Family of 5/6 Return from 1 month adventure: France, Switz, Italy
Aug 5th, 2007, 12:41 PM
#61
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ktravel - i don't know how much they'll remember due to ages and is part of the reason i'm bound and determined to get a trip report completed and put together w/ memorabilia and photos. I do know the experience had an impact on them for a million reasons.. and increased their interested in the world beyond Conyers, GA!!(suburb of ATL)
dawnnoelm: yea - i've noticed you've had a pause in your writing.. it's been pretty hard for me to keep going bc the kids started school last Fri (and all that entails getting them ready..)and - I'm feeling really guilty about not working much this summer and need to get back "full speed" - - but know if I completely stop now - it will NEVER get done - like the millions of pics i have on disk or in a box rather than an album...
Thanks for all to the encouragement to keep going!
dawnnoelm: yea - i've noticed you've had a pause in your writing.. it's been pretty hard for me to keep going bc the kids started school last Fri (and all that entails getting them ready..)and - I'm feeling really guilty about not working much this summer and need to get back "full speed" - - but know if I completely stop now - it will NEVER get done - like the millions of pics i have on disk or in a box rather than an album...
Thanks for all to the encouragement to keep going!
Aug 7th, 2007, 03:38 PM
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VeeBee, still enjoying your report. Especially the Provence and Cinque Terre weeks as we did almost the same trip in reverse. I loved staying in Lourmarin and reading about your stay made me want to go again. My husband and I keep talking about taking our adult kids and small grandchildren on a Europe trip one of these days. It does sound exhausting though especially trying to move from place to place. You all seemed to manage it all very well and were able to see so many places. I could picture the tiny apartment in Vernazza - must have been very crowded at times! We stayed in Vernazza as well - high on a hillside in a room with a deck overlooking Vernazza. We loved all the little towns and riding the trains from one to the other.
We caught that early train out of Vernazza, changed trains in Monterroso, and again in Genoa. We trained into Nice and picked up our rental car and drove on into Provence. It is very difficult to get any train information at the station in Vernazza or in Monterroso for that matter. I remember we kept asking questions, but couldn't get any answers. Never could figure out if they didn't know any English or just didn't like answering questions! Glad you were able to arrange for a taxi. I am anxious to hear if you made the connections and were able to get to Venice without any major problems with the strike!
We caught that early train out of Vernazza, changed trains in Monterroso, and again in Genoa. We trained into Nice and picked up our rental car and drove on into Provence. It is very difficult to get any train information at the station in Vernazza or in Monterroso for that matter. I remember we kept asking questions, but couldn't get any answers. Never could figure out if they didn't know any English or just didn't like answering questions! Glad you were able to arrange for a taxi. I am anxious to hear if you made the connections and were able to get to Venice without any major problems with the strike!
Aug 11th, 2007, 01:12 PM
#63
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Day 24: VERNAZZA - VENICE
Friday, June 22
Up VERY early for our travel day to Venice. The first leg of our journey is a taxi ride from Vernazza to Monterosso to catch our train to Milan. I was a little nervous about our taxi showing up at 5:15am as planned.. the communication via phone the previous day was a little confused. Got the children up and they did a little “sleep walking” from our apartment to the meeting point at the top of town (parking lot). And much to our delight – a beautiful, brand-new VW 9 passenger van pulled up right on time. A few girls frantically asked if they could join us in our taxi ride as they also needed to catch the early am train out of MR. So all 7 of us piled into this very nice man’s van and off we went up and over the mountains on a very narrow road. It was a very foggy morning - but the view was still eerily beautiful. However, about 30 minutes into the drive – the twists and turns got to me and I had to ask for a pitstop. UGH!! Within about 10 minutes – my 7 yo son looked white and also asked for a stop… what a ride. By the time we got to the train station in MR after 1 hr of mountain rodes – we all looked worse for the ride – but we made our 6:45am train to Milan !
Had a little time in Milan before our train to Venice.. and once we actually boarded for our reserved seats in 2nd class (1st not available) – we could could hardly get to our car – it was beyond packed! People sitting/standing in the aisles, about twice the actual train capacity.. .. when we got to our reserved seats – they were taken – and we had to insist on them moving. Apparently, due to the strike, people had been sitting in train stations everywhere trying to get on a train in the right direction. Some had been “traveling” for 30 hrs or more. The other thing I didn’t think about on strike day was there were no ticket windows open.. at Milan station there was one emergency help line that snaked its way through the entire station (looked like a 3 hr or more wait). Anyway, we did get into our car, settled in for the ride to Venice.. and eventually cooled down..
