Italy

Going from Indonesia to Italy doesn’t seem to be the logical route at first glance, but hear us out! Our plan is to try and follow summer and the dry seasons as much a possible just to keep our packing list manageable! So, while Indonesia was in its dry season when we were there, further North, in the majority of Southeast Asia, the dry season will not start until November. So, to avoid monsoons, we hopped over Europe with a nice direct flight from Singapore to Milan. From Milan, we took a quick train to Venice!

Venice

Venice…a city with no cars, boats instead of buses, and miles and miles of cute streets to wander around! Venice is officially Becca’s new favorite city! We stayed on the island of Murano, which is one of the many islands in the Venetian Lagoon. Murano is famous for glass making, and after walking around a lot of the shops we can understand why. There were some very beautiful pieces that we liked the look of, but since all our belongings are in a storage unit, those purchases will have to wait until a later date. Murano is quite a bit smaller than Venice, but still full of cute streets, shops, canals and bridges, plus the crowds leave for the evening, so it was a peaceful place to use as our home base.

The first Venice water ‘bus’ stop from Murano was in the Castello area of Venice, north of the grand canal, and far away from the main touristy area such as Piazza San Marco. While we did visit briefly to look at Saint Mark's Basilica, we otherwise tried to avoid that crowded area. We spent most of our time wandering around the city by both foot and boat. What a great way to explore and come across hidden gems we wouldn’t normally find. We had an unlimited 3 day bus pass, so we could hop on at one station and ride it until we found a different area to explore, or use it to ride up and down the grand canal when our feet needed a break. On our first full day wandering through Venice we happened upon a beautiful church that had a sign for a Vivaldi Concert with free admission, later that night. The amazing things you can find when you are walking aimlessly around a place! We came back later that night and were extremely impressed by the local concert. It started off as just a small orchestra, but then added a single trumpet and a clarinet to the ensemble. After another impressive song, they paused again and here came a full choir for the rest of the concert. It truly was a magical experience, and we feel so grateful for being able to attend!

In addition to Venice and Murano we also went to Burano and Mazzorbo. Burano is known for its bright, colorful houses. We stopped for lunch before walking over the bridge to Mazzorbo and enjoyed what the waiter called the best fritto misto in all of Italy. Now, we all know a lot of waiters may upsell their dishes, but this one was probably right as it was absolutely delicious. It had a very light fry that didn’t detract from the seafood flavor, and was piled high with various types of fantastic seafood, apples, and zucchini strips. Even Jake enjoyed it, and he is not one to normally order a seafood misto. After lunch we walked to Venissa, a winery on the island of Mazzorbo, for a very unique wine tasting recommended by Becca’s aunt, Susan. The unique soil of the lagoon’s islands as well as the flooding that occurs brings some interesting notes to the wine. We delved into the world of orange wine. Stay tuned, and we will talk more about orange wine and what we learned at Venissa in a future blog post.

We can’t wait to return to this area to eat our way through Venice, and fill our future house with handmade colorful glass. What an incredible place!

Trieste

After having 4 days without seeing a car it was tough to go back to a city with cars and stoplights. Boats, bridges, and small streets take the win! That being said, Trieste is a very pretty city, with interesting architecture due to it’s unique history. In its storied past, Trieste operated as a free city, to being controlled by the Austrian Empire before WW1, to being controlled by the French during Napoleon’s era. We were able to explore everything from wide open squares facing the sea to smaller pedestrian streets lined with restaurants, bakeries, and cafes. We also visited Miramare Castle which is a beautiful castle built in the 1800s by the Austrians. We used some hop-on/hop-off bikes to travel the almost 5 miles along the coast to the castle. While we love the idea of the hop-on/hop-off bikes the reality was less than ideal. Since everything these days involves downloading an app and making an account that invariably doesn’t work correctly the first time it probably took just as long to get the bikes as it did to bike to Miramare. Upon arrival, we were able to explore the rooms inside and the lush, peaceful grounds. It would be a perfect place to host summer parties along the coast, and felt more like of a summer home than a defendable castle. Like Trieste itself, the castle it has some interesting history. It was occupied by the Nazis and after the war an American Garrison was housed there for a decade before it was turned back over to the public.

Rome & Vatican City

We didn’t go right from Trieste to Rome. In fact, Rome wasn’t even on the original itinerary. We had a fairy tale idea of traveling down the Balkan side of the Adriatic Sea, ferrying from town to town as we made our way from Slovenia down to Greece. However, the reality of the countries made our dream more difficult than anticipated. Maybe it’s because some of the countries aren’t part of the EU, or maybe it’s because most people that travel to this region have a car, whatever the reason we ultimately realized we wouldn’t be able to visit all of the countries with the time we had. We made it down Slovenia and the Northern part of Croatia before realizing it would be cheaper and more convenient to venture to Rome and fly to Albania. We don’t want to ruin any of the magic we experienced in Slovenia or Croatia, so that’s all we’ll mention about those countries in this post.

