First off--Amy and me taking it all in, on the trail to the Duino castello, just north of Trieste:

This one was taken with the self timer and the camera on a rock during our second hike in the Dolomites. We were really feeling good!

View...

Sign in the valley indicating that the area is a Unesco World Heritage site:

My dear dear friend and travel companion, Amy, on the balcony of our room at the Hotel Maribel:

And another glamour shot of Amy on the street in Trento:

Street in the center of Trento:

Ken and Kev--they never missed a bench-talk opportunity:

I got my face painted in the Piazza Duomo before the Euro Cup final match:

Do we look happy or what?--Gelato tasting at Grom in Trento:

One more from the baroque Santa Maria Maggiore church in Bergamo:

The orchard behind the Hotel Il Gourmet in Bergamo:

Thanks everyone for reading, commenting, encouraging and coming along on our wonderful ride.

Hope I'll be doing it again in a couple of years!

We started with a week in Rome and this shot of a lone poppy in the ruins near Portico Ottavia is memorable:

and this one of a photographer set up inside the Pantheon--a place I wish we had gone to more than once.

Our first stop was Montisi in Tuscany where we made a little day trip to Pienza and then to the garden tour at the La Foce estate. The tour guide was straight out of central casting:

Staying at Locanda dalle Valle Nuova near Urbino was a treat. I had "known" Giulia online for years but we had never met. She is so engaging, entertaining and full of life! I will never forget when she interrupted our special dinner with wonderful friends, Palma and Brad to show us the sunset.

The views and the flowers--just so much natural beauty:

All of these photos are from Venice.

A wall...

A window in Campo Santa Margherita:

A wall on the far side of Giudecca:

Kiosk right near where we sat to eat the "fish fry" on Saturdays at Rialto:

Where the public signs are insufficient, the local residents have done this:

Such a pretty little bridge, at Campo San Barnaba:

Hot day: A spritz for me and gelato for Ken--at Campo Santa Maria Formosa

One of the saddest, Catch 22, type things in Venice is the presence of the "grandi navi" the giant cruise ships that are destroying the canal. They dump thousands of tourists onto the precious island. They don't usually spend any money except for a few trinkets because all of their food and board are provided on the ships. And the ecological impact is enormous. Here they are from the hotel window (Hotel Imperial, last night in Italy)

View, looking the other way, from the hotel room window :

I will do one more post of shots from out of Venice--soon.

I'll try to put them in chronological order.

First, the door to our apartment building in Rome. You can see we were in the best possible location! I still remember the wonderful earthy smell of the "all things pork" shop, right next door.

I saw this man and his dog in the little piazza in front of the Ducal Palace in Urbino.

Ken waiting for the start of the event at the Doges Palace in Venice:

Our apartment, in Venice, from across the bridge over the Fondamenta Minotto--white building, top floor on the right:

Two very different views of the Bridge of Sighs:

View from our apartment looking left:

View from the street towards our neighborhood:

Graduation celebration parade heading for the little bar called Lele:

I think that's enough for one post.
More, soon.

Ken and I turned the car around and headed for Venice. Got here around 1:00. Checked into the Imperial Hotel right near Piazzale Roma. Our room is tiny but the A/C definitely works and it was no hassle coming from the car rental place, with all of our baggage, and going back to take the bus in the morning will be easy.

We headed over to the very nearby Majer for shakerato and a couple of tremezzini. We had a list of little errands to run--gifts to buy etc. We broke it all up by sitting in Campo Santa Maria Formaosa with a spritz and a beer for an hour. It was in the mid 90's here today--not conducive to walking, full speed ahead, through the crowded Venice streets. We got everything done, just about, or we gave up on some things. We got our shuttle bus tickets for the morning and rested in the room for a while.

Dinner was a big decision and finally we decided to go to Osteria ae Cravate--not too far and not too fancy. We had walked by this place a thousand times and never eaten there. it was a perfectly satisfying dinner. We started with fantastic, super fresh mussels and clams in a nice broth with a little bit of chopped fresh tomato in it.
Ken had a pasta with pesto which was OK but no WoW factor. I had monkfish with vegetables which was on the same level. Ken had a beer and I had a very generous glass of prosecco and we shared a tiramisu. Bill came to 57euros. Not too bad for a fine meal sitting outside in Venice.

Now we are back in the hotel room. Everything is organized and packed. We plan to catch the 7:20 shuttle to the airport.

