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Venice

3:35pm, Venizia. Sunny and 28°C.

We’ve been truly blessed with the weather on this trip — with a couple of slightly hazy days and a cloudy morning exception, it has been sunny throughout. Indeed, in Florence it was slightly too hot — but here in Venice it’s been delightful.

As indeed has been the city. I expected Venice to be full of tourists and of course it is — but I had no idea how refreshing it would be to be in an entirely pedestrian town full of winding little alleyways which are often the main streets. It’s easy enough to leave the main tourist traps behind and strike out into the less busy side streets — though equally easy to run into dead ends and blind alleys on those side streets — and every corner seems to lead to a new and lovely sight.

There are no lawns and few plants of any kind, but there are occasional courtyards with garden plants. This means everyone’s house and palazzo alike open directly onto the street (though often the main front door opens onto a canal, and the street is the back door)! While there are many buildings in advanced disrepair, especially at ground floor level (where they are subject to occasional floods) there are equally often lovely upper stories whose frescoes and chandeliers can be glimpsed through open windows and curtains.

We’ve had a lovely few days and finished our museum tours this morning with a visit to the Doge’s palace. We booked early and were able to go on the Secret Itinerary tour which led through the secret chambers of the famous “Council of 10”, the top administrators (and chieftains of the secret police) who had hidden offices, complete with prisons and an interrogation chamber, concealed near the Doge’s apartments.

Tomorrow we leave Venice on our way back to Munich, and return from there to Toronto on Friday. It will be sad to leave all this behind, but great to see everybody, settle back into our house, and see the cats again!

Speaking of cats, I don’t recall if I’d posted an update on Hoover… It turns out she has a nasty form of cancer and will probably succumb within the next couple of years, but for now, she’s recovering nicely from her operation and putting on weight again. She’s going to get a round of chemo-therapy, which apparently is unusually effective on cats. Looking forward to seeing her again!

2004 07 06 tom 2004 Honeymoon
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Siena

11:50, Siena.

We had a lovely day driving through Tuscany in our little Smart car which we have named “Principessa”. After heading out of Florence (a very lengthy procedure involving many wrong turns) we headed south through increasingly interesting terrain towards Montalcino. We stopped for a picnic lunch with a bottle of Rosso in the small garden of the 14th century fortezza, which is at the top of two valleys. Extremely pleasant!

After lunch we had a lovely scenic drive over to Montepulciano. We didn’t stop for long but had a walk around the town including a stop in a wine store where the storeowner sucked us in with a couple of free samples. So in summary we bought some great wines and will be bringing a couple home to add to our ridiculously full cellar (recently filled with the leftovers from the wedding party).

We found our way back to Siena without trouble but had some difficulty finding anywhere to park. The town is packed for the Palio (tomorrow). After a hot and bothered long walk with all our luggage to our hotel (which is a bit of a disappointment in location, noise, and heat) we went for a nice walk downtown. The whole centre of the town is a massive medieval maze spread out on the top of a couple of connected hills — completely gorgeous. The Campo, the town square, is a wonderful sight with the old town hall and its towering tower lit up across from the banked semicircle of spectator seats (the race is held held in the square). The square was full of interesting looking restaurants and we’re planning on heading back this evening to eat and hopefully catch the last of the race trials.

2004 07 01 tom 2004 Honeymoon
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Food

3:30pm, Florence

A quick note on the wonderful food we’ve been enjoying:

Sausage-dogs and beer in a Munich beer garden, refreshing and slightly gassy.

A lovely raclette (melted cheese on potatoes with pickles on the side) in Zurich.

Lots of fish dishes, especially involving anchovies (salty!) in Cinque Terre. Plus a specialty dish of “the Infernal Dormouses” — actually baby octopi in a spicy garlic sauce.

Pizza, pastas and really wonderful wines in Pisa and Florence.

Ok, now I’m all hungry again… Must press on.

2004 06 27 tom 2004 Honeymoon
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The Honeymoon begins!

Vernazza, Italy. 6:17pm.

An abbreviated travel post just to catch up to where we are today… We haven’t had much time for diary entries so I’m composing on the spot.

Anyone who was at the wedding will be in no doubt how happy we were. It was truly a perfect day — perfect weather, perfect music, perfect guest list — and we could not possibly have been happier. We followed it up with an incredible view from the CN tower on the Sunday morning and a nice open house at our place Sunday afternoon, which hardly put a dent in the huge quantities of leftover gourmet food from the wedding reception.

Monday was pack-o-rama, which included a quick sprint down to MEC for a travel pack for Anne, an extra money belt, and a couple of other necessities. We stuffed ourselves full of as much of the leftover beef, curry and other delicacies as possible and were thus able to black out almost immediately upon takeoff without worrying about having to stomach airplane food. We both slept somewhat and arrived in Munich able to function, at least.

After a quick bus trip to the downtown station we had a nice wander through the pedestrian district and stopped in the outdoor market. We feasted on pork sandwiches and big steins of beer before heading back to the station for our train to Zurich.

