Venice

After a 4 pm departure from Houston and a 4 hour layover in Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, Air France deposited us at Venice’s Marco Polo airport about 2:30pm (local time of course). The very efficient gate agent in Houston had checked our bags through to Venice and they were the first ones down the carrousel.  A boat ride across the lagoon to the first stop, Madonna del Orto, put us within a five minute from Corina’s Venice http://corinasvenice.com, our apartment for the next 5 days.

Since we didn’t get much sleep on the flight, we just made a quick trip to the grocery store to make dinner fixings and a bottle of wine. Tomorrow we’d hit the streets.

The apartment is in the Canareggio sistiere, on the northern edge of the island, away from the tourist madness that is Venice. It was great to be able to retreat from the crowds every evening for rest and relaxation.

The neighborhood also features several of Venice’s best restaurants.  We had a couple of great meals!

The Madonna del Orto, our neighborhood church.

Also, Tintoretto’s. Several great, monumental paintings here.

A Venice Street

And hit the streets we did. All on foot. There is no wheeled transport in Venice; no cars, no bikes, only the vaporetti and water taxis on the canals.  The only things with wheels are the hand trucks that are used to transport goods from the little commercial barges to their destination.  Over the 5 days we averaged about 8 miles a day. We’re making our euro weight!

Also since there’s no driving, there’s plenty of drinking!  Nobody has to worry about a breathalyzer. 

Along with the drinking are the snacks, called cicheti.  They’re little bites made of all kinds of ingredients; fresh raw scallops, octopus salad and bacala (cod mashed up with cream) were our favorites.  We also saw fried zucchini blossoms, roasted carrots and potatoes and just about anything you could pile on a slice of crusty bread. Walk into a bar, point to the ones you want on the plate, grab a glass of wine and the total bill usually comes out to about €12-15 for two people. 

Along with the canals, Venice is know for it’s art, churches and St. Marks Cathedral.  We bought a “Chorus Pass” that allows free entry to 16 churches throughout the city and we saw some amazing art. A favorite was a Madonna and Child by Bellini at the Chiesa Frari.

Sunday we made an aborted trip to tourist central, St. Marks Cathedral.  For an unknown (to us) reason, that was the day they decided to close it just about the time we got there. The Campanile was open, though, so we rode the elevator to the top and got an interesting view of St. Marks Square.

St. Mark’s is known for it’s amazing mosaics. We did manage to get inside on Tuesday morning but not without some complications.  High tide had put water over the the main entrance walkway and the staff couldn’t figure out how to put the over-water entrance ramp together.  After waiting for a half hour (over an hour past the posted opening time) we had just about given up on a visit when they decided to let us enter through the exit, splashing through the shallower puddles.  Of course no photos are allowed inside but it is awe inspiring.

The roof of each doorway is covered in intricate mosaics and carvings, nothing compared to what’s inside.

And what visit to Venice would be complete without a gondola photo.

The “water bus” (vaporetto) tickets are pretty expensive so we bought a two day unlimited pass for Monday and Tuesday. Monday we traveled out into the lagoon to visit the islands of Burano, Torcetto and Murano.

Burano is a small fishing village known for it’s brightly colored houses and an “interesting” tower.

No, it’s not Pisa and I wouldn’t want to

own property on the “down” side!

We got back to the apartment in the early afternoon and then caught the water bus for a ride down the Grand Canal, Venice’s “Main Street.”

Heavy traffic on the street.

(from Wikipedia)The Ca d’Oro one of the older palaces in the city

 ("golden house") due to the gilt and polychrome external decorations which once adorned its walls.

The palace was built between 1428 and 1430 for the

  Contarini family, who provided Venice with eight Doges between 1043 and 1676.

After our morning visit to St. Marks, we wandered through the sistiere, or neighborhood, and then met Tim and Christine, friends from California who’s visit to Venice was overlapping ours by a day.  Wine and cecheti at a couple of different bars were in order before we returned to the apartment to pick up our luggage. We were on the night train from Venice to Dijon and took the vaporetto to the train station.  After packing our bags into our 4 person couchette, we settled in for the ride.

