An Afternoon On Burano

  "Down time" is really important when traveling. Johnny and I tend to "go...go...go", sometimes for hours on end, while here in Venice. There's just so much we want to see...especially with the biennale going on all over town.

  A favorite day of relaxation for us starts with the forty minute boat ride out to Burano and Torcello, two islands out in the lagoon surrounding Venice. We have a favorite little spot on the canal for lunch. It's in the area known as Mazzorbo.

 We love this spot because of it's patio, and general laid back attitude. 

Trattoria  Maddelena

  The menu is light on vegetarian options, but that's ok. They make the best "sugo pomodoro", tomato sauce....from their own just picked tomatoes. The garden is right out back. This time we were served gnocchi with said sauce....and some grilled veg, a bit of wine...

The simple pleasure of gnocchi with red sauce. Done very well here....

Wood grilled veg.

A semi-light lunch.

The most relaxing view from our canal side table. Swans.......just an extra bonus.

  We were in the mood for a sweet treat....what better than home made tiramisu and an espresso?

  Well, the crostata di mele(apples)was pretty damn good, too....

Johnny couldn't help himself, I guess. The last of the tiramisu makes a fine self portrait.
On a few levels, I'm thinking.....

  Lunch done, we head to the inner canals of Burano...I had walked all over the island last trip, while Johnny painted along the canal, but he had never really seen the back streets. 

  Like Venice and Murano, there is an area here on Burano that is packed with visitors eating and buying stuff. Once you weave through the crowds, you will find yourself in another world.

  Don't be put off by the "touristy" area. We are tourists, of course, but it's so easy to walk a few extra minutes to find the less traveled spots.

  Burano is known for it's brightly colored houses. This year it seemed almost everyone had just painted their homes. It was so electric!

  Plus, just a perfect day to be strolling around....

I loved this color combo.

Typical canal in Burano. The wooden bridges show up here and there.

Only certain colors are permitted. I wonder if they care which go next to which?
It's all good.

An inner open area surrounded by colorful homes.

You get a good idea of the perimeter of each family's home.

  Johnny kept saying it's like living inside of a painting. 

  A most valid statement, for sure....

All the hanging laundry, blowing in the gentlest breeze...just an added plus.

  A seriously nice way to walk off our lunch, we both enjoyed the time spent trying to "just get lost".

  I had to get one of the requisite "reflections in the water" shots.....classic!

Just a handful of people walking back in this part of town. Nice.

  We both loved the aged paint on this yellow house. It was a beautiful contrast to all the freshly made up houses along the way. Plus, it reminded me of one of Johnny's paintings.....

An old beauty. I'll take it.

  So here we are, strolling along, hand in hand, minding our own business...feeling full, happy and a little dozey...perhaps even dopey.....

 WHEN.......

Cue the music....AND....cut.
End of a perfect day.

Lunch In Venice: Pane Vino e San Daniele

  Having been here now in Venice a week or so, I feel like it's time to share a little yumminess. 

  And what a place to share..

  Pane Vino e San Daniele is a wonderful spot to spend a leisurely couple of hours enjoying the best of Venice. 

  The menu is super vegetarian friendly, and this location offers a fabulous outdoor dining space on a very quiet piazza. 

  Big plus....it's about a 5-10 minute walk from our apartment. Sweet.

  I recommend making a reservation. We stopped by in the morning, around 10, and made a 1pm reservation for  outdoors...I'm glad we did, as it was busy, even on a Thursday....

  The gentleman who waited on us did not speak English(always a good sign, in my opinion....), but I had no problem getting across our culinary wishes...

  I should mention that they are famous for their Prosciutto Crudo San Daniele... a pork product that is very special. Not our cup of tea, of course....but something some of you out there would appreciate...

  For the two of us, it was an easy choice....

  To start, we shared a wonderful buratta cheese with roasted cherry tomatoes and mixed baby greens. Superb....

This was served with a local olive oil to drizzle as we pleased....and, oh, we pleased.....

Heavenly.....

What was left after we were finished....

  There were a few good veg choices for our main dish, and we decided on two different plates.
  Johnny had me order for him, and I did... but I knew what I wanted since earlier in the morning when we first made our reservation.

  "Fregola" is a pasta from the southern areas of Italy. It's sort of like couscous, but roasted, I think, and kind of rustic. I have wanted to try it for some time, and this was the time...
  Here it is served with zucchini and finished with lavander oil...a really surprising combo. I would eat this again, gladly. So good. The texture was great, too.....

Fregola, my new friend!

  Johnny opted for "pasta fagioli", a classic Italian dish.. pasta and beans in a soup, almost. Also really good....

Tiny pasta with beans....yum.

  The "contorni", or veg side dishes, were equally fantastic....

