Heading To Florence
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We’re in Venice – it’s stinking hot here, but we’re having a great time. We finally made it to the Santa Maria Gloriosa church this morning. It’s only taken us three trips to Venice to hit one of it’s major attractions, and it was worth it. The mausoleums of the artists Titian and Canova are in there, and they are incredibly impressive. The enormous sleeping winged lion in front of the entrance to Canova’s mausoleum, and the huge black marble slaves holding up the artifice of one of the Doge’s mausoleum were worth the price of entry. (Not to mention the black marble life-size sculptures of mummified screaming skeletons as harbingers of death… it’s enough to scare anybody into repenting.)
Hiking In Innsbruck
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Hey!
We’ve been having a great time hiking in the Alps for the last few days. It poured rain for the first two days we were here, but we went hiking anyways – it turned out well, as we met some great new people and renewed some friendships with some other summer hike regulars.
Last Night In Venice
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WOW, are we tired! We have been walking around Venice all day, and we did a complete tour of the Doge’s Palace. I’m sitting here staring at the screen like a zombie.
The Doge’s Palace was great – the route you had to follow through the Palace once you had entered ensured you saw everything, like it or not. By the time you got to the dungeons, you felt like you had been a prisoner for hours! Regardless, it was amazing to see all of the Venetian counsel rooms, the Place where each Doge was coroneted (at the top of a stair case – the “Giant’s Stair Case”), and of course, the art works by the great masters in every room. George got to see the largest oil on canvas in the world – over 25m. wide – in the Great Counsel Chamber. Incidentally, it’s housed in the largest hall in Europe (at the time).
Venice
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We made it to Venice without a hitch – actually 1/2 hours earlier than we thought (maybe karma is helping make up for past screw ups).
We woke up this morning to the most incredible thunder and lightening storm. It was nice to lay in bed and listen to the rain come down outside our windows while the restaurateurs in the square below shouted back & forth to each other while re-stacking chairs and rolling out awnings.
Ljubljana
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We are in Lubljana, a city that was billed as an undiscovered Prague. It is a very small city (pop 330 000) that is very easy to walk in, and find your way around. However, it does not feel like Prague. The streets are much more narrow, and the height of the average building (5 floors) seems designed to keep the sun off the streets, so it is a little claustrophobic, but it is nice to have some shade in the heat. It is a very green city with a beautiful split canal running through it. The whole downtown area circles the base of a hill that holds a huge castle. Everyone here speaks English, and the locals are very friendly. There are few tourists here.
