Italy, Part II

Riva, at the very top of Lake Garda, is a 3.5 hour trip from Desenzano on the high speed ferry.  It is a beautiful trip with breathtaking scenery and ever changing topography.

Malcesine a winter ski resort

Optimist Class Sail Regatta 2019 with 1055 young helmsmen from 30 nations - largest in the world!

The regatta is held here because there is always wind

Beautiful Riva with the lousy Italian food

Leaving Riva behind

Approaching village of Lazise

Plaque on Lazise's gate

Lazise's harbor

Passing the Roman villa on Sirmioni on our return from Lazise

Wednesday April 24 - Saturday April 27  It took us about a half hour to walk to the Desenzano train station (up-hill the entire way schlepping luggage) for the short ride into Venice.  It was an easy ride on the Vaporetto (water bus) from the San Lucia train station to San Marco and a short walk to our hotel Violino D’Oro. The only challenge was dragging the luggage up and down the steps of the two bridges with the number of tourists jostling us.  We were rewarded upon arrival at the hotel by a warm welcome, fabulous view of the Moise Canal and a complimentary bottle of Prosecco.

The view from our hotel Violino D'Oro

San Marco's famous square

Another view of San Marco

"No Mafia, Venice is Sacred"  A water taxi in the foreground

We took a side trip, taking an early morning train to Padua and an all day cruise on the canal boat, il Burchiello, back to Venice. il Burchiello, navigated several locks - we are old hands at passing through locks,and we glided by villages and many villas built by 16th to 18th century wealthy Venetians as summer homes.  The Venetians traveled to and from their villas in private and lavishly appointed canal boats. The guided tour includes visits to five Villas and their gardens and a stop in the village of Oriago for lunch. About 100 people were on the boat, we were the only English speakers. As a result, we had one of the two tour guides, Olympia, giving us what was virtually a private tour!  

Beginning the tour at canal in Padua

Villa Foscarini Rossi

Karl has long wanted a house with a pool table

 Villa Pisani 

Napoleon ousted the owners and took Villa Pisani for his own

The garden maze

For our final night in Venice, we wanted a quiet, out of the way trattoria; our concierge, Luca, recommended Trattoria alla Scala.  It was perfect! The owner, Mr. Salvatore, is a friend of staff at the hotel. It is family owned and run. Since Luca had called ahead, we were ushered to a primo table in the corner of the dining room and presented with a complimentary glass of Prosecco.  Mr. Salvatore sat at a table near the door shucking fresh mollusks and keeping an eye on the operation.

Saturday April 27  Our departure time from the hotel was a half hour before breakfast service but Luca opened the door for us to go in and help ourselves to cappuccino and the buffet.  It was a short walk to the canal and the water taxi taking us to Marco Polo airport for our flight back to Paris. We hardly heard a spoken word of native English the entire trip and even then the accent was Irish or Australian. Our very few French and Italian words were met, at times, by equally few English words of our host countrymen. We managed to understand and be understood and everyone was friendly and kind.  We savored every moment of the trip and will cherish our memories.

Our last views of Venice from the water taxi