Florence

Florence

Busy Florence

Our visit to Florence began with a train journey from Montecatini Terme Station.  26 Australians travelled on a group ticket with our guide leading the way with her orange flag.  Although the train was late, we easily claimed a seat as we travelled east to Florence Termini.  As we had a timeslot booked to visit Michaelangelo’s David at L’Accademie of Fine Arts, we had to hurry through the cobbled streets to get there in time.  We were met by our guide, Mike, who was a very knowledgeable art historian and guide. He led us through L’Accademi and then through the streets of Florence.  We were able to see David in a whole new light, as well as several other finished and unfinished works of Michaelangelo.  Viewed as the perfect man, we soon found that he did have some flaws.

Heading towards the Duomo

The Baptistry

The Duomo

Next we walked around the outside of the Duomo and the Baptistry, which some could then visit at their own leisure.  Photographs never do justice to the colours of the marble in this magnificent building.  Pink, green and white marble, sourced from north of Florence near Carrara, glows in the sunlight.  

'David' copy

One of many statues outside Uffuzi Palace

Outside the Uffuzi Palace we saw a copy of the David in its original position, along with other well-known statues, and made our way down to the River Arno to view the Ponte de Vecchio, the bridge well-known for its gold sellers.

Ponte de Vecchio

Set free to explore on our own, we stopped first to dine in a trattoria for our lunch, then we hit the shops.  Florence is known for its leather, and the plastic got a workout in these leather shops.  We were able to view a gold shop where the manager is an Australian woman.

An interesting place to visit in Italy is a bookshop.  We wandered into one near the Duomo and were amazed with the size of it and also the range of books, including many international ones.  Just opposite this bookshop is a very classy coffee shop and gelataria where we finished up.  Doug chose an iced coffee which turned out to be a coffee-flavoured gelato with chocolate sauce swirled through it.  It just looked delicious and he agreed. This was balanced by a tuna salad lunch (see below).

Venice

Venice - La Serenissima, the Serene

There was a buzz of excitement as we all descended on the funicular on our way to Venice for the day from Castelbrando.  Mary intrigued us with her descriptions of the history and statistics of the city of 150 canals and 400 bridges, and of St. Mark, the patron Saint of Venice.  

View from Liberty Bridge towards the many large ships in the port of Venice

One of the ships

 After our bus cleared the Liberty Bridge and deposited us near to the docks where all the cruise ships were tied up, at least seven of them, we caught a waterboat or motoscafi  down the Guidecca Canal, and stepped off on the Riva degli Shiavoni.

Mary led us down a calle to Chiesa de San Zaccaria, a gothic, renaissance church to the east of San Marco.  The walls are adorned with beautiful paintings by Renaissance masters including the San Zaccaria altarpiece by Giovanna Bellini, Tiopolo, and Tintoretto (not on view to us because it was being restored).  We were unable to see into the crypt of this church because of rising waters.  This is becoming a major problem, with Venice sinking and global water levels rising.  Despite this water ingress, the churches continue to display these major paintings.

St. Marks Square

We met our Italian guide in front of St Mark’s.  She led us quietly into the Cathedral to view its vaulted ceilings, shining with millions of glass mosaics.  A mass was in progress, and the voices of a visiting choir inspired us with the beauty of their sound.  The floor of the cathedral was covered in marble mosaics, 3D, of infinite variety, colour and shape. Unfortunately, photographs could not be taken inside although some of certain nationalities obviously didn’t respect the signs or the cumulative damage that flashes of light do to the sensitive art works.  Our guide led us quietly out of the church and through the back streets to the Rialto Bridge.  Amazingly, there were very few people in the back streets, mainly locals.  She explained about the architecture, the damage to the buildings caused by time and wear, water and flooding.

View from Rialto Bridge along Grande Canal (we had lunch at a Restaurant at the lower right)

After lunch near the Rialto Bridge and a little time for shopping, Mary had arranged for us to take a gondola ride, not 20minutes like the usual tourist trip, but for 40 minutes.  This also included champagne to sip, plus a serenading gondolier with an accompanying piano accordion player.  We will always have a wonderful memory of floating down the Grand Canal to the sounds of ‘O Sole Mio’, and ‘Volare’.

Rialto bridge from our gondola

Our entertainment

Mary surprised us with a trip on three smaller motoscafi to take us along the Grand Canal and back to our bus connection.  The Venice Biennale is on at the moment and art pieces were prominent along the canals.

Views along the Grande canal from our water taxi

Competing traffic from private boats, vaporettos (ferries), water taxis and numerous gondolas with their cargoes of tourists, and boats with cargoes of linen from the hotels sent off to the mainland for laundering, gave us an exciting and visually stimulating trip.

Stresa to Castelbrando

Stresa to Castelbrando

Sadly we said ‘Goodbye’ to Stresa and Lake Maggiore as we headed to our next destination of Castelbrando near Venice.  We headed along the motorway to Lake Garda and the pleasant tourist town of Simione.  

Simione on Lake Garda

This is a very pretty town on a tongue of land which protrudes into Lake Garda.  The Lake is a beautiful clear aqua, coloured by the melting snows.  It is Sunday which is family day in Italy, and families were out in large groups enjoying the day.  The cars parks were very busy and there were hundreds of busloads of tourists to add to the whole tumult of busyness.

Typical Gelati stand 

On the way to Castelbrando 

Our route took us through agricultural county of grapevines and kiwifruit vines.  The vine growers have discovered that kiwifruit grown with grape vines will help detect the first signs of disease.  In the past they have grown roses for this purpose. Kiwi growing is now on a grand scale.