  I had a caponata, and Johnny went with zucchini with mint. Outstanding on both accounts!!!

My caponata....eggplant, peppers, onion, zucchini, pine nuts & raisins. Oh, man, this was soooo good...

Johnny's zucchini with mint. A dish I hope to replicate back home. Simple, yet........not.

  They did not offer a house wine, so we went for a chardonnay from Friuli. I know that this northern region of Italy has great white wines....so we enjoyed.

Ummm....no dinner tonight, I'm thinking....

Yep.

 Since we had come this far, why not indulge in a sweet treat?
 We shared this tasty semi-freddo, with a couple of espressos... Oh, yeah....

Cafe semi-freddo, with a cinnamon-lavander caramel and toasted walnuts.
MMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

  While finishing our fab lunch, Johnny dreamed of things to be..........

  Hey, it could happen........we dream, we work hard, we dream some more... and who knows?

  In the mean time, we look forward to our next meal at:

First Looks, Venice 2013

  OK....I know I'm being completely spoiled here, but what can I say? It's Biennale time again in Venice, and we've had a good year. Soooooo....off to Venice for a bit. 

  Must see more ART. Nuff said.

  I will be hard pressed to complete many posts while here, as we are up and out at the crack-o-dawn, and home at the crack-o-midnight, but I'll do my best, and then do more posts when I get back home.

  For a start, I am just doing some shots of Venice as we love her, and I'll concentrate on more Biennale related things later. 

  This year we splurged and took a water taxi into town from the airport. It was a treat, and a good one....

  

Totally jet- lagged, but what a way to arrive. Especially at sunset....

First views coming into Venice proper.

The VERY Grand canal.

Johnny finally realizing he's back in Venice.

  We loved our water taxi ride into town, and then we were greeted by the wonderful Jambo, our contact person for the place we are staying. Jambo gave us the rundown on our apartment, and then we were ready to hit the cobblestones and start our adventure.

  We had just enough time to get out and about to enjoy the "Golden Hour".

Sun setting on the Doge's Palace.

 

 We had a guest arriving the morning after we landed, so first thing we did was some basic shopping...coffee, milk, wine, cheese...crunchies...you get the picture..then out for a little bite.

 We couldn't resist heading to our favorite cicchetti bar, Bacaro da Fiore.... Imagine tapas, but Italian style. A glass of wine, some fantastic small plates of goodies, a walk back home and we were both out like a couple of lights. 

  Big time sleep.

We go back to this place every time we are in Venice, usually more than once. It's classic.

  Next day we met our guest and spent some fantastic time seeing good art, eating good food and drinking good wine, and having many good conversations. Between all this we enjoyed the apartment's patio on a side canal and just had a great time being hosts. It was a splendid couple of days.

  We all enjoyed going to the main Biannale area, but Johnny and I want to go back to see more and take it all in again. More to come on that. 

  For those who don't know..the Venice Biannale is a major world class contemporary art exhibition featuring everything from painting to video to installation and even performance art. Very cool, very inspiring. Artists featured are from all around the globe.

 
In between all the art, food, and wine.....

Beautiful views....

Great neighborhood scenes...

Captivating moments......

More captivating moments, mixed with silliness...

  A taste of the scope of the art to see... this being a space in the Arsenale area of the Biennale:

I love this area because of these massive rooms with the original brick pillars.
What a great place to exhibit art...

  Of course there's the food...we have been stopping here and there for the cicchetti, which are small plates of this and that. We found a place near our apartment that has mostly crostini, which is crunchy slices of bread with various toppings. I love ths place because you can take your plate of yummies out to the canal and enjoy with a glass of wine. 

  How very civilized.

We have crostini with radicchio, walnuts and gorgonzola..cherry tomatoes, zucchini and taleggio,

artichoke puree with gorgonzola and some kind of yummy cheese with a fig jam. We'll be back. 

  

The apartment is sweet, with an outdoor space that looks onto a nice little canal that gondolas cruise by on. A perfect home to come to after hours of walking and walking and walking. My feet hurt! But it's all good.

Walking to the apartment in the Dorsoduro area of Venice.

This the canal we are on.....the apartment is there on the corner with the white sign...

Kickin' back on the patio.
Ummm...need I say more?

  I'm listening to boats cruising by right now, voices of the locals as they "drive" home on these fluid "streets"....it's heaven, and I feel ultimately grateful to be here again.
  I'm looking forward to sharing lots more art and food in upcoming blog posts. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do....Until next time...and feeling so damn lucky...... Ciao from Venezia!

Cloud Beauty, Umbrian Style 2013

  Remember those long, lazy days of kid hood, kicking back in the soft green grass, just staring at the clouds? 

