The Sinking City of Venice

*Only five month late*

To Review the Rest of the Trip:

Rome

Florence

Pisa

Cinque Terre

Bologna

Verona

I've said for years that I had to get to Venice before it was completely under water. Now of course I know this will not happen in my lifetime, but each year it does sink and I wanted to make sure I got to see it before it was a huge mess. 

Can you see the excitement on my face?  Yes, I was freezing.  This is the only day on our trip that I felt the weather was almost unbearable. It was snowing and really cold.  I was really wishing I hadn't lost one of my gloves in Florence.

We road on the water bus to San Marco and ventured down this extremely narrow street to get to our hotel. 

Check out the classic Venice decor.  Eek. 

We didn't really have any plans so we just headed towards Piazza San Marco. Pizzaza San Marco is the main square in Venice. It's home to St. Mark's Basillica, the Doge's Palace, the a super cool clocktower.  It also is the most likely to flood portion of the entire city.  When we got there the raised sidewalks were setup and there was about 3 inches of standing water. By the end of the day it had subsided. Here are a few pics:

We were chilled to the bones so we went to find something warm to drink.  We had been looking for a cake shop that was in our Time Out Guide, but of course it was no where to be found. So we stopped for some delicious treats and cioccolato caldo.  This was not just any hot chocolate, it was literally like a Cadbury bar had been melted and poured into the cup.  Had we known how to say whipped cream we would have.  It may have been easier to drink or eat with a spon.  We drank what we could but we were both on serious chocolate overload.  I know you're thinking wow, too much chocolate for Jess..amazing.

The second part of our day we headed to the famous Teatro La Fenice.  It's burned twice and been completely rebuilt.  Here's a couple pics we snuck. 

We were disappointed that there were no shows going on, but I suppose we could always go back another time. After quick nap we headed to dinner at a local restaurant by another theater.  It was the first restaurant that didn't look shady and was affordable.  It wasn't so bad.

The next day we went to Verona which you saw the review of already.  On the way there we cruised through this great outdoor market.  Wouldn't it be nice to get this fresh of food all the time?

Our final day in Venice coincided with the celebration of Befana Festival.  It is a celebration of the Ephipany.  The morning started off with a very special boat race.  This race's competitors are all middle aged men that dress up as witches.  They looked pretty great.

At the conclusion of the race they brought a large stocking and hung it from the Rialto bridge.  To Josh and I this seemed like a combination of Christmas and Halloween.  Good kids get candy from the witch and bad kids get coal. 

We were cruising around town and happened apon a gondalier who was willing to cut us a deal.  So off we were on our Venetian gondola ride.  It was pretty cool cruising around the Grand Canal and seeing the amazing buildings from a different perspective.  We even had tourists taking our pictures.  Here are a few of our favorites from the ride.

After our ride we continued to cruise around town. We headed across the Grand Canal to Dorsoduro.  We got to see Piazza San Marco from across the water and another beautiful church, Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute. I also walked the path of part of the Venice marathon.  I don't think that it would be much fun, very narrow streets, occasional standing water, and tons of ramps over all of the bridges.

What's the best way to savor your last evening in Venice?  Starting it drinking a cafe and Prosecco on the water watching the sunset. 

Beautiful.

We enjoyed dinner at a tiny little place on one of the canals.  It took us almost an entire hour to find it again and unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the place so I couldn't tell you the name of it. It was pretty delicious and the staff was hilarious! 

And like that our trip was over. 

I'm 26, are you sure?

Well it’s been 26 years since my terrified parents became my mom and dad. Contray to what my mom may say, I was not a beautiful newborn.  Yeah that's me with the conehead.  Luckily it is now normally shaped and I have hair.

I cannot believe I turned 26 today. I am officially at an age that, even at 22, I thought was old. Now I’m not saying I’m old, because I mean come, 26 isn’t even close to the midpoint of my life. I just cannot believe that I'm not officially closer to 30 than I am to 20.  How did the time fly by so fast?  I swear I was just graduating from high school like five minutes ago.  Even more strange, I feel like my parents just turned 26 not that long ago. In fact, when my stepmom Liz started dating my dad Lmost 18 years ago, she was 26.  What a brave woman to take on a man that had a 8 year and 5 year old.  It's just crazy scary to think that at my age my parents had kids in elementary school. 

My mid-twenties, yes Josh I’m still in my mid-twenties, have been awesome so far:

Age 24-Married my lobster
Age 25-Ran my first marathon and went on an amazing trip to Italy
Age 26-????-We'll see what the year brings.

What I do know is that I’m just a super lucky girl woman. I have wonderful friends and family. I even have wonderful coworkers, case in point, Lisa who brought me this delicious and super cute cake for my birthday. (Thank you one last time!) Nothing better than the smell of cake in the morning when you arrive to your cubicle.