It's been awesome in the literal sense of the word. I feel satisfied and ready to go home.

This was a great trip!

It was a total surprise that we got breakfast here at all because we are in an apartment so, even though it was just coffee, yogurt and rolls, it was welcome. We met 2 Norwegian couples who have traveled together often, like we have. It was great talking with them.

Bergamo has two parts—the old city is higher and called the citta alta ;the more modern city is the citta bassa. Our hotel is in the citta alta. It was a short walk to the botanical gardens where we enjoyed seeing all the local plants and trees. Then we took the finiculare car up to the top and walked around ending with a little explore of the castle and Amy, Ken and I climbed to the top of the tower.

An amazingly lit Japanese maple we walked past:

and a view of the citta alta form above:

We took the finiculare back down and after a short walk into the citta alta chose a large restaurant call Circolino to stop for some nice salads for lunch. We came back to the hotel for a while and then Amy and I struck out on our own for her to find gifts to bring back. We went into several stores on the main street and finally she found what she needed and I got a bag of the polenta taragna I was wanting.

The restaurant we wanted to go to for dinner was closed so we went, instead, to Da Ornella. It was very simple (not a problem) but they did have casoncelli which is the local Bergamasco stuffed pasta and it was wonderful in a butter and sage sauce. We also shared “stinco di miale” a roasted pork shank with polenta. Amy and Kev had a roasted chicken with garlic and parsley. All the meats came with polenta (normale not taragna) and were good home style cooking. Bill was 72 euro.
We all had a local Cabernet which was nice and cool and went down very easily.

The little apartment we rented at the Hotel Il Gourmet is just fine although it took Kenny about 15 minutes to get the air conditioning to work and communication was difficult with the staff.

We met our dear friend, Massimo, at a little coffee/bakery right down the hill from us—5 minutes walk.

Kind of a crazy scene there with lots of kids coming in to buy candy or gelato. And the waiter insisting that we learn Bregamasco dialect instead of the Italian we are already struggling with. We also got 4 little pastries to taste including the local polentina which is a little cake made to look like a pile of polenta with a tiny animal on top—either a pig or bird. It was mostly marzipan and tasty but Massimo tells us it’s just for tourists.

With Massimo as our private guide we walked through the crowded streets of the citta alta.

He told us some of the history, religious significance and some personal notes. We even got to visit his high school. Highlights for me were going into the special Tasso library where he has done so much of his work becoming an expert on the 16th century poet from Bergamo. Look closely and you can see that these, very well dressed, women are trying to read and interpret an old text. The pages were partially transparent and the old hand written words were brown.

Here's Kev and Massimo posing with Tasso in the library:

This picture is for Anthony and Lyn—Massimo with his poet, Tasso.

We spent a while in the Colleoni chapel, an over the top example of Baroque. Colleoni was a very rich and self important mercenary. And we went into the Santa Maria Magiore church right beside it which is also full of incredible details. The were doing some interesting restoration work there. The exterior was chock full of detail in marble. Massimo had us touch, for good luck, a symbol of 3 balls which stand for Colleoni.

We walked on to the other side of the citta alta learning and gaping with interest the whole way. Finally we gave up—so tired and Ken and I really needed a shower before our visit to Massimo’s parents.

Massimo picked us up at the hotel and drove us to his parents home which is really beautiful. They have lots of cool art on the walls and the themselves could not have been sweeter. We ate outside on their patio in the fresh air. His mom cooked and the dad helped clean up. She made pasta with pesto (yes, just what I have been craving!) and then we had some cold meets and cheese with bread and salad. We brought the wine we’ve been carrying around with us and it was good.

After dinner we went on a short walk with Massimo and his mom. I felt great walking beside her talking about our families like old friends. We are truly so extremely fond of Massimo and I think she can tell that beyond our words. He drove us home and we chatted with Amy and Kev for a very little while before getting into the welcome bed.

We were constantly looking up at the frescoes and designs.
We passed by this little galleria:

There were several frescoed buildings and interesting statues. We spent a long time appreciating one palazzo with phytomorphic (plant like--a new word for me) designs and lots of detail:

We spent a while in a hardware/cookware store that also sold fancy swords.

We walked through a community garden which was a restoration of an ancient Roman garden. Amy and I loved all the herbs and roses. The sign said something like "We care for the garden; we care for each other".

