August 3, 2008

Barcelona, Nice, Brescia, and Venice ... um...

Holy crap, it's been a while eh? Barcelona and Nice we found it impossible to get onto the Internet - cafés were crammed solid, and the "free" Internet at the hostels always had lineups, and ridiculously short times that we were allowed to use the machines. Heck, we're paying for Internet in Venice, and I have less than 11 minutes to fit in well over a week of stuff. So um... maybe we'll just hit the highlights, and I can fill you in better later?

July 24-26th: Barcelona was fantastic - Gaudi, Gaudi, Gaudi. The man was a genius, and his works are well worth the entire trip alone. Simply amazing. We also saw the "Magic Fountain" which was quite lovely - and they have outdoor escalators to get to them!

July 27-29th: Nice was ... well, not so nice at first (the area where the hostel is, near the rail station, is a bit sleazy). However, we did walk around the old city (marvelous), take a day trip to Monaco/Monte Carlo (decadent), parasailing over the Mediterranean (fun!!), and partook in some delicious Nicoise and Tunisian cuisine (even if some of it had meat ... whoops! Kelly ate none of it, I only had a bit to taste).

July 30th-31st: Brescia was a huge surprise!! We weren't actually staying "in" the city - no, no, no ... we had to first take a commuter/regional train out several stops (after the first leg through suburbs, it was literally all corn fields for 20 minutes). Then the guy who ran the B&B with his wife picked us up from the station for a quick jaunt to their quaint little villa. The place is called B&B La Corte (look it up online), it was a slice of heaven!! HUGE rooms, wonderful people, quiet and peaceful setting, amazing breakfast, rented a cycle for a jaunt around the area to see an old castle, monastery, and the local lake, ate at a restaurant nearby (incredible food), just the best surprise of our entire trip. We're telling every single person we've seen about it!!

August 1st-3: Venice is just as you'd expect Venice to be at the beginning of August. Hot, crammed with tourists, but a beautiful and romantic city. Did the San Marco and Doge's Palace 'thing' and now we're about to hop on a water bus to the island of Murano to check out some stuff on the glass blowing they do there (assuming the museum isn't closed when we get there!).

We'll fill in the bits and tell you nice little anecdotes once we find cheaper/longer internet access. And still nowhere to plug in our stupid camera to upload photos!! Well... we "could" if someone would wire us a nice chunk of money so we can afford to sit in a cafe for a couple of hours ;)

Tomorrow is our 2 year anniversary, which we will be spending in Padua. Until next time!

Chuck and Kelly.

1 comment:

joan said...

Hi Chuck and Kelly.
Where are my postcards?
I did not politely ask for postcards, I outright demanded them.
Postcards. Pronto.
Que presto.