Time to Get Going! April 6-13

A new year beckons.....but first-

We packed the suitcases, turned the keys over to Paul and Morgan, who will be living in our house for the summer, and hit the road Wednesday afternoon; first stop Houston.

Unlike last summer's return home, the American Eagle flight left the first time and on time, landing in Houston around 8 pm.  We picked up a rental car and arrived at Cathy Jo's parents house in a north western suburb around a half hour later. Cathy Jo's dad is something of a pack rat, having accumulated several storage rooms and offices full of "geology stuff" over his career and we were there to try to sort through some of it before we headed on to Europe for the summer.  Her brother Brandt and his partner Suzie joined us Friday and Saturday for the fun.

Sunday late morning is was off on the 4 hour drive to Dallas to see Patti Hardman. It was great to catch up on all the goings on and we were surprised to learn that she's going to continue the family business for at least one more year.  Shows at the Texas State Fair in September and the Northfield Mall for Christmas are still on the agenda, although, sadly, this year missing John.

Monday afternoon is was back to Houston for one more day of organizing today and then tomorrow it's On To Venice where we'll spend 6 days before heading to the boat. The weather forecast says it's supposed to be sunny and mild the whole time we're in Italy, something of a surprise for this time of year so we're ready to get going.

Next post from Italy!

RIP John

I have to begin this years blog postings on a somber note.  Our friend John Hardman died last November.  

We met John and Patti after they relocated to Ventura from Dallas in the early 80's as Six Flags wanted John to produce shows at Magic Mountain. They owned Freya, a 1940's built Atkins Ingrid, a wooden sailboat. We worked on the boat's upkeep and became friends.  They moved back to Dallas in the mid 90's but we kept in touch.  A couple of years after they bought Capri, their 17 meter dutch barge, we traveled to France and spent a wonderful 10 days with them.  We were hooked!  After selling our house in Ventura we bought Odysseus and the adventure began.

About two and a half years ago John was diagnosed with lung cancer.  He was active right up to the end, having to take a couple days off from his show at the Texas State Fair in September when he was hospitalized with pneumonia.

Luckily we were able to see him last August on our way back from France.  We had a great time and John was his usual hilarious self.

John Hardman: master puppeteer, actor, writer, producer, boat owner and dear, dear friend.  We miss him terribly.

Don and Cathy Jo

John, Patti and Capri

A Map of 2015

Not much excitement in this year's map as we did a bunch of back and forthing but here it is.

Map of 2015

The Real Final Days, August 2-5

Monday morning at 8:30 it was off on the TGV to Paris.  There’s nothing quite like sweeping past the French countryside in a wide, comfortable seat with ample leg room at about 250 k an hour. About 10 we arrived at Paris’ Gare de Lyon, took the RER subway two stops to the Gare du Nord and had a little bite to eat. 12:30 we were off on the Thalys, the high speed train to Amsterdam.  After stops in Lille, France, Brussels and Antwerp, Belgium, Rotterdam and Schipol Airport in Holland, we were back in Amsterdam’s Centraal Station about 3:45. After checking in at our hotel we wandered about the streets a bit, then settled in at a tapas restaurant just down the street for dinner.  Sardines a las plancha, a bunch of other tasty things and a good Spanish red.  Life is good!

We were staying at the same hotel we used when we were in Amsterdam to return the car; this time with a bigger room.  Last time we only had backpacks. Our giant suitcases wouldn’t fit in that room so we did a little upgrade.  Again, a great, newly renovated room and very helpful staff.  We highly recommend the Hotel Linden.

The only picture I took was at night.

This time our room was up at the top right out on the end.

The next morning it was off to the Rijksmuseum.  All of the times we’d been in Amsterdam in the past, the museum was about half closed in order to complete a massive renovation.  Last year they finally pulled down all the scaffolding and opened up the whole thing.  We bought our tickets online so we wouldn’t have to stand in the massive line and enjoyed a wonderful museum.

The big draw is Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch.”  By the time we got there, the crowds had gathered. Luckily its hung pretty high so it can be seen in a crowd but the pictures I took were of some other, smaller works not by Rembrandt.

