When you visit magical, marvelous, miraculous Italy, you can see architecture that was designed and built thousands of years ago. I do not understand the strategy behind making doors giant. Was it to allow huge equipment to get through, to show the rulers and royalty how great they were in their stature and nobility or they just didn’t cut entrances down to fit human sized bodies. Many were arched. All were majestic and beautiful. Here are a scant few I was fortunate enough to see on my trip to Venice, Florence and Rome.
A more modern take on entryways.
This is a doorway I think.
Oops- David is blocking the view of this door but I don’t mind.
I certainly hope you get to enjoy Italy someday if you haven’t already.
The food in Italy is fresh, bursting with flavor and does not have all the additives and ingredients that American food has. Simply made and simply put: it’s delicious.
The eyes have it.
The Italians use olive oil and balsamic in cooking and it’s perfect. They use these sparingly. The caprese salads are all you need. meals are eaten slowly and enjoyed and savored. Wine is there, always there or a spritz.
Prosciutto is delicious thinly sliced type of ham.
Bruschetta is a common dish.
Wine or Cappuccino anyone?
Fettuccine and carbinero sauce with Parmesan.
Cooking class.
The pasta we all made with sauce added later. Super yummy.
Pizza and more pizza.
Pizzas which was unsliced all around with drinks. We got time to splinter off into small groups after walking tours.
Breakfast at the hotel in Rome.
Florence is known for their special tasty beef steak.
Iced cappuccino and buns with truffle spread at an outdoor cafe in Florence.
Rome is a city impossible to describe therefore you just get on a plane and go. And then say, “Arrivederci.” This photo doesn’t show the lower sections of the Coliseum and naturally your first impression nor your emotions of first seeing it cannot be communicated. It’s overwhelmingly moving. The Roman Coliseum is 1,953 years old.
The history, the architecture, the remnants of a lost empire are there. If you think the United States is old, guess again. Italy was home to the Roman Empire. Much of that historical time lives within modern buildings and communities right alongside ancient structures be they crumbling or partially standing or dug up by archaeological digs, the past is living even in 2025.
I walked along the Roman Highway listening on my Whisper device to a knowledgeable guide telling the story of Ancient Rome and its inhabitants.
All roads lead to Rome.
These boulders were placed thousands of years ago and provided a pathway, a highway for merchants, farmers, craftsmen, soldiers and others to travel freely between destinations including tours of today.
Romans also built incredible structures for taking water from one area to another.
An ancient palace dome still hanging onto life.
Can you see the Roman Numerals above the arched entrance marking the area where you would be seated for the games or events at the Coliseum?
Animals from around the world were brought here to fight one another or humans. This showed the Emperor had vast powers from all over the world and could afford to bring exotic animals to Rome.
The Pantheon is 1,900 years old and was covered in marble at one time. The columns came by ship from Egypt.
Is your front door as big as the Pantheon’s?
I truly understand the statement, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” It boggles the mind, the heart, the eyes and the energy level how this was all made and yet thousands of years later, it remains.
Florence was next on our tour with a comfy bus ride there. Outside was some beautiful scenery on our 4 hour tour as the director told us lots of facts and history as we went. Florence has a gorgeous Cathedral pictured here with an exterior of greens and pinks and marble that blows your eyes wide and challenges them to look at the old walls and imagine the interior before you even see it to take you like the old rock ‘n roll song says, “Take me higher, higher and higher”. Florence has beauty. Florence has food and buildings and art and bridges and mystique.
Florence is where ancient and modern meet and shake hands.
Florence has David. How did Michelangelo create statues like this without modern technology?
The Arno River is central part of Florence.
Sounds of the city.
Part of the Roman Aquaduct.
Motorbikes everywhere!
Iced cappuccinos and truffle filled buns in Florence.
Museum of Modern Art in a gorgeous old palace. And me trying to pose. Arches in architect are prevalent.
After a rough day seeing gorgeous sights and beautiful art work, the 26 people on the tour split off to eat dinner and drink Chianti.