Arrival in Venice was great. It had been 20 yrs since my last visit (as a backpacking new college grad) and it did feel different. Somehow, it was more modern.. But once we got the whole family on vaporetto number 1 – it was still magical. The grand canal was beautiful although very crowded. A few older Italian women pushed aside tourists scolding them in Italian to make way for my three kids to have a view…it was really sweet.
Got off at Accademia stop and made our way to our B&B/Apartment in the Dorsoduro area…www.cadelbrocchi.com Directions on website were great and no problems finding – about a 10 minute walk from the vaporetto stop. Actually crossing over the many small bridges with all the kids and roller suitcases was pretty funny… By the time we arrived at our B&B – we were pretty hot and sweaty…they greeting us with glass after glass of cold Orange Juice…appreciated!
We were very pleasantly surprised by the apartment. -----Unbelievable for the $$ - 190Euro/night. We had two nice size bedrooms (1 Q and 2 Twins), two bathrooms (1 w/ shower, 1/ bath) and VERY large kitchen, living area (w/ rollaway twin), hallway and dining room. The apartment was down the street from Ca del Brocchi B&B -where we had bkft included each am. Breakfast was pretty good - hot baked rolls, jam, yogurt, variety of juices, and freshly made cappuccinos, hot choc, etc,,,
Apartment was not decorated as rooms on website - but rather more like updated Venetian apartment.. with Italian ambience.. tile floors, nice antique-like furnishing, etc. There were no views of water from our apartment .. and one other drawback was no a/c. However, the ceiling fans were sufficient with open windows for cross-breeze for us in late June. Could not have handled it in really bad heat…We really enjoyed the quiet atmosphere of the area and getting away from the tourist hustle/bustle each evening. The traghetto is a 5 minute walk and will take you across to 5 minute walk to St Marks, etc.
After getting settled into our very spacious digs, (so welcome after our tiny one-room apartment in Vernazza) we took off for a walk…grabbed some pizza and ended up where else but Piazza San Marco. Well, all the kids needed was about one minute before joining the endless game of having the pigeons land on your head, hand, shoulder etc… Personally, I couldn’t get into letting them land on me, but the kids absolutely loved just sitting there with the birth-control enhanced 1E bags of pigeon food – for as long as we’d let them..
Walked around for a few hours just exploring and window shopping – so much to see – then finally made our way home after daily gelato for a somewhat early evening. Getting back to our apartment in a very residential area–With no A/C – of course every window in every room of the apartment was open – and there was lots of conversation among the windows of our neighbors… The lady in window #5 would call out to her friend across the way in window #11 and then an older gentleman stopped in the courtyard below to join the conversation….probably sounds corny – but we really felt for the moment that we lived here among the Venetians! That’s ambiance! However, took awhile to get to sleep!
Friday, June 22
Up VERY early for our travel day to Venice. The first leg of our journey is a taxi ride from Vernazza to Monterosso to catch our train to Milan. I was a little nervous about our taxi showing up at 5:15am as planned.. the communication via phone the previous day was a little confused. Got the children up and they did a little “sleep walking” from our apartment to the meeting point at the top of town (parking lot). And much to our delight – a beautiful, brand-new VW 9 passenger van pulled up right on time. A few girls frantically asked if they could join us in our taxi ride as they also needed to catch the early am train out of MR. So all 7 of us piled into this very nice man’s van and off we went up and over the mountains on a very narrow road. It was a very foggy morning - but the view was still eerily beautiful. However, about 30 minutes into the drive – the twists and turns got to me and I had to ask for a pitstop. UGH!! Within about 10 minutes – my 7 yo son looked white and also asked for a stop… what a ride. By the time we got to the train station in MR after 1 hr of mountain rodes – we all looked worse for the ride – but we made our 6:45am train to Milan !
Had a little time in Milan before our train to Venice.. and once we actually boarded for our reserved seats in 2nd class (1st not available) – we could could hardly get to our car – it was beyond packed! People sitting/standing in the aisles, about twice the actual train capacity.. .. when we got to our reserved seats – they were taken – and we had to insist on them moving. Apparently, due to the strike, people had been sitting in train stations everywhere trying to get on a train in the right direction. Some had been “traveling” for 30 hrs or more. The other thing I didn’t think about on strike day was there were no ticket windows open.. at Milan station there was one emergency help line that snaked its way through the entire station (looked like a 3 hr or more wait). Anyway, we did get into our car, settled in for the ride to Venice.. and eventually cooled down..
