Last night we went out for pre-dinner drinks at a little bar around the corner from our hotel. It’s tucked between about three narrow buildings, and our table was right next to one of the doors to the apartment building, so people were coming home and going out through the bar. A bit bizarre. While there we had some bar snacks – tiny pieces of pizza etc, and the greenest olives I’ve ever seen! They are really a grassy green rather than the drab colour our olives tend to be. Yum!
Florence day 3
Today was supposed to be our gallery day, but we only managed to get to the Accademia gallery as we couldn’t book tickets to the Uffezi. We’ll just go early tomorrow and line up.
florence day 2
Today we visited the Palazzo Pizzi, which is one of the Medici palaces. It’s been turned into a series of museums/galleries – a modern art gallery, a silver gallery, a costume gallery (whee!), plus the gardens have been kept, and are huge. There’s a gorgeous parterre garden overlooking the Florentine hills, and some great formal gardens overlooked by the palazzo. There’s some modern art in the gardens as well as the original sculptures, which makes for an interesting mix!
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florence day 1
I’m liking Florence already. It’s got the bustle of Sydney but a definite cool factor. We’re in the Hotel Medici, just around the corner from the Duomo. It’s 6 storeys high and has a roof terrace, but we haven’t got up there yet. Our room is small but has high ceilings and a window with shutters, so it has a nice feel to it.
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Venice – day 3
After finding internet last night we wandered through Cannaregio, which was a lot less frantic with tourists. I stopped at a mask shop to pick up a pressie for Mum and one for me (a swarovski encrusted metal filigree mask – niiiiice). Then we headed back to the hotel and had dinner at the restaurant next door. I had monkfish stew and rice. Not quite up to the standard of what the boys had (pizzaaaaaa) but very nice.
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Day 2 venice continued
Today we wandered back to Piazza San Marco in our efforts to find breakfast. My earlier idea about eating GF in Italy has taken a bit of a blow, as we ended up having gelato for breakfast as there was nothing we could find that wasn’t pastries!
Lunch was grilled prawns and polenta, which hit the spot much better.
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Venice – day 2
I touched down at Marco Polo airport in Venice after another 7 hours on the plane. Thank goodness I don’t have to catch another plane for two weeks!!
Lesson 1: there are two steps to public transport here – buy a ticket then you need to validate it! The girl at the bus stop was vehemently telling me something i didn’t understand, then repeated “stamp! stamp!” Apparently that;s what the unlabelled yellow box at the bus stop is for.
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Transit – Dubai
I just landed in Dubai. I’d forgotten just how warm and sticky it is here! We landed at 5am and it was already 36C and outside it’s like breathing soup. Inside the new Terminal 3 building is beautifully cool, and scarily huge. We had to go through security, then down escalators, then up three times the height of those escalators, right next to the first ones down! Not good for my fear of heights! 😉
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Gluten Free Travel
Since I’ve been gluten-free for over 10 years now, I’m getting pretty good at managing food overseas. A lot of the time I go without (at least there’s always chocolate!!) and I make sure I have muesli bars etc just in case.
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Two Weeks Away 