With all of my trips to Europe, and the year we have now spent here on this trip, I had never yet been to Venice until the trip we took a few weeks back.  It had become a bucket list item and needed to be attended to before too much more time had expired.  It was worth the wait and the effort to go.

I sometimes wonder at the ease with which we are able to take these trips.  Visiting Venice from our current location is not much more difficult or expensive than visiting say Spokane or Portland from Seattle.  If we don’t take advantage of the proximity of all that our current location has to offer, I would never forgive myself.

This trip was with just the two of us wandering through grand streets and small alleyways of a magnificent city.  Couldn’t resist this great picture of my best travel buddy.

When I see the thousands of tourists from all over the world and everyone of them is using a camera or a smart phone to snap pictures of everything in sight, I can sometimes wonder why I even bother.  Venice has to be one of the most photographed cities on earth, and for good reason.  It is remarkably beautiful from every angle.  But I, like everyone else, believe in the uniqueness of my own eye and that I will bring new perspective to the table.  Later in this post I will add some pictures of the most common sights if only to prove we were actually in Venice, but first something a little different.

Venice is made up of several islands that are part of an archipelago of over 30 inhabited islands in the middle of a lagoon off the Adriatic Sea.  Although there is a causeway leading to Venice, it ends immediately in a parking lot (upper left in the NASA photo below).

There are no cars, bicycles, scooters or horses.  Everything that moves within the city goes by boat, foot or hand cart.  That means that the tons of food, domestic supplies, worthless trinkets, high fashion clothing and jewelry, and even construction material needed by the residents and tourists are delivered by one of those methods.  Boats are designed to carry all of that and still fit under the seemingly endless variety of bridges they need to navigate.  Hand carts must be hauled over those same bridges and some are designed with large pneumatic tires to aid in that task.  Even the mountains of garbage and recyclables generated by all those people are first emptied into hand carts and loaded onto boats and barges to be taken off the various islands.  The logistical task is enormous, but it all seems to be taken in stride.  After all, they have been at this for centuries.

Fruit and vegetables delivered to the stand

Garbage collection

Recyclables

Various goods

Various goods

Big load

Low bridge

The ever-present gondolas are a bit pricey and seem similar to the horse carriages in some cities,  maybe romantic but a little too steep for what you get.  They are beautiful crafts and I love watching others being moved around the city in them

They are lined up at many places around the city

They even take on strollers

Some come with their own music

In addition to the “S”-shaped Grand Canal there are smaller waterways everywhere.  You need to plan your walks carefully or you can do a lot of backtracking to find the right bridge to get you where you are going.  On all of the waterways you see smaller personal boats tied in front of houses and water taxis depositing their passengers all over the city.

For my theater friends, I could not resist a few pictures of this oddity.  They took an old theater right in the heart of Venice and converted it into a supermarket.  It seemed very fancy and had a great selection.

The entrance

Like I said, I had to add a few shots of the major sites.  From the Rialto Bridge, aerial shots of the Grand Canal taken from a terrace located above the Rialto, San Marco (sorry we did not make it inside, but the outside was breath-taking) , the inside of the Doge’s Palace,  to the inside of the opera house, Teatro la Fenice, the whole place takes on a magic of its own.  Since there are no cars it is easy to imagine yourself wandering the streets of a renaissance city still ruled by the Doge.

The ever present and photographed Rialto Bridge

The Grand Canal

The Grand Canal

San Marco is even more beautiful than I imagined

San Marco

The Bridge of Sighs

High class street musicians (well they were at a restaurant)

Inside of the Doge’s Palace

Doge’s Palace

One of the old boys himself

Doge’s Palace

Doge’s Palace

The King’s box at Fenice

The stage at Fenice

We needed to get out of the city for at least one day and took a boat to visit the islands of Murano (famous for its Murano glass) and Burano (famous for its colored houses).

The cemetary

Murano

Murano glass

Burano

On our last day we stopped to have lunch at a restaurant on the Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge with a great view.  The proprietor of the place, Stefano, noticed me taking pictures and as he is also a photographer, we spend the next 20 minutes chatting about the city, photography and the state of the world.  It was a lovely way to end the visit.

The view from our table

Stefano

Budapest was the first trip we had taken out of Italy since December and the first with any of our Italian friends. Roberta and Maurizio proved to be great traveling partners and we had fun with the fact that in Hungary more English is spoken than Italian so, for a change, we needed to translate menus, etc. for them.

Let me just say this about the weather, it was not always warm.