Arrival in Venice was great. It had been 20 yrs since my last visit (as a backpacking new college grad) and it did feel different. Somehow, it was more modern.. But once we got the whole family on vaporetto number 1 – it was still magical. The grand canal was beautiful although very crowded. A few older Italian women pushed aside tourists scolding them in Italian to make way for my three kids to have a view…it was really sweet.
Got off at Accademia stop and made our way to our B&B/Apartment in the Dorsoduro area…www.cadelbrocchi.com Directions on website were great and no problems finding – about a 10 minute walk from the vaporetto stop. Actually crossing over the many small bridges with all the kids and roller suitcases was pretty funny… By the time we arrived at our B&B – we were pretty hot and sweaty…they greeting us with glass after glass of cold Orange Juice…appreciated!
We were very pleasantly surprised by the apartment. -----Unbelievable for the $$ - 190Euro/night. We had two nice size bedrooms (1 Q and 2 Twins), two bathrooms (1 w/ shower, 1/ bath) and VERY large kitchen, living area (w/ rollaway twin), hallway and dining room. The apartment was down the street from Ca del Brocchi B&B -where we had bkft included each am. Breakfast was pretty good - hot baked rolls, jam, yogurt, variety of juices, and freshly made cappuccinos, hot choc, etc,,,
Apartment was not decorated as rooms on website - but rather more like updated Venetian apartment.. with Italian ambience.. tile floors, nice antique-like furnishing, etc. There were no views of water from our apartment .. and one other drawback was no a/c. However, the ceiling fans were sufficient with open windows for cross-breeze for us in late June. Could not have handled it in really bad heat…We really enjoyed the quiet atmosphere of the area and getting away from the tourist hustle/bustle each evening. The traghetto is a 5 minute walk and will take you across to 5 minute walk to St Marks, etc.
After getting settled into our very spacious digs, (so welcome after our tiny one-room apartment in Vernazza) we took off for a walk…grabbed some pizza and ended up where else but Piazza San Marco. Well, all the kids needed was about one minute before joining the endless game of having the pigeons land on your head, hand, shoulder etc… Personally, I couldn’t get into letting them land on me, but the kids absolutely loved just sitting there with the birth-control enhanced 1E bags of pigeon food – for as long as we’d let them..
Walked around for a few hours just exploring and window shopping – so much to see – then finally made our way home after daily gelato for a somewhat early evening. Getting back to our apartment in a very residential area–With no A/C – of course every window in every room of the apartment was open – and there was lots of conversation among the windows of our neighbors… The lady in window #5 would call out to her friend across the way in window #11 and then an older gentleman stopped in the courtyard below to join the conversation….probably sounds corny – but we really felt for the moment that we lived here among the Venetians! That’s ambiance! However, took awhile to get to sleep!
Aug 12th, 2007, 05:55 AM
#65
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Day 25: VENICE
Saturday, June 23
Up early and to our B&B for breakfast. Nice to start our day with someone else fixing breakfast and nice hot cappuccinos for us! The kids immediately wanted to go over to Piazza San Marco .. so we took the nearby traghetto. Our own little gondola ride across the Grand Canal was a great way to start the day. This is my DH’s first trip to Venice – and he is really awed by the city. One of those places you can’t really understand how special it is - until you’re there.
The Piazza was just waking up and after a few minutes of feeding pigeons, we used our reservations to go directly into St Mark’s basicila for a visit. It really is so uniquely beautiful and Byzantine…my younger son and I decided to visit the upstairs museum while the rest went out to the piazza. Very nice museum and worth our time…and the views from the terrace were really spectacular. It was a sunny, clear day and couldn’t have imagined better weather. (especially early before it heated up..)
We walked over to the Rialto bridge and did a little shopping in all the shops and market near there– we all enjoyed the great “tourist” gifts everywhere – murano glass, masks, puppets, etc.. and picked up some souvenirs.. . As they day heated up and everyone started to get tired and hot, it was hard to find a cool place to sit down and rest. However, we made our way to Ca Rezzonico .. where they have a nice, cool garden behind the museum where my DH, younger son and daughter hung out while my older son and I toured the museum.
Explored the San Polo and Santa Croce areas…but unfortunately, I had a migraine which accelerated through the day – so we made our way back to our apartment for a rest.
By evening, I realized our dinner plans weren’t going to happen bc I was too sick – so took some meds and stayed home with my DD while my DH and sons went off for the evening for a walk and some dinner. I was so disappointed that our last night in Venice did not go as planned – but very happy we had such a comfortable, spacious apartment to rest in!! While the rest of the family was out – I started our last packing .. for the final trip to Milan. Hard to believe our 28-day adventure was coming to an end. But Venice – with all its history and magic – was a great place to end.
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