The “cow hotel” in Zurich (Hotel Leoneck) was everything we expected and more.

On Wednesday morning we had a leisurely wander down to the train station, stopping at the Co-op to pick up a picnic lunch. Our Cisalpino train took us almost all the way to Vernazza, with only a four minute local train to finish the last couple of miles. Vernazza was as beautiful as I remembered it from the last trip but sadly packed with American tourists. Still, we had a nice roam around the harbour and an excellent seafood and pasta meal to introduce us to Italy.

Today we hiked from Vernazza to the far end of the Parc Nationale de Cinque Terra, the lovely little town of Riomaggiore. En route we stopped for panini in Corniglia, for gelato and a swim in Manarola, and a crepe and coffees in Riomaggiore, before catching the train back to Vernazza. Lesson learned for next time: as with the Go train in Toronto, you have to timestamp your ticket to make it valid — we got caught (innocently of course) by the train inspector and had to pay a meagre 5 euro fine each.

Which brings us up to date except for some sad news about Hoover… We had a message to call her vet, Dr. Foster, who told us her cancer is the Bad Kind, which means it’s going to come back. We’re going to try chemotherapy to see if we can extend her life — apparently cats deal very well with chemo and it has a good chance of putting the cancer into remission, for a while at least.

Ok, that’s that — going to check emails. Back in a couple of days!

2004 06 24 tom 2004 Honeymoon
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Happiness

Married!

We had an ideal weekend, great weather, wonderful music, but the best thing of all was to have all of our friends and family together to share it all with. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping make this a truly perfect weekend.

And we’re off!

My lovely bride and I are heading over the pond tomorrow, leaving our home in the safe hands of Meredith and Bernard. Italy, here we come!

2004 06 20 tom General News Comments (0) Permalink

The final month

The spring is moving by very quickly. It seems that every work day is sunny and warm, but every weekend or holiday is rainy. We had a year like this a couple of years ago… Very distressing. Hopefully it will turn around in time for the wedding!

Which is coming along nicely, thank you very much. We’ve mostly figured out the honeymoon thing, and Anne’s done a great job writing up the ceremony text today. The outfit issue is resolved — I think — and we have flowers and food lined up. There are several more things to be arranged, but there’s still no panic. Less than four weeks to go!

Not much else new to report… We tried planting grass in our back yard, which the birds ate. We also tried putting out bird seed, which the squirrels ate. Maybe we should put out squirrel food…

2004 05 24 tom General News Comments (0) Permalink

Grand prize winners!

A big week! The Exultate Chamber Singers competed in the CBC Choral Competition on Wednesday night — live to air across the country on CBC Radio Two — and we won! I mean, we won not only our category — the hotly contested Chamber Choir group — but the big kahuna, the Healey Willan grand prize as well! So we can call ourselves the best amateur choir in the country for the next couple of years. (Though our victory means we won’t be able to compete in 2006 so we’ll have to give up the mantle then.)

It was a tremendously exciting event and a wonderful lead-up to our last concert of the season… C’mon out on May 14th and hear the best amateur choir around!

2004 04 30 tom General News Comments (0) Permalink

Weddin prep

We attended our wedding preparation course on the weekend. It was surprisingly good, entertaining, engrossing and thought-provoking. We feel almost ready now!

2004 04 19 tom General News Comments (0) Permalink

Honk if you’re going to NYC

After a few more busy and intense weeks both Anne and I got hit with the flu last weekend. I think we’re both on the mend now but we’re still full of sneezes, coughs and snurfs of various kinds. Which is a bit too bad, because it put a bit of a downer on Anne’s birthday this week and we’re flying out to New York for the weekend, still not at 100%.

Still, how wonderful to be going to New York for the weekend! We’re celebrating Anne’s birthday with a trip to the Metropolitan opera tomorrow night — Don Giovanni, as previously noted — and I splurged on orchestra-level seats so we’re going to get all fancy. I hope I remembered to pack all the bits for my tuxedo! On Sunday we’re looking forward to seeing Olga & her fiancee Rob for brunch. We’re sticking around until Monday morning.

2004 03 19 tom General News Comments (0) Permalink

A busy time

A month has past, the blog is gathering dust. But it’s been a busy month. We got our wedding invitations last weekend and will be working on getting them mailed out Really Soon Now. We finished hanging pictures in most of the rooms of our house. We went for a nice ski weekend up north, featuring Anne’s first time ever on downhill skis. (She did very well!) And I finished playing Prince of Persia and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, two brilliant games for the XBox.

Coming up, we have the Exultate fundraiser (March 6) at the Arts & Letters Club on Elm Street, which will be a lot of fun but is also going to be a lot of work. On the 18th-19th weekend we’re off to New York City to celebrate Anne’s birthday, visit Paul, Kelly & Jamie in their new apartment, and see Don Giovanni at the Met.

And I guess we’ll have to get those invitations out!

2004 02 23 tom General News Comments (0) Permalink