Spring Break, Italy Edition.....day 8 Venice

 Venice is a beautiful place.   

 Zackary is great at adding filters to his pics they look like postcards.

 The grand canal is big and busy, there is no reason to spend loads of money on a gondola unless you just want pictures and memories of it.  It is just as easy to use the public transportation boats and travel the waterways.

 There are no shortages of gondolas and people spending loads of cash to ride them.

 It is a whole different world watching the locals travel on water and park their boats at the local docks.

 There is just a maze of waterways and narrow roads.  The Venice card is well worth the money you get public transportation, wifi, and bathroom visits.  You can also add entry to the museums and churches but we chose not to. 

 This pic that Zack took looks like a painting.

 We went to go see the area that has the Venetian glass makers and watched them hand blow some glass.  Unfortunately you can not take pictures.  The hand blown glass is amazing, super detailed and works of art. 

 There was one place we went into and they had hand blown chandeliers that where 2 stories tall hanging from the ceiling, they had a life size all colored glass trike that looked like you could start it up and drive away.

 As beautiful as this place is, to me it is a place that you go see once and then you are done.

Spring Break, Italy Edition.....day 7 Milan

Our next trip was to Milan, I admit I didn't think I would like it to much.  I didn't take to many pictures, but to my surprise it is one of the places we would like to go back to and explore more.

Outside the Milan Cathedral. 

 Some street vendors were selling birdseed.

 The cathedral was started in 1386 and has taken over 600 years to complete

 The huge bronze doors are extremely detailed.

 These are individual panels of the doors.

 The marble floor is beautiful

I loved the huge columns.

We decided to leave Milan early so we could get to our next hotel and rest before we went to Venice on our last day in Italy.  We will return to Milan to walk around the shops more. Kim was able to buy some things in Milan before we left.

Spring Break, Italy Edition.....day 5 and 6 Pisa and Cinque Terre

Our next leg took us to Pisa but since the only thing to see in Pisa is the church and the tower we just made it a stop on our way to Cinque Terre.

 This is the entire site of Pisa. 

 We decided not to climb to the top of the tower, after all the tower is what we wanted pictures of. I was also tired from Florence and didn't feel like climbing the 200+ stairs.

 Just like all the rest of the tourist you have to have a pic of pushing the tower over or holding it up.

 We left Pisa and went to our B&B to be able to explore Cinque Terre the next day.

We booked our B&B on https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1030343 and Barbara was a great host, the room was fantastic and view outside our window was beautiful.  If you decide to visit Cinque Terre look her up.

 The road to Cinque Terre was very small and winded around, over and through the mountains.

 Whenever we could find a place to pull over we did to take pics the views were outstanding. 

 No matter how steep the side of the mountain it was all used, there are vineyards all up the side of the mountains and their is a single person rail system built into some of the land for the locals to harvest the grapes.  It looked like a scary one man roller coaster.

This picture does not show just how steep this is. Cinque Terre is made up of 5 villages, Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. 

We Parked at Monterosso and it was a beautiful site.  It is the only sand beach between the 5 villages, You can see in the above pic that the hotel has carved out a man in the rock overlooking the water.

 Because of the steep terrain there is only 2 streets lining this village most are souvenir shops, but there are restaurants and hotels too.  We hopped on the train and went to the next town. 

 Vernazza has one main street to walk down to get to the cove.  We stayed here, ate lunch and looked at the water. 

This is still a main fishing village, you can see fisherman coming in and out of the cove constantly.

 This was a great place to sit at the outside cafe and eat a late lunch. 

 I love this pic of Zack and Jonah on the rocks overlooking the water.

We found a tunnel to walk through and this is what was on the other side. There was a few people sunning and others just looking into the waters. The construction of the houses on the cliff edges where cool.  This is all we had time to visit on this trip, I hope we are able to come back and visit the other 3 villages.  There is a hiking trail between the 5 villages, I think that would be a fun trip and prob some great pics.

Spring Break, Italy Edition.....day 4 Florence

Florence was our next city.  We did not get tickets ahead of time so we didn't get to see all we wanted.

 The Ponte Vecchio or "Old Bridge", crosses the Arno River.  First noted in 996 it has been destroyed and rebuilt a couple of time the last was in 1345.  

It was used by butchers and leather workers for years but the smell was so bad that it was outlawed and it has since been a place for high end gold jewelry merchants. 

Some of the gold shops on the bridge.

 We did not purchase our tickets to the Uffizi Museum ahead of time so we just walked thru the center of it.  In here there are works of art from all of the masters, Di Vinci,  Durer, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Raphael and many others. I hope to go back to see it.

 Just a few of the awesome pastries throughout Italy. 

We went to the Piazza Della Signoria to go look at a copy of Michelangelo's David since we didn't get the museum tickets in advance. 

 The fountain of Neptune (1565)

The Loggia dei Lanzi built 1382 is full of statues dating back as far as the 1500's.

The Florence Cathedral completed in 1436 it has the worlds largest brick dome ever created. 

 The green, pink and white marble really make this massive cathedral stand out.

 You can see in this picture the massive size of the cathedral.

The Dome.

 We ended our Florence trip at the Piazzale Michelangelo, this square was built in 1869 for all to enjoy the views of the city.  If you had enough money you could drive this Ferrari. I just opted to take a pic of it. 

 Awesome views of the city.

Here you can see the Cathedral in the center of the picture.