This year is going to be great I know it! How could it not be? I’m happy, healthy (well almost), I have a job, a house, a wonderful, loving husband and dog. Bonus-I get to go on another fabulous European adventure to Paris and London in September, two races already scheduled (hopefully I’ll be able to do them), and all sorts of surprises that are going to pop up. Yeah, it’s going to be good. ;-)

Thanks for all the love and support!

Josh took me out for an amazing dinner at this tiny little restaurant called Praha.  It was one of the best meals I've had in a long time.  I had the Pepper Steak "Galleria". So delicious and beautifully presented. I should have taken a picture but felt silly. Excellent birthday!

P.S. I scheduled my MRI today. I know I wasn't going to do it, but I tried to run again last night...no dice.  It hurt bad.  I have PT on Wednesday and I'm going to order custom orthodics.  MRI is scheduled for first thing on Thursday morning...booo.

Marathon Monday and Tapering Sucks

Today is Marathon Monday in Boston.  I think it's the only race that is held on a Monday and is like a holiday in Boston. The winner of this morning's race finished in an amazing, 2:05:52 setting a new course record.  That means for all 26.2 miles, he held a pace under 5 min/miles. He runs over 12 mph...he must be half cheetah.  Amazing! 

Instead of cheering for tens of thousands of runners, I'm eating lunch in my cube trying to calm my marathon jitters.  Tapering sucks there is no doubt about it. What sucks more is that I've listened to Josh (Yes, I'll say it again, you're right) and stopped going to the gym.  After I met Rache for a workout on Tuesday, I knew I needed to back off because my calf and ankle were hurting to the point where I wasn't walking normally.  Now, almost a week later, with icing and compression socks I feel like I'm so close to being 100%. 

Of course any normal person would be like heck yeah, I get to eat a ton and not workout, awesome. Yeah, not me. I'm going crazy not working out. This is the longest I've gone in I don't even know how long. I've been doing crunches and pushups at home to at least feel the slightest inclination of the burn.  Many runner gain weight during the taper and I'm no exception. I can feel my pants tightening around the waist and I feel gross and bloated.  Oh well, I'm gearing up for the big race right? All of this is not helping with my nerves though. I almost feel more nervous than I did about Seattle. I think it's because I know how hard the distance is and this taper has just been really rough.  I know I'm well trained and resting to get healthy is the right thing to do, but man I'm struggling.

This weekend the carb gods decided they wanted to help me carb load. Josh and I went over to Great Harvest  Bread Company to pick up my free loaf I got at Canyonlands and we actually won something!  They were having some sort of event and every hour at random times there was a basket winner. We just so happened to win!  Score!  Check out our delicious basket: bread, cinnamon roll, apricot jam, a little knife and a gift certificate for $5.  Mmmmmmmmm.  My carb hungry body is very excited about this. In fact I'm enjoying a delicious sandwich right now. Throw in tons of water and Gatorade and you have a runner on a mission to be carb and hydration ready.

We also had an awesome Italian meal...best since being in Italy. We went to Undici  with Russell and Shanna (his girlfriend, not Josh's sister).  So delicious!  Being hungover the next day, not delicious. In fact it totally sucked. No more drinks until after the race.  Biggest highlight though, after four years I finally got a new phone. Yes, I have now joined the 21st Century.

Romeo, Romeo where for art thou Romeo?

Verona was a just a quick train ride from Venice so we figured we'd take a day trip.  We actually did it on our second day in Venice, so I'm going a bit out of order, but eh, that's ok.

It was really seeing where Romeo and Juliet is set that made me want to check out Verona.  I wasn't sure what exactly we should see there, so we stopped at the tourist office at the train station.  Emensely helpful. 

Our first stop was Arena di Verona.  It was a nice pink color and had an ice skating rink outside of it for the holidays.  I was impressed how well preserved it is.  They still hold performances at the colliseum during the summer months. 

Of course we had to pretend we were gladiators since we were able to get into the center ring.

Next stop, Casa di Giulietta to see the window from which Juliet longed for her Romeo. Now of course this isn't really Juliet's window, but we had to stop by anyway.  Josh made sure to rub Juliet's boob for good luck.  I really think that is just a lucky charm that was thought up by a boob man.

Looking down at my Romeo.

On our way to our next destination we apparently walked right by the House of Romeo which is a private residence.  We didn't even realize it until we were reading our book later that night.  Isn't this square beautiful?  It's called Piazza dei Signori.

We walked across Ponte Pietra on our way to Roman Forum.  We didn't spend too much time there because it was all starting to look the same.  We did find it interesting that it was all buried under houses before being uncovered by a man after he'd purchased the property.  Who builds over a Roman forum?

