Rome-ing - Venice

Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted. The months of August and September were filled with camping adventures and a trip to Italy.  This post is about the trip to Italy.

When we looking for an itinerary that would take us to a number of different cities, we found that many companies tried to cram in as much as possible on their tours, how do you visit 13 cities in 11 days.  Or you couldn't modify the trip. We found an Air Canada vacation itinerary that we liked but you couldn't even extend, the hotel bookings with linked with the vacation package flights. Our travel agent recommended a company called Railbookers. We were able to set our own itinerary by deciding how many nights we wanted to stay in each location. We wanted to go to Venice, Florence, Naples and Rome. 

When Railbookers came back to us; the first quote it seemed quite high, they had tours or excursions scheduled every day and the hotels they had booked were all four star. We indicated that good three star hotels would be fine with us and that there were tours we didn't want to do. The next quote was much better, the hotels were still four star but we had free days in each location to do as we pleased. Railbookers also booked the train tickets (all first class) and transfers from the arrival airport to the first hotel and from the last hotel to the departure airport. We cancelled the the departure transfer as we would be in Rome with the hotel only a block or so away from Termini train station where we could catch the Leonardo Express train.

Our first destination in Italy was to Venice. The private transfer was by water taxi and there was a representative in the arrivals area to meet us to escort us to the dock area. Unfortunately, it was raining on our arrival but at the speed the water taxi goes you'd likely get wet anyway. Our hotel had a private dock at the back of the hotel so our private transfer took us right to that dock. No lugging wheelie bags very far, all we had to do was go around to the front of the hotel. Our first hotel was the Santa Marina. It was well situated being quite near the Rialto Bridge. It had a nice lounge and bar with a covered patio area. At first glance, our room seemed rather tired but I think it was just that the furniture, although quaint, was dated.. The bathroom seemed to have been recently renovated. Our room had a nice view, looking out over the front courtyard. 

We had an an excursion the next day booked so after settling into our hotel we set off to find the meeting place.  The excursion was a walking tour of Venice with entrance into the Doge's Palace and the Golden Basilica. The following day was our free day, we went to see a music museum, a gondola workshop, eat cicchetti and used the water bus to go over to San Giorgio Island where we saw a Murano glass exhibit and went up the bell tower for some wonderful views of Venice. 

Cicchetti

Golden Basilica

Rialto Bridge

Bridge of Sighs

The next day we would have to get to the train station, having ridden the water bus the day before, we knew where to catch the bus to the train station. We left for the train station early as we didn't know how long it would take us to walk to the dock or how often the water busses ran. We ended up being at the station quite early and had to wait awhile for our train. The trains had reserved seating, your ticket gives you the car number and the number of your assigned seat. We had first class tickets,  meaning wider seats, wifi and a free snack and drink was provided. It was an easy trip to Florence. As you can see from the pictures, we ended up having good weather in Venice and we would be quite lucky with weather for the rest of our trip as well.

View from the train station

Rockett on the train

I'll pick up with our stay in Florence on my next post. 

Alba Gu Bràth

This year's big trip is to Scotland at the end of August.  It's a self-driving trip beginning and ending in Edinburgh. Both of my father's parents were born in Scotland. My grandfather at 7 Thistle Street in Kirkintilloch which is outside of Glasgow. You can street view the address, if you like. My grandmother was born on a farm called Clachaig in Kilmory on the Isle of Arran. We'll spend two nights on Arran so hopefully we'll get to stop by this farm. I tried contacting the Arran Museum as they have a genealogical centre but my emails bounced back; I also tried contacting the farm but haven't had a reply. 

Last week we bought Explorer Passes from Historic Scotland, the passes get us admission to Stirling Castle, Edinburgh Castle and Urquhart Castle, all places we were planning to go to anyway.  We also booked our tickets for Stirling Castle as they are timed entrances.

During Easter, a post popped up on my FaceBook feed that the RCMP Pipes and Drums would be attending the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. I clicked on the link in the post, and it was the Tattoo website.  The Tattoo will be on when we arrive, so I checked out the website and there still were plenty of tickets. They weren't cheap, but then we thought it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, so we went ahead and bought tickets for the night after we arrive. I couldn't get the ones I wanted as the website won't let you leave a single seat, but the ones I got should be fine.  

Royal Edinburgh Tattoo 2023 - Far Side of the World

There's something about pipes that just stirs the soul; but maybe you need to be Scottish.  Anyway, I sure hope it doesn't rain as you can see from the video it is outdoors and they've never cancelled for weather, just COVID.

Come On Summer

Yesterday we booked our first camping trip of the season. Starting with one night at Balsam Lake provincial park on 19 May because it's just too far for me to drive to Awenda Provincial Park in one day.

Podrick at Emily Provincial Park, Summer 2022

The sites we have at Balsam Lake are crap but they're pull-thru and near the bathrooms, so they'll do for one night. Since they're pull-thru I won't have to worry about when my sister and her husband arrive. We have four nights at Awenda starting on 20 May, the holiday Monday, hopefully most people with kids will be heading home. Awenda is located on Georgian Bay, only 10 minutes' drive from Penetanguishene and 20 minutes' drive from Midland, Ontario. The park has four beaches, one designated as a dog beach and 30 kilometers of trails. 