Castelbrando with funicular entrance

Courtyard

Castelbrando is a castle that goes back to Roman times.  The castle sits strategically high on a mountain top in very pretty country at the base of the Dolomites.  It has had various owners, and at one stage, it belonged to the Commune of Venice but now is a hotel with spa and function rooms.  It overlooks the agricultural area and town of Cison San Marino.

View from Castelbrando

Our  private dining room

Iso Bella and Isola Pescatori

Isola Bella, Isola Pescatori

A short boat ride from a mooring in front of our hotel at Stresa took us to Isola Bella, the beautiful island.  This is one of the Borromean Islands in Lake Maggiori, home to the Borromea family.  Our visit is to take in a tour of the palace, and Italianate villa, highly visible on the island and from the mainland.  Its terraced gardens are famous.  Construction began in the 1600s and the building and gardens were added to by each succeeding family member. 

The rooms are decorated in rococo style, highly ornate, with tall ceilings adorned with symbols of the family;  the unicorn, the camel, and the horse bit, with the family motto being ‘humilitas’ after that of the family saint who was known for his good works, Saint Charles Borremea.  Rooms of interest include the library, the music room, and Napoleon’s bedroom.  The family endured an unannounced visit from Napoleon in 1797.  On his departure, some rooms were found to be ‘dirty and foul smelling’.   An impressive dome, seen from the inside but not the outside was built later because domes were for churches and not for private homes.  Another gallery houses a collection of allegorical Flemish tapestries from 1565.  These contain scenes of animals interacting in forest and streams, with Christian references to sin and redemption.

Beneath the palace is a series of grottos, the walls and vaulted ceilings dotted with pumice stone and coral.  The term grotto comes from the word ‘grotesque’ and was said to have been coined by Napoleon who demanded lunch in the grotto rooms. The third grotto, dubbed the massage room, has a life-size model of Venus asleep naked by Giovan Battista Monti.  The gentlemen in the group were assured by the guide that if they lingered for a while they might just see the Venus turn over.

Our next stop was the Isola Pescatori, where we were to have lunch.  A walk around the outside of the island led us to a small café operating on the outside edge.  We saw an isolated table on the opposite side of the walk, a bucolic setting with long grass and ivy covered walls.  We don’t think this was where we were supposed to sit, but it worked for us, and we were comfortable there.  As different members of the group walked past, there was an interesting array of comments, such as, “Is this the stalls?”  A local Italian however, noted as he went past, “paradise”.  We liked this.

Looking back to Iso Bella

We had a free afternoon, spent washing and sleeping, then walked into Stresa to shop and dine.  We had returned to a ceramic shop with hand-painted plates.  Doug wanted to buy up the whole store, but getting the heavy ceramics home might have been a problem.

Lugano, Locarno and Orta San Guilio

Lugano, Locarno and Orta San Guilio

Courtesy of Google Maps

We had a long day ahead of us as we clambered onto our coach for a two hour trip to Lake Lugano and the town of Lugano, the capital of the Swiss Riviera. There was some doubt as we set out as to whether we actually get into Lugano as there was an annual Harley Davidson rally on this weekend and the streets could have been blocked off.  We were fortunate that we were able to get quite close into the town centre where we were to have lunch. 

At the Swiss border, our driver had to pay a road tax of about €50.  Fortunately, the Swiss Customs were not interested in a bus load of Australian tourists.  An important consideration each day is finding a public toilet in Italy and Switzerland.  We got around this today by locating a department store which had a restaurant, and also a toilet.

Lugano is a typical Swiss organised, tidy and expensive town with a nice waterfront mixed with some older buildings of character. 

Lugano

The road to Locarno was predominantly via motorway with substantial tunnel and viaduct. Locarno had some similarities to Lugarno but was probably more attractive and cheaper. We discovered a refreshing non-alcoholic refreshing drink called ‘Rivella’. It has been very hot and keeping hydrated with questionable water quality in some towns, is not that easy. Fortunately, the driver has a supply of cooled water bottles for €1. One of the tricky aspects with the two Swiss towns was the use of Swiss Francs. We had some left over from our earlier stint in Switzerland but ended up using some euros but receiving change on Swiss Francs. Before we left we only had a small amount of small change left over.

Locarno

The drive south from Locarno was along tight twisting road cut into the mountains abutting the western edge of Lake Maggiore. The scenery was impressive as Italians have imposed human occupation and infrastructure into a constrained environment. This results in extensive use of tunnels and bridges and abutments hanging off the sides of the mountains. At times the road narrows to one lane and on several occasions our bus and opposing trucks or buses had to negotiate for space.

The road to Orta San Giulio

Our destination was the small town of Orta San Giulio, beside Lake Orta, a lake with clean spring-fed water from below the mountains. This is a part of the Italian Lakes that the tourists as yet don’t know about, so I hesitate to write about it.  On the above map, it is below Omegna, about half way down the eastern side of Lake Orta.  The group caught a water-taxi to Isola San Guilio, a small island in the lake where a Basilica dedicated to Saint Guilio is found.  The chapel has some amazing frescoes, and the body of San Guilio of Navarra, encased in an impressive silver and glass casket, lies in the crypt. He was the local patron saint.  It is an unusual island, now a Benedictine Abbey, quiet, aged and peaceful, and we paid a respectful visit.

Isola San Giulio

Back at Orta, we relaxed and strolled through the quiet, cobbled streets and explored the quaint little shops.  There was a very impressive art gallery and lots of cultural events happening.  

The sound of a piano being played skillfully, drew us into a small café.  The menu was in Italian, but the waiter was able to interpret for us and some friends.  We had great food and great service.  A dessert of strawberry cheesecake, unlike any he had had before was a delight for Doug, and their apple cake was excellent.  The waterfront was a lovely area to chill as the sun set over the lake.