carrying my “big” camera around. Not as in physical comfort, but not feeling or caring that I look odd. I was looking more for the details or the things that strike me. What would tell part of the story of our visit or what just caught my eye. That means that I am taking more pictures these days, and I have more that I like to share with everyone.
So beware, when you visit my albums, it may take a while. 🙂
This morning I woke up and couldn’t ignore the morning light on the balcony flowers. You see, our bedroom has a set of glass doors that open out onto the balcony and we’ve been sleeping with them open because it’s so hot. So I woke up to the beautiful morning light, and had to get up and get a few pictures.
Enjoy!
Sunday afternoon was Stage 9 of the Giro d’Italia in Milan, so we went downtown for the day. Funny how after a couple of trips it’s no big deal to get to the Metro station and get into Milan – it seemed like such a project a few weeks ago!
Our plan was to arrive downtown by 9:30am so that we could get in early to see the Monet exhibit at the Palazzo Reale (Royal Palace). This exhibit is “Monet: Time of the Water Lilies” and focused on the influences on Monet from Japanese art and gardens. He built a Japanese garden at his home in Giverny and that is where his water lily paintings were painted. There were 20 works of water lilies, weeping willows, reflections in the pond and the Japanese bridge in his garden, along with paintings and photographs of gardens from Japan that influenced Monet.
First off, can I just say, it was incredible to see some original Monet paintings and to enjoy them in person. To see the colors he used first hand – what a range! From soft, dreamy pastels to bold purples and greens, all intermixed to create the image. And then the texture – to see the brushstrokes up close, the places where the paint is thicker or fades out. It was amazing.
It was also fun for Brandon, because in his art class at school they had studied Monet and impressionism a little bit, so he liked to see it. I have to say, it makes me appreciate the Art@Adams program a lot more seeing now what Brandon has learned in art in just a couple of years of elementary school! At age 8 he has an appreciation for art that I am surprised at, but love.
It makes me want to learn how to paint with oils – the colors, the textures… I’m going to have to try it sometime! No pictures of the exhibit though, which is too bad, but also just fine because the pictures just would not do the paintings justice. Looking in the books right after seeing the paintings was disappointing, because the colors were just not right!
From the exhibit we went up on the roof of the Duomo, it was open and Brandon was dying to go up! It’s a nice view of the city, and so different from the “downtown” of your average US city. There are no skyscrapers, for one. The streets aren’t laid out in the typical grid pattern we are used to. There are all sorts of bell towers and church domes dotting the skyline. Different.
The rest of the day was spent watching the Giro d’Italia! It kicked off about 1:30pm. Mike came down and we wandered from the Duomo and Castello area over to the Porta Venezia area of Milan, following the course and seeing the riders from different locations. We ended up at Mike’s new apartment to see it and also the last lap of the race a block or so from his place. From there we took the Metro back and headed home. A long, hot, sunny day but fun! Of course there are pictures – go here.
On days like yesterday, it is just so amazing to think that we live here and can do all of these things in one day!