Time Out From Traveling

We'll resume the travelogue in a couple of days.
In the meantime...Thursday night, Caleb and his parents came up so Caleb could play with me while his parents went to see Twilight, the midnight showing (see Karen's review of the show if you're interested). They stayed all day Friday, which was super fun for me! I put Brandon and Karen both to work!
First, Brandon had to figure out why Skype wasn't working on my computer. He was successful, so that's good to go.
Caleb was cute, trying to see what his dad was doing.
Once that job was done, we spent a good while getting this wall finished, which meant choosing and printing the pictures, which we did on my printer (they turned out great!).

That little one on the end is this...
Danny, I need you to take and send me several pictures of your little troop to add to my brag board.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Our first port of call after sailing away from Venice was Dubrovnik. There are about 50,000 people living here, out of the 5 1/2 million who call Croatia home. This is the Onofrio Fountain, one of Dubrovnik's most famous landmarks. It was originally built in 1438.

This view was spectacular! The water was such a pretty color. This is the Bokar Fortress and the Lovrijenac Fortress. Built in the 15th century to guard the harbor, but by the time it was finished, the harbor had moved to the other side of the town. Now that's poor planning!

From this angle you can see the city wall that surrounds Old Town. You can walk around the entire city on this pathway.

Here's the real harbor, with no fortress to protect it.


I got a smile from this shot. It looks like the cannon is aiming for that cruise ship. Luckily, it's not our cruise ship, plus I don't think the cannon is still functioning, so all is well.

Below is the clock tower and the Stradun (the main street). The Stradun is paved with marble.

The clock tower was first built in 1444. It has been restored several times, recently in 1929. It has two bronze figures in the tower that ring out the hours.
Here is part of the old wall.
Old and new, together. Check out the satellite dish in the lower right corner!



After all that walking, it's time for some refreshments!
This is the Croatian flag and the entrance to the Old City. You can just barely see the Pile Gate, which according to legend, the drawbridge was lifted at dusk each evening, closing the gate, and the key was handed to the Prince.

This guy was a crack-up. He was sitting at the Onofrio fountain, playing this little string instrument. The "music" was something that sounded like nothing more than noise that a toddler would make if playing the same instrument. His "tune" never changed; it was the same droning the whole time we were there. I think any of my grandkids could have played it just as well.

We enjoyed Dubrovnik.

If you would like to see more pictures, from someone else's point of view, click here.

The Glass Factory

We interrupt this post to inform you that last night I went to the Carrie Underwood concert for my birthday (thanks for taking me, Cheryl!). It was a blast. She gave an excellent show. No wonder she's winning so many awards! The encore was awesome. The only problem was that I was SO sleepy...still having some jet-lag, but I'm feeling better this morning!
Back to Italy-
When we arrived at the airport in Venice, we had to figure out a way to get to our hotel. We were told the only way was by water, which makes sense. We weren't going to swim (Bud could have done it, but there was the whole issue with luggage)! They had a big sign posting that you could take a water taxi for 95 Euro per person. Yikes! After a little looking around, we found a little spot selling public transportation to where we needed to go for only 6 Euro per person! We noticed most people buying the taxi ticket because they didn't figure out the other option. Even better, on our return trip after the cruise, we found the land bus option for only 2.50 Euro per person!
Our hotel concierge asked us if we wanted to see a glass factory. I didn't know at the time that Venice (and specifically Murano) was famous for their glass, but I do now. We were shown what boat to get on, and I was a little nervous about the whole thing, like it was some conspiracy theory to shanghai us away, but my worries were unfounded (of course!).
Here's Bud getting shanghai'd!












We got to watch them in the process of making a chandelier. Almost all their work is custom ordered.
Here are a few pieces that they were willing to sell (hence the whole invitation for asking us to go).
































This is the glass factory. It was a fun outing and I'm glad we got to go. I bought a souvenir for Karen; it was a little orange nativity ornament. How could I NOT buy that for her?

Venice, Italy

To answer Karen's question from yesterday, no, we can't start with these pictures. We have to go in order!

I'm starting the playback of the trip from Venice. We had one day there before getting onboard the cruise ship. This is our hotel. It took forever for us to find it. We had a porter chase us down to ask us (twice) if he could take us and our luggage to our hotel. He wanted 26 Euro for the job. We declined.

The hotel would have been very nice, except that we were given a room right on the busy street (probably one of those windows is our room), and we could hear every footstep, every voice, every suitcase wheel that went by. We didn't sleep well.

We found a little shop that sold pizza for only 3 Euro. It was right next to this fancy restaurant.
Here's a gondola guy waiting for a job to come his way.
Isn't this just how you picture Venice? Well that is how it really is!
Venice is made up of tiny little islands. Each island has its own name. This picture (below) is St. Mark's Square on the main island and is the primary tourist attraction for all of Venice.
You are not supposed to feed the pidgeons because they're only supposed to eat food that is laced with reproductive-suppressing stuff. The pidgeons probably outnumber the people on the island. Bud wasn't too keen on posing for a picture like this. I don't blame him. I wouldn't do it either, so this picture gives you the idea of what the pidgeons do all day.
Seriously, they're out of control.
This is the Grand Canal.
I would tell you the name of this place, but I don't know what it is. So, just know that it's a church. They have a lot of churches over there, but I don't know if any are actually used for churchy stuff.
This is the inside square of the Doge's (say dodge, with a long O) Palace.
This is the stairway you can see in the picture above to the upper right side.
In a previous post, I showed you a picture of what I thought was the bridge of sighs. I was wrong, THIS is the bridge of sighs (with a bunch of construction junk around it). The prisoners would walk across this bridge to their fate of imprisonment or death, after being sentenced for their crime.
This is St. Mark Cathedral. They say Saint Mark's body is buried behind the main alter inside. I can't verify that, because I didn't see much while inside. We only had 5 minutes there before they closed for the day.
Nice sunset with the main clock tower that's hundreds of years old.
We enjoyed Venice a lot. While there, we went to a glass factory, and I'll show you those pictures tomorrow. Take notice of the time of this post...my body is still on European time!