Bon Voyage & Bon Appétit

  Today we decided to take a little day trip to visit some of the other islands in the Venetian Lagoon.  Just a short 15 minute boat trip from Venice, Murano was our first stop. This little island is famous for its glasswork! The whole town is essentially shop after shop of beautiful handmade glass jewelry, art, sculptures, and more.  A little boat pulling into Murano Adorable hippo glass Orange themed jewelry  Little glass candies and sushi! Most of our time here was spent hopping from shop to shop, admiring the beautiful art. I also got an Italian affogato, or a coffee with whipped cream and ice cream, but forgot to take a picture! It was just so good I was absolutely engrossed. We also went for a glassblowing demonstration in the “Glass Cathedral”. This is an old cathedral which has been refurbished as a bar and glassblowing studio.  The Glass Cathedral The demonstration was very interesting and there was very dramatic music in the background as we sipped an ...

Canals, bridges, and gondolas… that’s right, we’re in Venice! Yesterday we arrived by train to this beautiful city. First views of Venice We took the Vaporetto (a little water bus) towards our hostel. This meant that our first views of Venice were from the water… just as the city was meant to be seen. Views from the water! After checking in, we spent the afternoon walking over bridges, finding cute shops, and getting tasty treats.  We came accross Liberia Acqua Alta, which claims to be the most beautiful bookstore in the world. It was very quaint, full of old and new books…. And some adorable resident cats! But I will say that Livraria Lello in Porto certainly has my vote as the most beautiful bookstore in the world.  Bookstore cat Continuing to wander, we saw ton’s of beautiful buildings… Venice just has so much history it’s impossible to describe it all. We had a bit of an interesting moment in the evening, as we realized that Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, was in Venice...

Today we had a nice (hot) day exploring Parma some more. In the morning we walked through town and came across a large street market! It was nice to mingle with the locals and look through stalls of clothes and knickknacks. Afterwards, we went to visit the Baptistry of Parma. This grand octagonal building is where baptisms of the church take place. Our ticket also gave us a great audioguide so we got to learn about the art and the statues adorning this building.  Outside the baptistry The baptism pool Inside, there are 12 statues representing the months of the year. These were quite fun to look at and see what the months used to be associated with. For instance, July is represented by a man grinding wheat with horses and August by a man building a barrel in preparation for making wine.  August (left) and July (right) The inside of the dome is also painted with beautiful frescos. Beautiful fresco dome For lunch, we went to a highly recommended restaurant called Trattoria Corrie...

  Yesterday we left Genova and travelled to Parma, a city in the centre-north of Italy. Parma and it’s surrounding region is famous for mainly one thing: parmigiano reggiano cheese. Now, do I like cheese enough to travel to a city specifically to eat that cheese? Absolutely.  The city of Parma is a charming place with lots of little stores, old streets, and quaint buildings. It’s definitely much more quiet here than anywhere else we’ve been; it’s been such a nice break from the hustle and bustle of big cities.  Walking through Parma Evening sunsets We walked around a little last night and visited the Duomo of Parma, a beautiful large cathedral filled with stunning frescos.  The Duomo of Parma Beautiful paintings in the cathedral dome We also enjoyed spotting cute little mosaics in the road, often representing the shop they were in front of. Apparently, these are made by a local mosaic artist who has been working with mosaics for over 20 years! Little train in front o...