Ciao!

So we were lucky to travel with Mark during a "working holiday" this past week as the band did a 10 day tour in northeast Italy. I LOVE Italy! This is our second time and both times I just instantly relax as we cross borders. Maybe it is the relaxed lifestyle, beautiful scenery, fab Italian food or the gelato. Whatever it is, take me there.

The guys had one day off during the tour and so we took advantage and rode the train into Venice. Here is Paul a.k.a. screamin' guitar player with McKenna teaching her how to be a card shark. Oh yea baby, she's a quick learner!


I was skeptical of how I was going to like Venice, many people told me I would hate it! Hate it?! How can you hate such a romantic and dreamy city?! They said it would be crowded, hot, stinky and expensive. It was all that but not stinky, thank goodness. Here is how I feel about Venice:

Venice is fascinating to me, the whole city on an island but the island is under water so really it is a city built on the water. No cars because there are no roads. Transportation is either by foot or boat and by boat in the form of a Venetto, water taxi or gondola. We choose the Venetto so that we could tour the entire Grande Canal without spending our life savings on a 20 minute gondola ride. Your lucky if your house doors, front and back, open to a narrow street, otherwise you are swimming in the Adriatic Sea! I kept waiting for Jason Statham and Mark Wahlberg to come zooming out of a narrow passageway on a sweet ride fleeing from the Italian police with their shirts off. . . remember "The Italian Job"?. . . oh and they need Mark's help and he springs into action!. . . I'm getting distracted. I think the only frustration (and by only it really was just a passing thought as I ate gelato (twice) and pizza (twice) and shopped for Venetian glass) was that it was impossible to take really creative photo shots of this gorgeous city. Every time, a strangers head popped into the shot. . . so crowded. But I got the new one in the title above and the one below of the tower with the archway from the cathedral framing it.







Love that pretty glass!



So because I didn't get a gondola ride with my sweetie pie (really, 150 euro to spend 20 minutes making sure your 3 year old doesn't go for a swim, I think I'll wait until I'm alone with my hunny) I told Mark I at least wanted my picture taken with a Gondolier!


Hum, looks like I should have specified hot, young, dark Italian Gondolier please! I think Mark picked the oldest one with the most history of pizza intake but I can't complain, he was a good sport (meaning Mark and the dude) . We all got a good laugh. BUT just so everyone is clear, there were a bunch of the hot, young, dark ones to choose from . . . next time.