We are HERE!

Hi all. First, forgive any typos...I am not used to the keyboards here. And second, thank you all for emailing me and asking me when we are posting! This will be a quicky post for now...we will see if we can upload pictures when we are fresher tomorrow.

We are now in Firenze...after the 3 hour train ride from Venezia we arrived at Hotel Enza (there is air conditioning here...a nice treat) around 4:30, went for a long walk to the Ponte Vecchio and back. Ate panini and wine and gelato (in separate stops) and already love the plaza north of the Uffizzi ...I forget the name already, but it has all of the very impressive statues (and a policeman who kicks out people who attempt to picnic near them).

Venice was WONDERFUL. I loved the car free city and the islands nearby. We visited all of the usual places and got lost in other places that were less crowded and even more charming because of it. Burano was simply a dream island....the colorful houses, the artists working on jewelry and lace, the sunshine and lagoon breezes. The Peggy Guggenheim has a room full of Pollacks and a Chagall in the hallway (among other things). We saw the high tide flooding of San Marco and the dueling orchestras (much more impressive and romantic at night than during the day when it feels so false).

A list of Venetian highlights:

• the first ride on the Grand Canal
• Buying food at a supermarket deli and being understood in Italian (1 etto fromaggio e pane e vino rosso)
• Burano and San Giorgio ...Mike went up to the top, while I finished a Donna Leon mystery sitting by the lagoon (her mysteries are set in Venice)
• walking and eating in Santa Croce and Canareggio (spelling?)
• the Guggenheim
• getting used to being on vacation and feeling relaxed
• gelato (so far, better in Venice than in Florence, but we have not really given the gelato here a chance yet)
• seeing very few Americans (tho the euro is coming down each day)
• church bells
• that 3am phone call from Kathy with the very very excellente news!!

The only "downer" so far is that BOTH of our banks seemed to have neglected to note that we are in Italy, despite two phone calls before we left, so we were short on cash on our last day in Venice (luckily, Pensione Guerrato agreed to take our credit card for partial payment (not that they had a lot of choice). And, it seems that my friend Jeanne was right---daily withdrawal limits count Friday--Sat--Sun as ONE day at least for Washington Mutual....

More details to come tomorrow.

Stacey