Monday in Venice

Monday was our last day in Venice. We took it easy in the morning. I took this picture of our hotel room. We were staying at Residenza Art Deco, in the San Marco area. We were in a large unit on two levels. Ross and I were staying on the top level. The bedroom was actually pretty big. I always like when you can see the beams of the floors in these places. Dark wood is the norm in Venice.



We took the boat to the bus station, so this is our last group photo in Venice!



I made sure that Ross, Mark, and Mary got on the right bus to the airport. (They told me later that their trip to the airport was no problem.) I walked myself over to the train station, and headed home to Milan...

Sunday in Venice

On Sunday morning we headed to Accademia, then headed over to Santa Maria della Salute just to see it. Then we were off to Saint Mark's to see the museums and the loggia. It's great to be up there.



It finally sunk in that the original horses from the balcony are Roman and not original to the church. No one is quite sure where they came from. After Saint Mark's, we had our gondola ride!



We went through the small back canals in San Polo, so it was calm and quiet!



We saw this guy on his water bike, it counts as a human powered vehicle so he can pretty much go down any canal. And it's a good way to use that bike, since they are prohibited otherwise.



It was a lot of fun, I'm glad we got to do it!



As we pulled out along the grand canal, the sun was setting. It was a perfect moment. After our ride, we relaxed a bit before heading to Da Fiore for dinner. Another lovely meal. Ross and Mark shared a monkfish!

Last Saturday in Venice

On Saturday, we went to Saint Mark's in the morning. We went for the Golden Screen. It's pretty impressive, of course. Mary had the Rick Steves guide, and he mentioned this scene on the altar by the screen. The pillars tell the story of the four evangelists, and they have some odd images. This does look like a genie coming out of a lamp, yeah?



We decided to pass on the balcony for another day, it was just so misty out that we weren't going to really enjoy the view. You couldn't even see Giudecca and San Giorgio, totally fogged out. We headed over to Frari and San Rocco instead! There was a little flea market going on by Frari.



We had lunch then went in for visits in the churches, finishing at the Scuola di San Rocco. I bought the book that Linda had when we were there, the one on the carvings of Pianta on the upper level. Those carvings are just so cool!

On our way back to the hotel, I noticed these cute signs about acqua alta. I just like the cartoon lion they use in all these civic signs.



This building by our hotel has cool windows...



Anyway, that evening we ate quick groceries and sandwiches on the early side, as we were heading out for Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Musica a Palazzo. I don't have any pictures, as it's a "no photo" event, but we did pose for a few pictures after the show. Mary, I am looking at you! I will definitely want to see those later!

Murano

No trip to Venice would be complete without a trip to Murano. Unless you're a guy. I kid! Really, the main reason to go there is to do the glass shopping. But it has its charms beyond that. The ferry ride over is not too long, and you get to get out of the canals and into the more open water of the bay. The island itself is pretty and has more of a wharf feel than Venice.

That said, we mostly shopped!



The island also has some impressive glass sculptures. I think some of them are new since I was last there, like this one of the sea birds.



On the way back to the main part of Venice, we we lucky enough to get outside seats on the 1 back to our hotel.



We made it to Acqua Pazza for dinner, it was as delicious as last time, though it was cold enough we decided to sit inside!



Artichoke pasta for me, lemony risotto for Mary. Both yummy!

The Doge Palace

Friday morning we headed to the Doge Palace for the Secret Itineraries tour. Before the tour started we got to see an exhibit of old architectural elements. (Ross and I saw this when we were here last.)



Our tour group turned out to be pretty big, around 20 people, but at this point that's the standard size for these groups. I was a little worried, but it turned out that our guide, Cinzia, was really great. Knowledgeable, and able to project her voice so hearing her wasn't a problem.



On the tour, you head up to the areas behind and above the public rooms of the palace. The Grand Chancellor's office, the Council of Ten's private meeting rooms, the state secrets archive, the Inquisitors' Chamber, the block of cells where Casanova was held after his arrest, and the attic of the palace, above the Grand Council Hall! Oh, and the secret passages and stairs that connected everything behind the scenes.

Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed, but it was a great tour, and not much more than the cost of admission. You should book ahead, with the best way probably through the official site. It depends a lot on the season, of course.



After the tour, we wandered the standard path in the palace, seeing all the public rooms, and the prison, which you reach by crossing the Bridge of Sighs. On our way out we stopped to take some pictures in the Golden Stairway.



And around the courtyard.



And then it was time to head out lunch and Murano!

Venezia on Thursday

On Thursday afternoon, Ross and I met up with Mark and Mary in Venezia. They were taking the train from Firenze, and we were taking it from Milan. Luckily, our train arrived first, so meeting up wasn't too hard! We dropped our stuff off at the hotel in the San Marco area, and set out to wander a bit. We strolled past an exhibit on Vivaldi and decided to stop in. Did you know that Vivaldi was a priest and wrote a lot of operetta? I guess I really only know his Four Seasons...



And we did make it all the way to Saint Mark's Square.



Beautiful in the twilight. We walked past the palace to find dinner, and got a view of the Bridge of Sighs.



It was a relaxing first evening.

Airline Frequent Flying

I know you like pictures in your posts, but today I wanted to mention some non-picturesque stuff! Triggered by organizing for my upcoming work trip to Istanbul, I discovered that I am actually enrolled in five frequent flier programs. I decided to look at what's going on all of them. Flight search and purchase engines like Orbitz will store all your frequent flier numbers and automatically apply them to purchases you make on their sites, but they won't show the balances for these accounts. One of my friends turned me on to Points.com, which will pull all the balances into one place for you.

I also logged in individually to each of the programs, to make sure I could track down all the passwords. I found out that some of my miles on U.S. Airways were expiring in the next few months. I had to fly them for work a few years back, and I figured that I might as well sign up for the program, but I flew a lot of short flights, so I didn't have that many miles there. Irritatingly, even though they are in the same alliance as United, which I have flown more frequently, it is impossible to just "merge" the two accounts. Instead of abandon those U.S. Airways miles entirely, I decided to exchange them using Points.com. There's actually a standard procedure for exchanging miles between most airline programs, it's just that the exchange rates truly suck and it's a pain. While using the Points.com tool doesn't make the exchange rate better, it does make it easier. Better to have a few points I will actually use than a lot that will expire.

That said, as far as I know that was the only overlapping points program with significant rewards I was involved in, so hopefully that's a lesson learned I won't revisit. Otherwise I have four different airlines programs. One airline each in the Oneworld, Star, and SkyTeam alliances, and stand-alone JetBlue. (None of my credit cards has an exclusive miles points program.) Since I have been flying all the gosh darn time in the last couple years, I actually have enough points to book some tickets, so I should pay attention to that for my winter visit home.

I got to thinking about redeeming, so I decided to look at points charts. I found these blog posts on point charts that have most of the US airlines collected. The links all worked when I clicked, but they may not stay up to date!

Anyway, I will be back to photos and vacations tomorrow!

Last of Milano

Before Mark and Mary left for Firenze Monday morning, we went to tour a bit around the Duomo. Always recognizable for the floor!



In the Piazza, they were setting up a mock-train engine for Freccia Rossa. I think it was just a promotional thing.



On Tuesday, Ross and I got out of the house to head to the Triennale. You never know if the exhibits there are going to be interesting or not, but we ended up seeing a lot of good stuff and spending just over four hours there. Seriously. The first exhibit we went to was on public architecture, and while there was some focus on current projects, there was also historic stuff. Photos, drawings, videos, models. This LED-lit model of a deep commuter rail station was one of many cool models.



We also saw the design exhibition, this year it's on graphic design, so fonts, periodical and book design, posters, packaging, brand design, even video exercises.



We saw an exhibit on prehistoric European rock carvings, and one on the lighting design of Gino Sarfatti. There was also a tribute to the Lady Dior handbag!



