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.
I started my family trip on a recent Friday waking up at 2:00 am. Hey, when I got up that early, I thought, why not just stay up, since the Uber was coming at 3:40 am?
I was packed, dressed, and had my neighbors coming later that day to pick up my little dog, Nincompoop. I had prepped them about her and she knew them from other times when they had dog sat. She would really miss me but they loved her.
Ninny the Pomo poo being left with neighbors while I traveled out of the country to visit my daughter and family in Canada.
Me: Good dawg.
Ninny: You expect me to be loyal when all I get is a lousy cup of water?
I was excited to be flying to Ottawa, Ontario Canada to visit my daughter, her husband and my two grandchildren. My daughter and husband had just sold their house and everything they owned in the states to relocate to another country. Her husband had relatives there and things were calmer and less crowded there. It was a major change for them and they had been through a lot in these past two months. On top of that, they speak French in Ottawa and use metrics. They eat poutine and love Hockey. It’s a challenge just reading their signs. Mac and cheese is called KD.
I got dropped off by an Uber driver who talked my ear off. Then at the San Jose airport, I tried to check in but had not paid the extra $75 yet from when I had changed my flights.
At 4:15 am. I strode up to the desk to ask for help from the airline representative. The two ladies I approached were more than helpful. They walked me slowly through what I needed to do. I hadn’t even put a name tag on my bag so one gal gave me one and told me what to do kinda like a kindergarten teacher helping a 5 year old, me being the 5 year old.
The other sweet airline agent helped me with the app on my smart phone, since I wasn’t as smart as my phone and she knew it. I paid the $75 and was in their computer system and soon could go to my gate, if these two sweetheart women gave me the go ahead. I was patient, I was obedient and I needed them.
The one older lady must’ve felt sorry for me when she discovered my birthday would be in six days and I was definitely 70ish. I told her I was going to celebrate with my daughter and family. She said I could check my tiny bag for free as a complementary treat. I jumped up and down. I clapped. I yelled, “Awesome!” So that way now I only had to carry my purse and my bag would meet me in Ottawa at the end of this long day. Holy moly – I liked her! She asked me to show my passport even though I had it on file and told me where to go, nicely and patiently and what to expect. I was super relieved! I thought she’d give me a sticker but she didn’t have time.
I skipped away and up the escalator like a little kid. I was happy go lucky, even happy unlucky, to know that there are still helpful, kind people to assist 70 year olds who are more mentally like 5 year olds and act like clueless teenagers, and aren’t used to airports nor travel to another country. It warmed my heart to get help since I was…well…helpless. I was also well behaved and used eye contact as I smiled. I expected a gold star but sometimes just getting attention counts.
I got upstairs at the airport and walked around. I went through some magical area called Security and through X-ray machines. I bought a few snacks for the first leg of my flight to Chicago. I put them in my purse. Now I waited. I behaved and did not fuss. I sat quietly.
Next came the cattle call. You sit at the airport by your airlines gate with your boarding pass or have one on your phone app. You are quiet. You don’t talk to strangers. I was in Group 3 so I waited til I was called. A young guy and I let Group 1 and 2 people go ahead of us. As they walked by, I yelled snootily, “Prove it! We don’t believe you.” He was the only one out of about 100 who chuckled. It was a small chuckle. Then we walked by Group 4 with our noses in the air and boarded the plane feeling pretty special.
This was better than having a sticker or even a gold star.
I could even feel more prissy because I’d paid a bit extra for a bulkhead seat. The foot and half of legroom was to die for which I probably shouldn’t say since I would soon be 25,000 feet straight up kept aloft by jet engines in a tube with wings, piloted by people I’d never met but was asked to trust with my life and luggage.
I had to sit between two guys each about 30 years younger than me. They looked disappointed when I crawled over into my seat trying not to touch elbows. My purse was kicked in front under this bulkhead thing. I tried not to bother them. I read my book and ordered ice water and got a bag of about one tablespoon of pretzel mix as a snack. As I reached for my ice water from this kind flight attendant, I spilled half of it down the pant leg of my fellow passenger.
I apologized and he laughed saying his pants would dry. I also saw them pop out these cute little trays from out of nowhere! I asked both guys how they did that and they showed me these secret compartments hidden in the armrests. Ingenious.
After reading my book and using the restroom which was as big as half a small closet, and getting a second drink, we were landing in Chicago.
I waited by my gate and used my phone to contact people I hadn’t seen nor heard from in decades just to pass the time. I watched silly videos on Instagram and passed the time until I could board a smaller plane and found my seat which was in the very last row in back. I chatted with a lady across the aisle, looked out the window at no view whatsoever and watched people. A young guy came and sat next to me. I read my book. He just smiled and opened his giant four gallon water bottle after we got in the air.
His water bottle spurted water everywhere all at once…on me, on the seat on him, on the seat back in front of us. He apologized about 5 times and I gave him napkins from my purse and helped wipe up water. I blotted my pants. He kept apologizing. I told him he had apologized enough.
He said, “I can’t help it. I’m Canadian.”
I found out that most Canadians are super polite.
When I landed in Ottawa I had to go through customs, but it was easy using a machine that prompted me to enter my US passport for a closeup photo and answer a few questions like what my business was in Canada and how long I was staying and did I bring drugs or any guns or Pokémon cards or designer jeans into the country and at the end it said: Please don’t expect to learn French in the 11 days you plan on staying. Pick up after yourself and be kind to all peoples.
Meeting my 4 year old grandson after getting through customs in Ottawa Canada.
He wanted to see the waterfall inside the airport. He said he liked my shoes because he likes pink. I told him I liked his green ones.
My sweet daughter and her son met me after I went through customs at the Air Canada exit. I found my checked bag thanks to a kind Canadian customs officer who treated me like I was 5 years old like the US airlines lady had treated me back in San Jose.
I was so happy to be in Canada. They actually let me in. I had to shape up plus I was a grandmother visiting my two adorable grandkids aged 4 and 22 months. They would keep me on my toes. Plus I didn’t want to embarrass my grandkids nor my dog Ninny back home.
Merci.
Me trying to read the French signs and being kind to all people. I know. I should keep my mouth shut.
Those 70ish Girls 