Jake went to Rome on a school trip 20 years ago, but Becca had never been. It’s crazy that we can now say things like ‘when I was here 20 years ago’. We figured if we were flying through, we might as well spend a few days doing Rome the right way!

We had 5 nights and 4 days to see all we could, with a goal of 20,000 steps per day to earn our gelato! Other than our train to and from the airport we only took public transportation one other time to get to an early visit of the Vatican, all other travel was done by foot. Our first stop was the famous Trevi Fountain, us and half of the tourists in Rome. It was so crowded we decided to come back later one night, and even at around 10:30pm it was extremely packed. Luckily, our friend Aspen studied abroad in Rome and had given us a few recommendations including her favorite fountain, Fontana dell'Acqua Paola, overlooking the city, and near the botanic gardens. We walked up to the favored fountain and got to enjoy a more peaceful Roman experience. One of our favorite areas that we frequented a few times was the Trastevere neighborhood. It was a quieter neighborhood on the other side of the River Tiber from most of the main sites but was still full of beautiful churches and delicious food. Being a 45 minute walk from our hotel, we spent the good part of one of our days, from lunch until after dinner exploring and eating. We met a fun couple from Quebec City while enjoying 5€ spritzes and playing cards. The gentleman worked in mining consulting and his company has an office in Denver, so he and Jake had a lot to gab about. One more important detail from that day, Jake turned water into wine!! Toward the end of dinner, as the restaurant began to clear out, the manager tried to move our table to give more space between the tables. She ended up spilling Jake’s water and his wine glass knocked over. Little did she know, he already finished his wine, but it didn’t stop her from bringing him a new full glass. The water spilled and he was given wine! We meandered the 45 minutes back to the hotel, and enjoyed a deserved nights rest.

We have decided to track our countries based on UN members and non-member observances. Luckily this means we were able to add one to Becca’s list with our visit to Vatican City! Another place Jake visited 20 years ago, The Vatican was quite the experience to say the least. Mistakenly thinking it would be less busy, we opted for a guided tour first thing in the morning. Yeah, us and the rest of the tourists in Rome. The early morning “skip-the-line” tickets basically just got us into a different line where we also had to wait, but that’s to be expected when we are going somewhere that hosts 40,000 visitors daily. While we really enjoyed the tapestry and map rooms, and Jake enjoyed the frescos, both of us thought our tour guide was doing the extended art history version of the tour, which was not our forte for 4 plus hours.

The Sistine Chapel is beautiful with bright colors illuminating the walls. We were told by our guide there would be 20 minutes of silence in the chapel. Sounded like an amazing way to take in the artistic detail and importance of this religious site. Unfortunately, the request for silence in the chapel was ignored by most of the visitors, with one fool talking on her phone, and others whispering to each other. When there are hundreds of people whispering in a small space there isn’t going to be any silence. The guards asked everyone to be quiet once, but it didn’t last. It’s astounding how people can’t be respectful for such a short amount of their day. St Peter’s Basilica was incredibly beautiful and frankly just impressive with its grandeur. We were probably more impressed by the beauty of the Basilica, but glad we spent time in both.

After our guided tour of The Vatican we decided that self-guided tours would probably be more our speed, so that is how we explored the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum. Of the two, we enjoyed the Roman Forum more, specifically Palatine Hill which had some beautiful ruins and great views of the city. The Roman Forum goes on for what seems like forever, and you could easily spend a day walking around the entire area!. Our last night in Rome ended perfectly with our favorite dinner at a small restaurant, Taverna Urbana, we spotted while walking around the previous night. We indulged in delicious food and wine (of course!) including roasted lamb, octopus salad, tiramisu and cheesecake for dessert, along with the most hilarious waiter and a mother son duo from California. It was a wonderful end to our time in Rome and if we every fly through Rome again, Taverna Urbana will be our first stop!

Pics or it didn’t happen

Venice

Pic descriptions (left to right and top to bottom)

The infamous gondola boats and canals
Torre dell’Orologio (St Mark’s Clock Tower)
The cathedral we stumbled upon where we experienced the free Vivaldi opera and symphony concert
The colorful houses of Burano
The world’s best frito misto
Venissa winery

Trieste

Pic descriptions (left to right and top to bottom)

Miramare Castle
The first time we needed the ponchos from Britt & Dylan (good thing Becca carried them around daily in the sun for the one afternoon it poured rain)
Views around the Trieste open squares