Cynz Travel Blog

I forgot to post this.  I wrote it a few weeks ago. I decided to make a final post of our favorite things about Italy.  First, I'd like to post a few lessons learned from our trip.  I guess they are not lessons learned as much as things to do or not to do. 1.  Don't pack too much!  I have a hard time with this.  My sister even tried to suggest it when she said to remember she has a washer/dryer we can use.  We lugged two large suitcases through Pisa, the train to Florence and then to the bus stop in Florence.  Poor Randy helped us lug the suitcases and watched them as we toured the tower.  It's ok to wear your jeans twice in a row! 2.  Wash your hands and bring hand sanitizer!  We were trying very hard not to get sick.  Don't touch your face and use hand sanitizer often! 3. Bring something to entertain you or put you to sleep for the long flight overseas.  On the flight over to Italy, the entertainment system didn'...

We spent our last day of our Italian vacation traveling to Bologna. It's just 30 minutes speed train from Florence. Brigette drove us to the train station which was nice because we had all of our luggage.  It gave us an opportunity to say bye. I was really sad leaving her. I take for granted that she's a car ride away in the states. The train was really busy and crowded. A nice young man helped me when he saw me struggling with my large suitcase.  When we got off the train, we had a hard time finding the exit.  Not speaking or reading Italian made it very challenging. I could somewhat sympathize with how Brigette must have felt when she first came to Italy. Thank goodness the taxi driver spoke broken English! We got to the Air BnB apartment. It was a pretty typical European apartment with one bedroom, a living/kitchen area and a bathroom.  The bed was comfortable and we felt pretty safe with the gated, locked access to the outside.  The manager of the apartme...

We said good bye to Florence by getting up early and walking to the monastery. It was a beautiful morning! Curtis had not seen it, so I wanted to take him on that walk.  After breakfast, my brother in law, Randy, took us on a different route. We enjoyed a leisurely stroll up narrow, winding roads, trying not to get hit by passing cars. We took some videos to show how narrow the roads are.  It was a really fun morning. We had our aperitivo early with Randy. Then Curtis and I took off to downtown Florence. Curtis really liked all of the door knockers and all of the different door styles. He wanted to get a door knocker as a souvenir. So we went to hardware stores to find one. We also went to Galleria dell'Accademia, the museum where the original statue of David is. It was very impressive. The amount of detail was really neat. I really didn't feel like I could appreciate it, but even I was impressed. We had dinner in Florence with Brigette and Randy as a thank you for lett...

We got up early to take the high speed train, Italo, to Venice. It was about a two hour ride. At one point, we were traveling at 300 km/h or about 190 mph! Curtis really liked that. When we got there, it was raining. So we ducked into a cafe and had a cup of capuccino. We didn't realize that sitting inside would cost us more than taking them to go.  I forgot about the cover charge that restaurants charge per person. So we meandered our way through Venice toward Piazza San Marco. It was very busy with tour groups. We were going to go inside the Basilica, but the line was really long! So we started walking toward Doge's Palace. We almost made it when a guy approached us and asked if we wanted a free glass factory tour.  I did want to see the glass making that is famous in Venice. He said no obligation. But we were both prepared for the "catch". He lead us to a REALLY nice private water taxi and told us not to tip the driver. I have to say the boat ride out to Mur...