The Castel Buonconsiglio was our goal even though we knew it is closed on Mondays. I wish we could have gone inside.

Then we went to a park and sat for a while. Kev hated the modern monument in honor of DeGasperi, a local political hero.

Finally we got some panini and sat on the duomo steps in the shade to eat. We were just 100 yards from Grom. They would have been so insulted if we didn't partake. I tried their new flavor of the month--peach with bits of amaretto cookies and chocolate chips--not my favorite but the raspberry was the perfect hot day treat.

Before dinner we wanted to go back to the Duomo and we did get to explore the little museum underneath with the "paleochristian" ruins including mosaic floors and sarcophigi. Also all of the local Bishops are buried down there.

I love the back door of the duomo:

We went up to the hotel for a rest. A brief but intense hail storm came through and cooled everything off.
Dinner time: downstairs for a nice rose of Trento DOC sparkling wine and then we walked to a pizza place called Rosa D'oro. The pizza was good and so were the salads but I ordered grilled veggies with cheese and it tasted like it had been in a refrigerator for too long. We also had a side order of "crauti" warm sour kraut wih bits of bacon(?) in it--it was a Tyrolian restaurant after all.

A little walk after dinner and that was that.

I took this classic Trento shot during our "picnic" lunch:

At the end of the visit we went outside to the sculpture garden. The works are huge. I like how this one's line seems to mimic the view:

Then, like just about every other family in the area, we drove to Riva del Garda. The lake is a natural beauty but the people watching was so distracting sometimes I forgot where we were. Where we parked the car it was really hot--like mid 90's but when you get close to the lake there is a wonderful cool wind (not breeze) blowing. It was instant comfort. We sat and strolled; Amy and Kev actually went into the water which was much rougher (think real waves) than I would ever imagine. The beach is mostly stones but for just a few feet, then there's a lovely soft grassy area where we sat in the shade. I took most of these pictures from where we sat:

It was a feast of human interest.

We came back to the hotel and very quickly went downstairs to the bar for a spritz or beer and some little snacks they were serving. Amy said they were "Costco" food and I think she nailed it. She and I sat outside gazing at the piazza duomo and feeling the excitement building in town for the Euro cup final between Italy and Spain. Lot of people were in blue shirts, carrying Italian flags, faces painted. Big time!

Fiona reserved us a place for an early dinner which was an easy walk. We all had pasta dishes--mine was a tortellini filled with ricotta and local truffles with shave "grey" truffles on top. Quite good! I liked Amy's very green spinach gnocchi. All the food was good and the bill for the 4 of us was just 72 euros.

We walked home through the piazza. The light was beautiful.

Lots of young people gathering all over the place with large screen TV's at many outside bars. I got red/green/white stripes painter on my face and we came up to watch the disappointing game. We went down for gelato at half time but by then the crowds were already subdued by the increasingly obvious inevitability of the loss.

I called Kathryn at the half and she answered screaming "Viva Espana" and her voice made my night!

So we take off and make the 2 hour drive "back to Italy". Trento is lovely and quiet. We check into the Aquila D'oro easily. First priority is to get the laundry done. So we walk the few blocks on the other side of the Piazza Duomo and find the self service lavanderia. We got it done, leaving it all for a while to check out the beautiful baroque duomo. Amy and I listened to the history on one of those telephone booth things. There are bones in the crypt under here from 372bc because it is the site of an early Christian church. This is an odd photo of the side chapel:

And here's the clock tower:

Doing the laundry was SO hot. Believe me--it was just too hot in there. We walked back by way of:

for a lemon granite.

After some down time, we got dressed (ever so slightly) up for our dinner at Ai Tre Garofoni. We sat outside hoping for a breeze. His amuse was a cold cucumber yogurt soup. We all ate very well. The apps were the best part. Ken's pasta, a play on traditional Ligurian pesto with potatoes and little green beans also had a shrimp ragu but tasted mostly like pesto. His was outstanding. Our other 3 were just plain excellent. I had a squid and vegetable fritter, Amy Polenta, mushroom with soft white melted cheese on it. Kev's fried cheese from Moena in a buckwheat crust came in a martini type glass with an apple cabbage slaw under it. After complimerntary glasses of prosecco, we ordered a bottle of white. The owner suggest a Kerner thought we'd give this wine one more chance.
The entrees were just a tad less successful. Ken had wonderful pork with an eggplant and a zucchini mush. I tried, for the first time ever, baby goat. The flavors were wonderful but for such a hot night I realized that eating braised meat wasn't the smartest choice. The small potato pancake and the chard on the side were perfect.
Amy had fabulous ravioli and Kev had fish wrapped in "crispy Turkish angel hair"
We go 2 dessert for the table and neither of them thrilled us. The bill was 198 euros.