We even ended up skipping a few of the smaller exhibits because it was getting late. On our way home I caught a picture of the new Chanel perfume ads. These just appeared in the last week or two, and they are everywhere.



Brad Pitt, Inevitable.

Sunday Evening in Milan

On Sunday afternoon, we breezed through the aquarium in Parco Sempione and headed to the Leonardo da Vinci Science and Technology Museum. I thought it would be a bunch of dry, old, yet cool stuff, like this old apothecary.



Or this exhibit on the history of clocks.



But it included some really awesome stuff, like exhibits on polymers. I liked this illustration of the percentages of applications of plastics.



They also had a huge section of transportation and vehicles. There's a retired nuclear submarine, next time I go I will try to get tickets for the tour of the sub.



There's also a huge indoor rail yard! Lots and lots of engines. I wonder how they got all these things to the museum...



For dinner that night we went to Biffi in the Galleria. It's one of those super showy locations inside the Galleria, it's been there since 1867. The food was good, and the waiters were on point, but it's quite pricey so I would hope so!



That was our last group dinner in Milan before Mark and Mary left for Florence!

Museo Poldi Pezzoli

On Sunday morning, we headed to Museo Poldi Pezzoli, a really cool house museum.



The gentleman that the museum is named for collected all sorts of stuff, including porcelain, clocks, navigational instruments, and jewelry, but the collections have been added to by donations from other wealthy Milanese. The clock and watch collection was a lot of fun. This watch has a rock crystal shell.



The armory was pretty fun too. A set designer from La Scala designed the most recent renovation, replacing another set designer's original vision.



The best room was probably the study of Gian Giacomo. It's one of the few rooms that totally survived the WWII bombings. It's got an oriental fantasy flare. Lots of personal possessions, including a bust of his mother, and modern stained glass windows. Very cool.



I would highly recommend the museum, and the free audio guide, even with its issues, was pretty informative. Go for it!

Lago Maggiore - Isole di Pescatori e Madre

After Isola Bella, we took the ferry over to Isola Superiore also known as Isola di Pescatori.



There was a lot of mist coming down the mountains to the lakes. This was my first time on Pescatori, it was cool to get to go to the church on the Island, the one serious sight. As far as I could tell, these busts on the altar were of popes and bishops.



The area around Lago Maggiore is very German influenced. They even have these serious recycling receptacles!



We only spent a half hour or so on the island. It's tiny, that was enough time to walk around it and get the ferry over to Isola Madre. Madre is famous for its gardens. Despite it being fall, there were lots of things in late blooming glory.



These air plants caught my eye as soon as we entered the gardens.



The water lilies were just incredible. I couldn't believe how may lilies were going in October. A few different colors were represented, pink, white, yellow, purple, and besides the open blossoms a lot of the plants had buds sticking out of the water.



We did the full walking tour of the island. You can see the wet look from the rain. Here's the guys looking out at Pallanza.



And of course we saw lots of the fancy birds. Two kinds of pheasants, more peacocks, the caged parakeets and love birds, and some fancy chickens.



After Isola Madre, we made our long way home.

Lago Maggiore - Isola Bella

Saturday we trekked up to Lago Maggiore to visit the Borromeo Islands.



We took the ferry first to Isola Bella.



We toured the palace and the gardens. Since the last time I visited, there's been a big storm. The storm did serious damage. Several giant obelisks were toppled off the terraces. Walking up to the terrace, you don't notice at first, but up close it's clear that the damage was serious.



The rose gardens are blocked off because an obelisk fell through the walls. You can just see the one hole in the wall from the falling rocks in this pic.



We could still head to the citrus area, at least. Most of the citrus is ornamental. While the rain that day was a bit of a pain when walking in the gardens, it did make the plants look awesome in the photos.



The peacocks were in the process of shedding their tails, so I haven't bothered highlighting any photos of them. But, we did see these cute fantail pigeons, just flying around the island!



We grabbed a quick lunch before heading on.