  Of course you do...I think most of us still enjoy taking time to stare at the clouds, try and see a bunny or cat...or armadillo. Or, if you are Johnny, a heart. He always sees a heart. That's my Johnny.

  In the season that rides the fine line between late winter/early spring, when we are fortunate to be in Umbria, the clouds can put on an amazing show. 

  And then they pour. It's all good....the sunshine is that much sweeter after the storm.

  I have found that the beauty for me is the colors...the whitest white against the bluest blue, above the green and/or yellow. I love the texture, too. Big puffballs of drifting clouds, making their way slowly across the valley, or slowly over the lake. 

  These views stay with me all year, and I love to remember how they made me feel. Scared, when the clouds threatened thunder and lightning, or exhilarated when the light poured through to make the whole world a wonder to behold. 

  What did Joni sing..... "It's cloud illusions I recall....?"

  

Just as the sun begins to go down in Rome.
Pink clouds, I think.

Before the storm.  On a road outside of Panicale.

  So glad we took a few trips out to the islands of Lago Trasimeno this year. The 40 minute boat ride was the perfect time to sit and enjoy the sky.

On the lake.

Arriving to Isola Maggiore. 

I really love the dark and light aspects of clouds.
The top cloud has big, dark cheeks and a smile looking down.....

  Sometimes I have to tell Johnny to pull the car over (a task easier said than done, btw...), so I can capture a moment that I find extra pretty. Usually it's the big views. I swear, I must have hundreds of pictures of clouds. 

  Looking back, it seems so lovely and dramatic. But in reality, I know it was cold and often wet. And windy. And I was sort of complaining about all that....

  But man, the clouds were outstanding.

The road between Sant'arcangelo and Mugnano.

A stand of trees we see all the time, near Panicale. I want to hike up to them next trip.
Weather permitting....

  It's important to have my camera with me all the time...I don't have a smartphone. It's ok, I've gotten so used to my little camera. We always bring it on our morning walks to Paciano. Johnny and I love the big valley views from this small country road. He has painted the view several times, and it is place we go to in our minds all the time, when we are not there.

  Well, to be honest, it's a place I go all the time on Google earth, ...what can I say?

  What we especially love about this view, is that it encompasses both Lago Trasimeno, and the big valley "Val di Chiana". This entire area was a big wetland back in the days of the Etruscans. The area was deforested by both the Etruscans and later, the Romans, as they grew their empire. 

  At the beginning of the 16th century, what is now our beloved Lago Trasimeno, also included Lago di Chiusi and Lago di Montepulciano. It must have been one huge lake.

  I'm smitten by what we see there nowadays....

Looking across towards Cortona. I can see it's raining over there...

Across the wheat fields...That is Isola Polvese. The largest island on the lake.

Love the cloud shadow. And the olive trees.

This is from right outside the walls of Panicale.
The opposite side of town from the lake view.

  Of course, since it's March & April, we have some mighty storms that fly through the area. One moment it can be a gorgeous spring day, and then...here come those clouds again.

  These next photos show a real doozy heading across the valley. This storm came so fast, did it's work, and moved right along. High drama!

Here it comes, just in the picture on the left side....

Yep. Time to head for cover. In this case, Bar Gallo, of course!

It eventually moved along, leaving us some nice sunshine later that afternoon.

  And so I don't end with a storm...Here is another lovely day....a pretty scene in Paciano. Clouds, clouds, I love the clouds...

Picture perfect.

On Family & Such...

  I am overwhelmed by my feelings on family, after having just spent an enchanted wedding weekend with my loved ones.

  What can I say?..... We have this undeniable history in common, as most families do....time together as young ones, and these days, time so far apart as adults.

   I, for one, want to capture and save these few hours like the ephemeral moments they are....When will we share time like this again?

  I thank the lucky stars above that brought us together for a few days...

  Liz, Chris.... I can't thank you both enough for giving me the opportunity to connect with the folks I care so much about.... It's a crazy world we all live in, and being with family, especially somewhere so far from home, brings me back to a sweet sense of reality. A feeling of what is really important. 

  There's no place like home.

  Corny? You bet. But who can deny the pull of decades of familiarity.....the knowledge that we share, well.... at worst this gene pool... at best, this fantastic slide show of memories of: 

  Grandma & Grandpa Dottie,

  The Cabin, 

  Thanksgivings, 

  Christmas, 

  Weddings,

  Funerals,

  The big and the little stuff in life-

  We are together in this mortal coil, in so many ways.

  What may have seemed like just another (totally fantastic) wedding...Well, for this Auntie, Cousin, Daughter, Wife...This was the connection I needed with my family, my tribe, my history, as it stands. I am so much the richer for it. 

  My heart is wide open and full. 

  Is that so wrong? 

  I don't think so...

  I think it's pretty damn cool.