"Six Wardens of the Drapers Guild" by Pieter Pietersz

"Sir Thomas Gresham" and "Anne Fernely" by Anthonis Mor

The Rijksmuseum gardens

More wandering about town in the late afternoon then a very filling ricetable dinner (an Indonesian speciality, rice with about a thousand (or maybe 10) little dishes to go on it. The goat satay was our favorite.) and our last day in Europe for this year was complete. Wednesday morning about 10 am KLM Airlines whisked us across the Atlantic from Amsterdam to Houston.  We’d spend a week visiting Cathy Jo’s parents and her brother (his birthday was Saturday) with a quick trip up to Dallas to see John and Patti Hardman then back home to Ventura.

Time to start planning for next year!

Last Days, Part 2, July 26-Aug. 2

It just took about an hour from our bankside spot to get into our slip at the Gare, but first we had a very important stop.  Oldtimer holds about 1600 liters of fuel and the Mighty Daf has to be fed.  After lightening our wallets with about 450 liters at the fuel dock on the river, it was back into the slip. Well, not entirely.  There was a boat in the way so we had to raft alongside another boat to wait for our spot to open. That wouldn’t happen until Tuesday morning.  Monday we took a quick train ride to Dijon to pick up another rental car and do a little shopping. Back by the afternoon, the laundry and cleanup cores were waiting.  Our flight was leaving from Amsterdam on Wednesday of the following week but we’d booked our Dijon/Amsterdam train tickets for Monday the 1st because we wanted to spend Tuesday in the city to the visit the Rijksmuseum.

By the end of the week we had a pretty good handle on the chores so we took a day Thursday

to drive around Burgundy visiting the village of Musigny and Nuit-Saint-Georges.
Friday, Cathy Jo had noticed some posters in town that announced live music at the waterfront.  After dinner we took a stroll into town to see what it was about.  We really enjoyed “The Ventura’s”, a 60’s surf rock band, a tribute to the Ventures. They even played “Miserlou”! Only in France!

Saturday we completed the winterizing chores, clearing the water out of the boats system so the pipes won’t freeze and burst, antifreezing the generator and drains, and packing away the clothes and linens we’re leaving behind. Sunday morning, after stalking the village-wide garage sale (vide grenier) in St. Jean (and buying nothing), all of the outside stuff (bicycles, umbrellas, deck chairs, flagpoles, etc.) went inside, the curtains were closed, the doors locked and we said goodbye to Oldtimer until next spring.

Last Days Part 1, July 19-25

H2O, the brokers who sold us the boat, have three marinas.  The Gare d’ Eau, where we have spent most of our time and Oldtimer would spend the winter, the “Old Lock,” a big disused river lock converted into mooring spaces for big boats, and a new one in Auxonne, about 20k up the Saone River from St. Jean de Losne.  It was dug out of a space just up the river from the town’s pontoons on the river and opened in 2011. Since we paid for a slip in the Gare for a year, we have reciprocal privileges in Auxonne. We could stick around for a few days to do a little touch up painting.  The pontoons in St. Jean are very short so it’s hard to get to the whole side of the boat. In Auxonne, we could lay alongside a dock and get to the whole boat side.  After a couple of days, we turned the boat around and touched up the other side.

Auxonne is a pretty quiet town, dominated by facilities reserved for the military contained in an old Vauban-designed fort and the Marie features the typical glazed tile Burgundian roof.

Wednesday when I went into town for the daily bread, I discovered that another famous American institution had come to France. Le Cascadeurs had come to town for a Monster Truck Rally!

They set up an enclosure with truck trailers and containers just up the road from the marina. Thursday the loudspeaker truck traveled around town followed by the above pictured vehicle; “Attention, attention!  Vendredi et Samedi, Le Monster Trucks!” Friday night there was about an hour and a half of engine revving, sirens and loud, enthusiastic loudspeaker announcements.

Saturday morning we were off down the river in the direction of St. Jean to another great bankside spot.  The temps had climbed again; not to 100 but still well into the 90’s and we needed some shade.  We weren’t going to stay long, however. The plane and train ride home was coming up soon and we were going to have to get the boat ready for winter.