The gondolas are indeed everywhere. And clearly being a gondolier is one of the last places women have not yet penetrated. Apparently the men guard this privilege quite intensely, the few licenses here are inherited (I think through the widows, but it's not really clear).

One day women, one day.

For now, it's nice to watch the burly men in black and white pushing people through the canals of Venice . . . .

Venice, yeah that's right, Venice

Who knew??? This place of 20,000 tourists a day, gondolas, impossible streets (how we found our hotel I'll never know, but it involved roaming and just sort of sensing the turns to a little courtyard with a little, almost impossible to read sign), the Grand Canal, and the most amazing Palace. 47 styles and colors and religions and types of marble and art just sort of slopped together and somehow it all works.

All of you, if you are reading this, must drop everything and come to Venice right now. What else is there to do????

Quan and Sarah in Firenze

Having a great time on the Ponte Vecchio!! (This is V's son Quan and Quan's girlfriend Sarah, who popped down to Florence from London for a few days to hit the museums with us).

Toilets, again

I do like checking out different bathrooms around the world. My first bathroom in Torino (Turin) was a squatter. Took me a minute to figure it out, not that it's so complicated but my mind was refusing to register.

Also, I love the two options for water usage. Little buttons for just pee, bigger buttons (sometimes with very graphic icons) for, you know . . .

The Uffizi with Quan and Sarah

We've spent hundreds of dollars on museums and amazing meals with Sarah and Quan (Aviathar's son and his girlfriend who flew in from London).

Today, I saw The Birth of Venus by Botticelli (in the Uffizi) and Night and Day statues by Michelangelo (in the Medici chapel) and a few da Vinci's. The Michelangelo statue here is of "Day" and shows a man with an unfinished face (pictured here). Unfinished because the day is unfinished . . . Fiorentini (I think that's how you spell it) has so many beautiful paintings as well. Yesterday we walked through the Boboli gardens outside the Palazio and saw an amazing recreation of a Pompeii house. They collected rain and used the power from the collected rain to create beautiful fountains. Amazing and so long ago. Here we are now just learning how to do this again.

And each home had its own garden with food, herbs and medicines. Once again, a sign that we should move in this direction in our homes. Not just a few in the countryside but right in towns across America.

There is much hope here in Italy that Obama will be elected. They are following the American election very closely here. It is the talk in many places and makes front page news everyday. Here in Italy they are convinced that he will win. What is the feeling there?? The world is watching us!!!!

Cinque Terra

No words to describe Cinque Terra, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Many of the delegates from the Slow Food nation are here bathing in the beauty. We are traveling with winemakers from Napa (the Wilson's) and a marine biologist working with shellfish in Martha's Vineyard.