Anyway, we were chilly and jonesing to get back inside. So we booked it to the Duomo.  It was another beautiful church and was nice and warm.  We didn't take any pictures in these churches, because you know...it's yet another church. 

Last destination on our itinerary...Castelvecchio.  We thought it was going to be more a cool castle than museum, but hey it was warm and there was some impressive art work and check out these weapons.

Can you imagine trying to carry that or being struck by any of them. Yikes!

Josh really needed a cappucino so we made a stop at a bustling local place then walked back to the train station.  It was time to head back to Venice for some food and relaxation.

Who Wants Bologna?

No not the meat, but the city.  It is where the meat was invented though.  Delta Airlines was kind enough to cancel our original flight home so we had an extra day to kill before we headed to Venice. We checked out the trains and decided, hey why not check out Bologna, the books said we'd have great food so we were for it. 

We walked for like 15 minutes with our backpacks on through the crowded shopping area when we spotted a hotel.  We were so sick of carrying our huge bags we decided their single room would work for us.  After all the twin bed was a bit wider than usual.  Are you having a flashback to college? Yeah we did too.

See it doesn't look so bad does it?  (It really was bigger than it seemed.)

We really had no idea what the sites to see in the city were. So I made a quick list from our Lonely Planet book and with help from the concierge we were on our way.

Here are a few of the highlights (no I don't remember any of the names and am entirely too lazy to look them up.)

Josh thought it was hilarious that the women in the fountain had water shooting out of their nipples. 

Walking around really made us hungry which meant one thing...gelato.  Our book said that there was a gelateria that won an international award for its delicious cold treat so of course, that was the only place to go.  It seemed like we walked forever and I thought about turning around, but right then we stumbled across it.

 

You're drooling aren't you? It's ok to admit it.  Just make sure you don't get it on your keyboard.  We don't want a short circuit.

At this point I was tired. We headed to the hotel for a quick nap and then off to dinner.  We really picked a good hotel, because the oldest, so Lonely Planet said, restaurant in Bologna was just around the corner-Trattoria de la Rosso.

I'm sure you're sick of hearing about the great food, but this was seriously the best lasagna I've ever had.  It was really nothing like the American Italian kind. It was so delicious.

I was so sad when it was gone.  But not to worry, I had some delicious tortellini with bolognese sauce. Also mouthwatering and nothing like it's American counterpart.  We really needed to work off some of the food, so of course we went for a beer and then for a stroll around.

As you will see, the Italians have a big problem with leaning towers.

I'm glad we stopped in Bologna. It was a pretty cool city, but I was ready to head to the sinking city of Venice. 

Cinque Terre

After being in two bustling cities and lots of New Years drinks, we were ready for the beautiful coast.  I first learned about Cinque Terre when Liz suggested it as a honeymoon destination. Of course back then tickets were over $2000 just to fly to Italy, so we knew it just wasn't in the cards for us.  As we were planning our trip this time we knew it was a place not to be missed. In fact it was the place that Josh wanted to go the most.

Grumpy Josh was gone once he saw the beautiful blue ocean water out the train window.  We booked a room in Vernazza, the 4th of the five towns.  I think I just have to let the pictures descibe the town.

Heading to our room (136 steps).

The walk was worth it for our view.  This is probably the cleanest air I will ever breathe. 

Quick rest and we were off hiking. 

Breathtaking isn't it?

All of this travel and hiking made us hungry.  Our hotel was run by the owner of a local restaurant so we decided to just head down there for dinner. 

I'm so glad we did, we had the best pesto ever! I kid you not, it was so good that I mmmmmmmmmmm'd with every bite.  I'm not sure if it was the fresh trophie pasta or the freshly made pesto, but the combination was killer!

The ocean was angry that day and decided to come flood the town a bit.  The locals were just sitting outside drinking and shooting the breeze as the water crept up to their doorways.

The next morning we awoke to an absolutely beautiful day!  In the morning we hiked up to the top of one of the surrounding mountains (not Colorado style mountains more like hills). 

We stopped for lunch and Josh found out that the sign in the restaurant about the toilet being a hole in the ground wasn't a joke.  Now tell me, how is a woman supposed to use that?  Eek.  I avoided public restrooms our entire trip.

After lunch we took the train to Riomaggiore, the first of the five towns.  From there we strolled along Lovers Lane to get to the other towns.

I'm amazed that anyone settled here.  I mean who thought that the side of cliffs looked like a good place to settle and farm?  Crazies I tell you.  That or they are smarter than the rest of us.  It seems such a relaxing lifestyle.

Our last night we headed to one of the only other open restaurants in town.  Our table was right by the side of the cliff where they attached the building. There was even a tiny stream of water running down it. 

Josh got a local dish of sardines.  When in Rome...or Cinque Terre, right?

The sun set on our trip to the coast.