After our stay in a castle, we went north. Our first stop
was Modena for some balsamic vinegar. Lady Hiva found out that it was some of
the best balsamic in the world. We went to one of the small family distilleries
and were sad to see that it was closed. That did not stop us from finding some random
small town to buy some balsamic. There was not more to see in Modena (it was a
bit of an industrial town). We went straight to Verona.
We had originally not planned to go to Verona, but it was
literally on the way to Venice from Modena. Neither Lady Hiva nor I are fans of
Romeo and Juliette so we were not drawn to the home of Shakespeare’s famous
play. We were, however, really excited to see how wonderful it was. It had the
ancient ruins of Rome and the charm of Lucca and Florence. The ancient amphitheater
in the center of the city still has nightly shows. We wandered the streets and
eventually made it to “Juliette’s House.” I say that with quotations because
the house was built years after the Montagues and Capulets ran parts of the
city. We still thought it was great to see the overlook where she supposedly
stood. There is a statue of a woman outside that people take photos with…they
all rub her right breast for luck. Next to the statue there are several gates
with hundreds and hundreds of locks to represent couples from all over the
world. There were also notes from people with their names and the names of the
one they love. We added ours to the list—hey, a little superstition could not
hurt!
 |
| Amphitheater in Verona |
 |
| Juliette's House |
As we made it back to the car we realized that Lucky Dragon
was missing his right shoe. I ran all the way back to Juliette’s house and
could not find it. We spent the next few days in Venice looking for some
different shoes.
We stayed just on the mainland, one train stop from the city
center of Venice. We went right in and walked the amazing, iconic streets of
Venice. Tau’aho loved chasing the pigeons throughout San Marco’s Square. Other
than the many bridges we had to stop and carry the stroller over, it was an
amazing place. We ate dinner at delicious places and stopped all the time to
take photos.
 |
| Venice |
We rode water taxis up and down the Grand Canal and Lucky
Boy was enthralled with all the movement of the boats. On the second day in Venice
we went to tour the Basilica at San Maro’s square. It was there we realized the
truth behind Venice being the “sinking city” as the tides came in the water
around the square slowly spread. Within a few hours all of it receded again. Next
to the Basilica is the Doge palace—the home to the many rulers of Venice before
it was part of Italy. It was interesting to see the connection Venice has to
Istanbul from the days when Constantinople was the heart of Christianity. The
palace in architecture and design was nearly identical to some of the old
buildings here in Istanbul.
 |
| High tide in San Marco Square |
Venice was our last city on our tour of Italy. We spent our
last day, by birthday, in Rome. Keeping up traditions of years in Utah, we
found a Mexican restaurant under the shadow of the grand Vatican wall and had
my birthday dinner. With a night tour of the city we said goodbye to Rome and
Italy. We truly enjoyed our trip!
 |
| Sharing Daddy's birthday icecream...a new style of gel |