We strolled around the pedestrian area, window shopping. The sales are on.
It was about 11pm and still too hot:

We again saw incredible displays of wild flowers, in meadows and on the trail:

We paused at this spot with a view of Madonna di Campiglio below:

It took us about an hour, full of great conversations, to reach the Lake and rifugio. It was a funny place---a mountain resort, kind of. There was a full restaurant, red canvas chairs for rent for 2 euros, a rectangular, cement trout pond full of fish and a bocce court:

Ken on the trail:

We came back to the hotel and just took it easy for a while. Hung out with Amy and Kev a bunch.
Dinner was here in their more rustic downstairs room. The food was really nice but not really noteworthy==Ken and I both had pork. I love the polenta with the buckwheat in it. Maybe I can bring some home. We tried a local Marzemino red wine we really loved though.

View from our terrace:

It was fairly well marked and pretty steep going up in some rocky areas but we knew we were close when we saw this sign:

It took us a little less than 2 hours to arrive at the Rifugio (a small restaurant in the middle of hiking country) on Lake Magletta. We sat on the lakeside and talked and laughed and rested for a while before moving on to a simple lunch of salad and a cured meat platter at the restaurant.

There was a tiny little rustic church up there:

The views were sublime. It was truly beautiful.

We saw tons of wild flowers, just like Marta said we would, even wild azalea.

We were almost all the way down when we started hearing something that sounded like a bunch of huge chimes. As we got closer we saw it was a small heard of grazing cows, all with varying sizes of bells around their necks. The sound was all new, euphonious and surrounding us.

Finally we saw the "cow man" and his dog; I talked to him a bit in his heavily accented Italian.

For the afternoon we indulged ourselves in the "wellness center" of the hotel--in door pool, saunas, hydro foot massage etc. In our big white terry cloth robes we felt--well--indulgent. Everyone seems happy.

In the early evening we drove down to the sleepy in the summer, ski town, Madonna in Campiglio to walk around.

The whole town is one hotel after another and most were closed. We window shopped a little, got some money from the bancomat and drove back up to a restaurant we had seen. It was early for dinner--just after 7:00 and we were the only ones in the place. The waiter said they had fresh local "finferli" (chanterelle mushrooms) and porcini. So we all had something with mushrooms. Amy had them with the local polenta taragna which had brown specks of buckwheat flour in with the corn meal. I had a plat of cooked veggies and mushroom soup and the guys had tagiatelli with mushrooms. I really enjoyed the dinner.
View from the restaurant:

We left just in time to make it back to the hotel to watch Italy defeat Germany in the Euro cup semi final. How exciting!

Ken went out early to a grocery store and got cereal etc. for all of us. We went down to a bar a half a block away for decent coffee. No exaggeration--on those 2 blocks there were at least 6 coffee bars!
We got packed up, checked out and were easily on our way north to Duino, fulfilling Kev's dream to see where Rilke, his favorite poet, wrote. We parked at the information office in Sistiana and walked a trail along the coast to the beautiful castle in Duino. There were amazing views out to the Gulf of Trieste around every turn and interesting plants, too:
This one was called "Christ Thorn" but I don't remember ever seeing it before.

View from Sistiana to our destination at the beginning of the trail:

View of a castle ruin:

We arrived at the Duino Castle and went into the museum. The gardens were lovely--"Don't walk on the grass."

Kev explained to us a bit of the philosophy of Rilke--dark stuff.

My 2 favorite things in the museum were the dining room:

and seeing Kevin thrilled to be there:

This is the stairway:

We stopped for a quick panino and took the bus (a minor adventure in and of itself) back to where we had left the car.