Special steaks from special Florence cows on a special night out for dinner.
Venice, Italy is a city on the water, within the canals and surrounded by water. Its history is ancient and beautiful beyond words, beyond cultures and back so far in time it’s already into memories of trillions of generations.
We had, as I wrote already, a quaint Italian hotel which was an early mansion from the 1600’s yet modernized and updated yet still hanging around the past.
My gorgeous room with intricate bed headboard.
Bath with lovely tile.
Venice—
There are many little narrow streets like this that seem to close you into their arms then suddenly open into a spacious square with old churches, shops, sidewalk cafes with maybe just a few tables spilling out onto the cobblestones or a restaurant with many tables inviting people to stop for a pizza, pasta, wine or spritz.
Food and drink are everywhere and it all tastes better than you imagined.
My tour group splintered off as our tour director told us when to return to a meeting location in Venice and we went to get a bite to eat seeing this loyal dog sleeping with his leash ready outside a high end store. We all took pictures of this sweet dog. He touched our hearts.
This is just half our group saying bye to Venice and on the next day to Florence. I’m third on the left.
Figures at my first hotel in Venice. They didn’t say much.
Ciao. I left recently from San Jose at 6:20 am to fly to Minneapolis for a 4 hour layover, then to Paris, France then to Venice, Italy. It was a solo adventure. A vacation. It was challenging. It was tiring. It was exhilarating. It was exciting. Friends urged me to go after the loss of my husband of 53 years.
Landing in Minneapolis, Minnesota was pretty with lakes dotting the landscape. The airport is well done, not like a steak, but like well organized and laid out, with gates and your plane easy to find and security moving swiftly. It’s simple to put your stuff into a plastic box and walk through those magic frisking machines. One officer made me go through the process 4 times. I guess he liked me.
I had notified a Murdo friend who has lived there for years. I had planned on meeting him at the airport but I texted him off and on thinking that maybe I didn’t need to bother him especially on a Sunday. Things went back and forth for a while, but it did work out so we planned a meet up downstairs at ground level by a coffee shop in the airport to chat, however I would have to go through security again.
We talked about old times, how our families were doing, and how we had met our spouses. I hadn’t realized Rafe had lived with my cousin Jeff H. For a while after he got a job long ago in Minneapolis.
That’s not my friend’s real name but every time I’m out walking my dog, Nincompoop, and listening to music, my AirPods guy says: “You have a message from Rafe- read it?”
Rafe used to be “some guy named Ralph.”
After a three hour chat, then a delayed flight (with a recommendation from Rafe to look for famous tile flooring by Gate 1) I sat waiting and never did see the special tile. But here’s a picture:
That tile is pretty exciting.
I had a long flight from Minneapolis to Paris, and tried to sleep but with no luck. They served drinks a lot, even red and white wine. I had a lasagna dinner like a frozen copy imitating dinner plus veggies and a lemon dessert that resembled a lemon bar. After hours of fits of near sleep and twisting and turning in my seat, we made it to Charles De Gaulle Airport way out on some distant runway as they hauled us away in buses to the real airport and I was instantly lost. This airport is a modern, glassy, glossy, winding, up and down gooey mess.
Photo below is from MN airport.
The piano player at Minneapolis Airport there. That’s a big Steinway baby grand piano.
I had fun chatting with him. He gives lessons, if you’re interested. He told me I could start to learn from where he gives lessons. I told him Minneapolis was a bit too far to go from California where I live for piano lessons.
Then I finally landed in Paris and luck would have it I asked a worker there where my gate was and she knew. It was mobbed at the CDG airport. Crazy security gates there with up escalators then down to find my gate, but I got on board and flew to Venice, Italy. Pretty short flight then found my tour lady with her sign on a pole. After meeting three other ladies in my group, it was pure fun, adventure and amazement.
I had made it to Italy. I was enraptured.
Water taxi to Venice.
We four ladies on the tour were remarking at how fast our water taxi zipped, bounced and splashed across the bay to the island. This driver smoked his cigarette the entire trip out. He was calm. We were worried. We did make it.
