From Firenze to Venezia

We had a fine time in Florence, but PEOPLE everywhere. From our first entrance into the city during a charity RunWalk, to the Duomo, to shopping, to David at the Accademia, to dining .... Well, there were plenty of folks to walk with.

We enjoyed many beautiful scenes of the city, including nice views of the Ponte Vecchio bridge spanning the Arno River. Our hotel room looked right out on the shop-filled bridge, and the rooftop terrace where we had afternoon tea looked right down the river and across the southern part of the city.

We saw a lot more medieval and Renaissance Italian art than we expected - in the squares, churches and museums, even tucked in along the street. My dreams began to feature people in medieval dress and floating angels. Very strange!

We took the Eurostar (fast) train to Venice, and that was wonderful. Very smooth and relaxed, we had time to read and plan our arrival in Venice. We had no problem towing our luggage through the train station to the Vaporetto (water bus) and riding across the Grand Canal to our hotel. Our biggest surprise was how narrow the "streets" are, really passageways wide enough for two people to pass. Canals permeate the city, and some walkways end at the water's edge, while bridges are numerous, but are not everywhere. We have a great map and haven't gotten too lost yet. Maybe tomorrow.

We had a wonderful dinner of roasted fish last night, and visited the amazing Rialto fish market this morning. Wow, whole tuna being cut into steaks to order, more types of squid than I knew existed, many types of whole fish and shellfish, all incredibly fresh. Maybe twenty different fish vendors, every one of them larger than the fish market at Whole Foods, and it was all wrapped up and cleaned out when we passed by at 2:00 p.m.

Tomorrow we travel by train to Parma, but now we're going out for espresso and pastries. Ciao!