As many of you already know, this place was once two (three if you count Òbuda) different cities, Buda and Pest occupying opposite banks of the second longest river in Europe, the Danube.  Buda being on the hilly right (west) bank and Pest occupying the rather flat left (east) bank.  They became one municipality in the 19th century.  You get all of the grand views of the area from the hills above Buda and all of the nightlife, most of the shopping, restaurants, the rail station and the airport are on the Pest side.

We found this place to be enchanting and despite the fact that they have great public transportation, we walked several miles a day to take in the sights and smells of this cosmopolitan city.

Buda to the left and Pest to the right

Parliament by day

Parliament by night

colorful display at a street market

Tunnel cake

Outside the main indoor market

Inside the market

Radishes as big as small apples

Railway station designed by Eiffel

One of the many beautiful churches

Inside the church

Like many of the places we have visited, Budapest has a long and varied history of one empire or another taking control.  The Celts, the Romans, and the Ottoman’s all had their day.  It was, for a time, the co-capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  One of the tragedies of the 20th century was the revolt against the Soviet Union in 1956 that was so brutally put down.  Wherever we went, we seemed to run into tales of World War II and the holocaust.

We visited the beautiful synagogue (one of the largest in Europe) and although it costs to get in, it was worth every penny.  There is also a memorial to the nearly 600,000 Hungarian Jews who were either killed in Budapest or sent to concentration camps never to return.  The place is as beautiful as it is haunting.

Inside

The altar

The memorial garden

Part of the memorial

Along both sides of the Danube there are promenades and trams to take you up and down the river.  We were walking along the Pest side and we saw in front of us a number of shoes just sitting along the walkway.  As we got closer, we realized that they were all cast in iron and had many vigil candles scattered in their midst.  Many of you may know the Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial, but none of us had been aware of it before we stumbled on it.

During the fascist control in Budapest during World War II, the Arrow Cross militiamen (local fascists) would line people they considered enemies of the state up beside the Danube, make them take off their shoes (as shoes were valuable at the time) and then shoot them in the back so they would fall into the Danube and be washed away saving the cost of burial. 3,500  people (800 of them Jews) were executed in this manner.  I am not always moved by war memorials, but this one haunts me like few others (maybe the Vietnam Memorial in DC, but that is personal).  Let it serve as a reminder to us all that fear of the “other” and intolerance can lead normal people to do extraordinarily cruel and inhuman things to their fellow citizens.

Let me start this post by saying that Barcelona may be my favorite city in the world.  Granted, I have not been to all (or maybe even most)  of the great cities, but among the ones I have visited, Barcelona stands out.  We were here a few years ago and fell in love with the people, food, transportation, everything Gaudi, and the cosmopolitan nature of the city as  whole.  This second visit was even better.

However, this trip was more about family than the sites and tastes of this place.  The reason we were there was that Holly’s brother, John, his wife, Nan, and their daughter Meliza and her family were there.  Meliza works for an airline out of Jackson, Wyoming and they all get standby flight perks. ( Won’t any of my children take the hint and go to work for an airline?  Holly and I could use perks like those.)  We found places to stay not far from each other and met everyday for food and explorations.

First let me introduce the cast of characters.  As noted above there was Holly’s brother, his wife and daughter and her husband Hamilton, son Adriano, and daughters Aila and Aven.

First, Adriano (and of course a marble Buddha, why not?).  The whole reason for the trip was that Hamilton was taking him to a soccer match to see his idol, Lionel Messi.

Holly and Nan

Brother John with Holly

Meliza and  Aven

John and Hamilton with Nan, Adi, Aila and Aven all going with slightly different agendas

Beautiful Meliza

Adorable Aila and Aven

Aven taking notes with Meliza

The 19th early 20th century artist/architect Antoni Gaudi had a major impact on this city.  His fanciful organic touches are seen everywhere, Park Güell (with fantastic views overlooking the city) , apartment buildings and houses.  But his masterwork is his cathedral, La Sagrada Familia.  He worked on it for over 40 years until his death in 1926.  It is still in the process of being built and won’t be finished for many years to come.

Sagrada Famigia from Park Güell

View up from the inside

Amazing light and form

Color and light

Park Güell

Park Güell

Park Güell

With markets, restaurants, pedestrian walkways and one of the best urban transportation systems we have encountered, sights and smells are everywhere in Barcelona and easily accessible.

La Rambla with Columbus in the background

They do like their meat here.

Christopher Columbus is still a hero here

And he still points the way

The Arc de Triomf

Magnificent glass work

Magnificent glass work

There is only one caveat if you come to Barcelona. Although Holly and I have never had the experience, several people we know have either been robbed or had their pockets picked here.  If you go, just beware that there are sophisticated groups here who want nothing more than for you to go home without all of your property.  Be aware of your surroundings and watch your possessions.