TOURING TRUTHS

September has become the month that my sister and I meet up (we live 400 miles apart) and travel together on some touring holiday.

Miss (British) Italia [left] and Bridge of Si(mon) [right]

Neither of us can tolerate those London airports, and Archers gives a wide choice of regional airports for most of its tours. Usually we meet half way at an airport in the Midlands, but I was a little smug when my sister agreed that Leeds Bradford airport just over the next hill from me also suited her requirements.

Jet2 then launched us onto our holiday without fuss or bother, and with our homemade egg sandwiches in the overhead locker!. By lunchtime we had been bussed in the Venetian sunshine to our hotel for an overnight gathering of clans!

With Archers, people from all over Britain join tours and are collected together in an hotel on the first night of the holiday. You meet many different, and interesting people, but also as we have found you meet some people again; this year we joined two couples who had shared Archers holidays with us previously.

I chose to use up my first afternoon by making my own way into Venice rather than resting in my hotel, and I visited the Venice Gheto.




Continuing to explore on my own I came across other sights not usually seen by Venice's tourists.




The word “organised” may put people off joining an organised tour, but only the essential parts of the holiday are arranged. Outside of the essential you have the choice to wander alone like I did, or to join the arranged.

If you ride with the arranged itinerary then it is only a matter of getting breakfast and going down to the coach on time. On our holiday, the bus took us to Mantova where arrangements had been made for us to enjoy freshly cooked local food in an intimate family run restaurant, and afterwards a local guide collected us and walked us around the town giving expert explanations of what we looked at.




My photos show similar guided walks in Piazza del Signori (Verona) and inside the Baptistery in Parma.

Each afternoon we were brought back to a comfortable hotel and sat down to a good evening meal. In our view the right balance between relaxation and excitement.



Our tour started on the waters of eastern Italy and took us across to the waters on the western side. But we returned to La Serenissima for a memorable evening meal and a morning flight back to Yorkshire.

Venice	Verona	Liguria and Emilia Romagna

SMELLY SERENISSIMA

DOES VENICE SMELL?

My first acquaintance with Venice was Boxing Day 1998 (with Page & Moy) when La Serenissima greeted me with ice covered boats. In such gloriously chilly conditions, no smell was evident from the watery Venice.

In 2000 I visited Venice in the heat of a warm September and in the chillier month of December for my birthday, and both times found no awkward aromas.

October 2002 found me again in Venice in a surprisingly hot week, and even after a high tide had flooded St Marks smells there were none.

September 2005 (with Cosmos), Christmas Eve 2006 (with Just You), September 2007 (with Archers Direct) I again took the vaporetto from the Tronchetto along the Giudecca into Venice and ambled around the many canals and along the Grand Canal without horrid humours.

No Venice does not smell !

Enjoy the watery reflections I have attached

VENI VIDI VICI VENICE

I came, I saw, I conquered some bits of Venice ... or at least I got to see some more of the lovely La Serenissima on Christmas Eve 2006.

This post shows the high points (!);, well okay that's a pun because this post is actually about TOWERS but there are heaps more pictures on Picasa and Simon's Red Pages if you click on those links.



My first "tower" is not actually the gorgeous Campanile of La Madonna dell'Orto in the Cannaregio, but the even more impressive towering Dolomite Mountains above almost 100miles distant!



My second "tower" is the Campanile of Saint Apostoli, though you are probably looking at the Gondola on the Canale Grande below this turret.



My third "tower" is actually a leaning one, though still in Venice. When you push thousands of wooden piles into a muddy lagoon and then build a heavy stone tower on top of it it is inevitable that some of these towers "relax". This one is San Giorgio - there are others too. And if you want to be reminded of the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa then just click here.



My fourth "tower" is a Snail! Pietro Contarini's Palazzo with external circular staircase which caused it to be nicked named "Contarini del Bovolo" = Of the Snail.



My fifth "tower" is an Island. The Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in the Canale Di San Marco. Oh you might see lots of other bits of Venice in this view too, including in the foreground the Doges Palace.

But if you want to see the thing that I shot those pictures from - The Campanile di San Marco you will have to wait until I get back down to the ground and then click below:

Venice

PRESEPIO: PERFECTO NATALE ITALIANA

This post celebrates a FANTASTIC Christmas spent on Lake Garda at Bardolino. Thanks to the boys and girls who joined the "Just You" tour to the Park Hotel Gritti in Bardolino for Christmas 2006.

PRESEPIO: A nativity scene, also called a crib or crèche (meaning "crib" or "manger" in French) generally refers to any depiction of the birth or birthplace of Jesus. In Italy is known as presepe; It has been introduced by Saint Francis of Assisi.



This first picture shows the Presepio for Bardolino which was mounted on a yacht in the little harbour, and here it is lit at night. The shot below shows some detail of this presepio as the sun sets behind the yacht.



The little lakeside town of Garda had a much bigger Presepio; about a dozen scenes on the lakeside using lifesize mannequins.



In Venice I came across this Presepio of the much more conventional kind displayed in Piazza San Marco next door to Basilica di San Marco in Venezia. For a whole album of Venice shots click here.



And finally, one of the grandest Presepios I came across was this star of Bethlehem bursting out of Verona's Arena; sheer Opera !



Click here >> For more pictures of Verona

PRESEPIO: Christian Nativity scenes, in two dimensions (drawings, paintings, icons, etc.) or three (sculpture or other three-dimensional crafts), usually show Jesus in a manger, Joseph and Mary in a barn (or cave) intended to accommodate farm animals. A donkey and an ox accompany them; besides the necessity of animals for a manger, this is an allusion to Isaiah: "the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider" (Is. 1:3). The scene sometimes includes the Magi or Three Wise Men, shepherds, angels and the Star of Bethlehem. The traditional scenes that show the shepherds and Magi together are of course not true to the Bible story, since the Magi arrived much later (Matthew 2:1-12) than the shepherds(Luke 2:7-16).

Although St Francis of Assisi is credited with the invention of three-dimensional Nativity Scenes, drawings and paintings existed earlier. The tradition was brought into Spain from Naples during the reign of Charles III of Spain. (see Wikipedia )

For some more beautiful views of Venice and Verona, click below:

Venice	Verona