The drive up to Madonna in the Dolomites took us past Venice, Verona and up to Trento and finally into the mountains. Ken watched the car's outside temperature reading drop, with glee. It took us about 5 hours with one stop for coffee at an "over-the freeway" Autogrill which, we were told, was designed by the famous Italian architect Nervi. Arriving at Hotel Mairbel was wonderful. While it is not a deluxe place the service is. We were shown several room to choose from and finally settled on 2 together in the corner of the hotel on the 3rd floor. Then, Andrea served us each a welcoming glass of prosecco, parked the car for us and brought our suitcases upstairs. I took a quick bath (so soothing!) and we went to dinner in the hotel. Fodd was delicious if a bit too rich. I had ravioloni with chard and a bit of julienned speck on top with a rich sauce. Ken and Kev had bucatini alla Amatriciana which was a little less successful but still nice. Ken and I shared a little sausage with potatoes and mushrooms which was really tasty and seemed a much more local dish. I loved the buckwheat flavored bread. We drank a bottle of Kerner wine--didn't love it and all shared a pannacotta for dessert. The plates were garnished beautifully and the service was, again, top of the line.

I watched some of the Spain vs. Portugal match in the lobby with 2 families from Rome. When it went into overtime I came upstairs. Amy was sleepy in the bed but Kev and Ken and I watched til the end, with Spain winning on PKs. The bed is so comfortable! The air is chilly and mountainy. I think we're going to be very happy in this "off the beaten path" place.

Yesterday:
Left Venice. Went very smoothly.
Stopped in Aqueleia at Ai Due Leoni restaurant, recommended by my ST friend Deborah. Food great, setting great, rustic, almost rural but on the road to Grado. Saw a beautiful nest of baby swallows there. Great mixed seafood platter.

Arrive in Trieste: NEVER RENT SOMETHING WITHOUT RELIABLE REVIEWS. Long story short. The apartment sucked. Moved to Residence San Giusto--no problem but A/C not really working and jack hammers outside from 8am. Picked up Kev and Amy at the train station with the car. A minor miracle that we got there and found them. Took us a long time driving back but everyone's happy.
Had a nice seafod dinner here at San Marco Ristorante. Happy to be together.

Stayed up very late trying to figure out what to do next.

What is that all about?

We stood in the shade and admired the Piazza San Marco. So much beauty or ridiculousness depending on your focus. Just like life.
From there we wanderered a bit more until we found ourselves in Castello and getting near Ospedale so we could walk on Calle degli Mendicanti to Fondamenta Nova like we always did last visit. From there we took a vaporetto to Guglie and walked home. I had spoken to the man in the flower shop right near us about getting a little plant for the coffee bar friends. He was there, spoke no English and I got it--no sweat.

We came up to start packing. Had a make shift lunch and got to work. We're shifting things around to make it easier for transportation. My white linen pants got stuck in the pulley of the clothes line and have a big black grease stain on them so I'm leaving them here. Have to make space for the well wrapped painting we bought.

By around 6:00 Ken was getting hungry and we were both antsy. We decided to go for a walk. I ran into Sebastiano and said goodbye. The wind helped my get this nice shot of the Venetian flag hanging on a hotel on our street:

and I saw this sleeping gondoliere:

We found a new little street that arrives at Campo San Barnaba. We passed by this "underground garage"

and breathed in a little more of Venice on a bridge near there:

We had talked about just getting a spritz and snack for dinner and we wanted to pop into La Bitta to reserve for when we are back here for the last night before flying home.
We took a look at their menu in the window, knowing that they open at 7:00 but are generally fully booked. When they opened the door we were standing right there. I asked if there was a place and Deborah said only in the front room which is actually our favorite. So, we sat down for a wonderful chance dinner at La Bitta. We didn't order too much. Shared an app of some "mountain salami" which was made of goos and lamb with cumin and other spices--it was warm and great with the white polenta.
Next we each had our own pasta dish. Ken's was tagliatelle with sausage and peppers and a little cream. It was not at all greasy and you could really get the sweetness of the peppers--not a complicated dish. I had small gnocchi with fresh ricotta and fresh tomatoes. Loved it!
We shared a big piece of "fluffy spice cake" it was like a sponge cake with poppy seeds and a drizzle of honey. It was still a bit warm and true comfort food. We shared a really nice, light sweet wine: Soandre Verduzzo Donato which was perfect with the cake. We drank house wine ( 4 glasses) thorough the meal. Bill was 60 euro. Satisfaction quotient: huge.

We walked home and decided to go up to the "Constitution" bridge to see the sunset. We had a nice breeze and view before we went home and did some more packing stuff. Domani--una nuova aventura.