I was in Venice, Italy after 24 hours, including an overnight flight, a visit with a fellow Murdoite and four airports and a speeding boat ride out to my hotel. I walked with my lady travelers down the street after hopping off the boat as the tour guide… well…guided us to the quaint, lovely old mansion from the 1600’s currently a hotel/inn.
First night out for snacks with new friends in Venice.
Part 2: Trippin’ in Canada- A New Food Frontier for Me
“I wanna try veggies!” My Granddaughter is reaching for food at my birthday dinner that I had requested. She couldn’t wait. It was the best birthday dinner ever.
I flew to eastern Canada recently. It felt like I was in another country. Right. It is another country – a beautiful, green, clean country. In Canada they eat poutine. It makes your arteries cry out, it tastes delicious but looks like three ingredients that met on a blind date, drunk and forgot one of them had made two dates at the same time.
French fries, gravy with cheese curds. It’s affectionately called “poutine” a national dish.
I had it twice and barely recovered. It looked pretty ugly yet comforting. It was gooey, floating with guiltless gravy smothered French fries, but daring a person to get to the crunchy brown and crispy fries at the bottom. Oh, and then we haven’t added enough fat and heart challenging delights, say Poutine creators. We will add – drum roll – cheese curds! I resisted, I fought it, I ate it. Poutine was delicious.
My birthday takeout dinner: four cheese raviolis, lasagna, canolini and a big salad with Italian dressing.
I requested we do takeout and eat it at home because it’s so much better and easier when you have kids, ages 22 months and 4 years. Gimmy knows. (That’s what my grandkids call me.)
Gimmy enjoying her bday dinner ordered from Little Italy in Ottawa, Ontario. So happy.
Four desserts: mini lemon meringue pie, tarramasu, raspberry cheesecake and chocolate mousse with hazel nuts. Sinfully delicious. Even the bakery logo was a square of dark chocolate.
We also went to special coffee shops which were recommended to us by family.
This one had cocktails also.
Mocha for the retired teacher.
Coffee shop way out in the woods with tree growing up through the roof and fabulous croissants.
A half eaten French croissant because someone couldn’t wait.
Layers of golden delectable thin pastry.
Once in awhile we would stop eating and drinking to ooh and awww at the fall leaves.
Then there were the better than restaurant dishes my daughter and husband prepared.
Homemade nachos. Mmm.
Veggie salad.
Polish sausage from Farmers Market.
Pierogis- just add sour cream.
This coffee shop had an old juke box and a laundromat in back so you could wash clothes and eat pastries and drink coffee at the same time.
Quinoa with veggies that my daughter made.
My son in law made mashed turnip with butter and bread crumbs with Parmesan cheese on top. It took hours to peel and mash the turnips. It was so delicious.
Aunt Gayle brought falafel with two flavors humus and pickled onions and peppers and pita bread- whole wheat or white from a local restaurant.
Grilled cheese was all right with Amelia especially with Dad serving.
Then we went one evening over to the Mexican restaurant across the lake with great views from upstairs and boats moored down below. One big boat was named “Doin’ Nothin’” which fit because it never did a thing the whole 11 days I was visiting Ottawa.
The food was awful but the service and location were amazing. Here’s what Everett ordered even before we got our drinks:
Mac and cheese is called KD in Ottawa. The refried beans were right from the can and Spanish Rice was almost as good as Rice a Roni from a box mix. Everett ordered some of it and a side of sour cream.
Nachos
Pretty presentation.
My daughter and I both ordered this enchiladas with rice and beans.
To save us from this Mexican food from a box that tasted like… uh, I don’t know, we got big margaritas. Sam, my son-in-law, had two just to help ease the food situation.
Margarita #1.
Thanks, family and Canada for a unique and fun food experience!
Breakfast kid style.
Donut machine making apple cider donuts when we were at the Apple orchard. We bought 2 bags.
Those 70ish Girls 