It's supposed to be a gorgeous park. When I was still tent camping, I lived quite close to this park but never had the opportunity to go; it was always filled up in the summer months. Hopefully we'll have nice weather and will be able to do some hiking, if not swimming, although I would expect in May that the water would still be very cold, so maybe wading. There are historical locations to see, if we have rainy or cooler days. Discovery Harbour in Penetanguishene and Sainte Marie Among the Hurons in Midland. Both of these attractions are dog friendly although I would assume like Upper Canada Village the dogs can't go in the buildings. 

We'll stop in Emily Provincial Park on the way home for two nights to break up the journey. Emily was the first park we stopped at on our trip West. It poured rain one day that we were there, so we didn't see much of the park. The second day we were there we drove to Peterbourgh to see the lift lock and were lucky enough to see it in action. 

Lift Lock in Peterbourgh, Summer 2022

I'm still planning on going east this summer. I had thought to go through the States but there doesn't seem to be a good East/West route, most highways seem to run North/South. There's also very few State Parks in New York with campsites with electricity and none in Vermont. So perhaps going through Canada like I did in 2019 is the best idea. I'll have to get moving on those bookings soon too. 

We also booked the flights for our trip to Scotland this week. Things are getting real.

COME ON SUMMER!

On the road again!

We were off on our long-awaited trip to Europe this past September. It was our first international flights since COVID. I have to say though I was more worried about losing our luggage and the possibility of delayed or cancelled flights than I was about COVID, although it too was a worry. 

We flew from Ottawa to Toronto and our sister flying in from Calgary met us there, then it was on to Bucharest through Frankfurt. We had to clear customs in Frankfurt and worried about making our flight, but we needn't have worried as the automated customs clearance worked well and because the next gate was close by, and the flight was delayed in any case. We arrived in Bucharest midafternoon; the checked bags for about 20 people on the flight were missing, including three of us. The staff in Bucharest spoke very little English and the Wifi in the airport was extremely poor. Luckly, my sister had purchased a European SIM card so once she enabled the card, we were able to file our report with Lufthansa. Lufthansa had already sent an email to let us know that the bags had been left in Frankfurt and would be on the next flight that evening to Bucharest. 

Our bags did arrive the next day but after we had already checked out of our hotel to go to the pre-cruise hotel that Amawaterways was using. It was the hotel that let us know the bags had arrived. Lufthansa never sent an updated email and the contact information that they had for the courier company was out of date.

We had a four-day pre-cruise, two nights in Bucharest and two nights in Brasov.  I had wanted to do this itinerary because it included Bran Castle that is also known as Dracula's Castle. So, our first day in Bucharest was just an evening walk after checking into our first hotel. We were able to locate the Amawaterways hotel and have dinner at a restaurant I had found online. We walked down to the Parliament Buildings; it's the second largest administration building in the world, only the Pentagon is larger. And we also located the fountains at Piata Unirii, we would go back to the fountains another evening to see a multimedia light show.

Caru'cu bere restaurant

Romanian Parliament Buildings

The next day we met with our cruise manager and checked into the Marmorosch hotel; the building was at one time a bank and they still use the old vault as a cocktail bar. Just after we arrived at the second hotel my BIL got an email to say our bags had been delivered to the first hotel so he went to pick them up. There are no excursions on the first day of a pre-cruise, only a reception in the evening to let you know what would happen on the pre-cruise. We walked down to a nearby park and shopping district.

Book store

Bucharest Park

There are lot of little churches hidden in Bucharest as during the Communist era religion was discouraged so other buildings were built up around them or some were actually moved so as not to be so visible. My pictures show a very vibrant city but many buildings were still vacant or under renovation. The next day we had a walking tour with a guide that would be with our group throughout the pre-cruise. Walter, our guide, was quite funny and kept us entertained with stories and jokes during the tour and on the bus trips. After the walking tour, we split up, my sister and I to have a spa afternoon and my other sister, BIL and some friends who had joined with us went to an outdoor museum of Romanian life.

University of Bucharest

But before doing our spa afternoon, I had heard a woman ask Walter about the holocaust memorial, so we decided to walk over there first. 

Then we went down to the pool and saunas in the hotel. It was nice but once you turned on the fountains or water jets it made the pool area very noisy, not spa like at all. So, we just took some time to relax in the pool and then in the dry sauna. 

Not having heard from the others yet the two of us went to dinner. We did meet up with them to go see the show at the fountains. They do a multimedia show in the summer on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. Luckily our last night in Bucharest was on Friday or we would have missed seeing this show. They shut down traffic on this boulevard during the show; but if you're too close to the fountains you will get wet.

As the others hadn't eaten dinner, they went off to get something to eat, while my sister and I went for a nightcap at the Vault, the cocktail bar in our hotel.

We had to have our bags out early the next morning for the bus trip to Brasov. We ended up being delayed leaving as there was a large summit being held at the Parliament and many of the officials were at our hotel. We even heard our Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau was staying at the same hotel. As a result, the buses weren't allowed to come up to the hotel until some of the officials had left.

Main Lobby

Our room at the Marmorosch

I'll leave off here and do another post for the second part of our pre-cruise.