Venice...Revisited

Our time in Aviano was nearing to a close. Joan and Sam said maybe we should revisit Venice. It is just an hour away by train and not expensive.  It would be a wonderful idea to concentrate on taking pictures of people instead of architecture. By now, we were very accustomed to getting to Sacile and the train station. Round trip train tickets in hand, validated and on the right train platform, we waited five minutes for the express, which was on time to minute. The ride seemed so short. I was starting to feel like all of the daily commuters, going to school or work!
Off of the train on track 4 in Venice/St Lucia. No change here, thousands of people lighting up cigarettes after their bout with nicotine withdrawal on the train. Quickly we walked out of the station to escape the smell and smoke!

Solvania and Croatia...Better Than Expected!

Saturday,  Oct 3, 2015

Time check 3am. No, the alarm hasn't gone off yet, but my biological clock certainly has and that is a normal occurrence for me. I didn't get up until a little after three thirty. We all did our bathroom thing and were ready and out the door by 4am. The bus pickup point is just three hundred feet around the corner. It was already there and we were first to board. A total of 12 people were signed up and all were early. Francesca, our tour guide, spoke Italian and oddly enough English with a pronounced British accent. Later we found out that her mother was Italian and father British!
The bus no soon started than it started to rain heavily with thunder and lighting. Francesca said that the boat Captain would cancelled the boat part of the tour if it was to choppy or visibility up to par. After dosing of for two and a half hours the bus descended into the town of Trieste. This is the last major city in Italy before we crossed into Slovenia. This is also a Euro National State and no border restriction or stops were encountered. 
From this sea level port our journey took us up into the mountains again. The road twisted and turn around many valleys and ridges. There were many farms with vineyards of grapes and orchards of olive trees. It had stopped raining and we now had a little hope that the tour would be a success or partial success and not a total washout.   
A little information here about the Croatia and the Istrian Coast. The length of the Istrian coast, along with islands and inlets is 324 miles. The west coast of Istria is more indented, and, together with islands, it is 202 miles long. East coast, together with inlets  is 131 miles long. The above information comes from the pamphlet  that Francesca gave us upon entering the bus.
Another interesting fact is on the Karst and the limestone grounds. The sinking of Karst recess created specific and branched bays, such as the Pula port, the Medulin bay, the Rovinj coast and the Porec coast that we visited. Lost in the spelling and pronunciation of the words above? So are we! (Above taken from tour literature)
The coast is well developed with lots of bays, deeper small bays and rivers mouth. 
The area has been inhabited since prehistoric times. During the 2nd century BC, Roman Castrum was built on a tiny peninsula. 
Ok, enough of history of the area! Upon arriving at Paranzo (Porec) we walked towards the boat that we would be taking on our land and sea tour. Being a small group, we were early and had an hour to spend exploring the old port town. 
Many of the villages and towns in Europe have small cobbled stone streets, but Porec was very unique in that the street, in the old section, were narrow, but the cobbled stones were above the rest as far as patina is concerned. They were still wet from earlier rain and just had that magical glow that a photographer is looking for. It was  early and just a few people were out and about. This added to the charm of the pictures that I took. Francesca, happened to be walking in our direction and guided us to an ancient church. Some of the original mosaic floor was discovered three feet below the existing and was left opened to view and photograph. 
It was good to have the extra time before the cruise. As we walked toward the boat Monvi, the locals were opening their shops, hand sweeping the cobble stone streets, some were hosing their street dining areas and a few little old ladies were heading off to the market. 
One of the first things we did on the boat was checkout the best spots for viewing. Here again, Francesca gave us help hints. She said that the open top deck might be to hot if the sun came out. Speaking of sun, once underway we stopped at two other pickup points for more passengers and by than the sun came through for us again! The temperature climbed into the high seventies by the middle of the afternoon 
In about an hour an a half we made our first stop. Has we pulled in port of Rovigno (Rovinj) the towering church steeple came into view. Wow, what a view! 
A little history about Rovinj. Rovinj was already a settlement of Illyrian tribes before being captured by the Romans. This makes it very, very old. The town certainly has a long history. We disembarked from  the boat and Francesca gave us a couple of options to get to the church on top of the hill. She said, basically take the low (long gradual road) or the high road (up a quick, but strenuous) road. The first thing that we encountered was the local market with vendors begging you to sample food items. We did managed to sample some, but weren't interested in carrying larger bags around for the rest of the time in Rovinj. Walking through the many side streets, actually no main street to go up to the church, we were overwhelmed with the artist, vendors and photographic opportunities on the way home. 
A wedding in the church was about to take place. A lot of people were mulling around and taking photos. Francesca had told us that we could climb the bell tower, 192 steps, for a small fee of 3 Euro. Up we started, the first three steps were a foot high. The next 189 steps were all little steps of three to four inches. We took our time and  Joan, Helen a I made it to the very top. Sam, who has had two hip replacements elected to wait in the shade in front of the church.
Wow, what a view! All four sides were simply spectacular! We were five or six people at the top. I just happened to look at my watch, 12 noon it read. I wonder if they ring the bells? Bong, Bong! The giant bell four feet above my head was rocking back and forth as a huge hammer, three foot high inside the bell, did its thing! This wasn't bad enough, a pigeon just above, on a beam, let go! I don't mean let go of the beam! The adventures I put myself through!
Going down the stairs was a little harry also. Because the steps were not constant in height, one had to step over one foot while holding on to the railing and slowly head down to meet Sam.
From the church we took a direct path, well as direct as possible down to the bay. When we arrived we got twisted around for a second and headed for the other side of town. We quickly turned around toward the boat. One final stop was to buy some Chestnuts roasting on a propane fire at the outskirts of the market. 

Croatia ~ The ITT tour ~ Home Bound Status

Today is Friday, Oct 3
Tomorrow morning we will be boarding a tour bus at 4:30 am for our guided journey into Croatia. I will detail the adventure later this weekend. 
It now looks like we will be ending our time in Italy a little sooner than originally anticipated. The events in the Middle East have a bearing on our decision to leave a little early. I'll detail this in a later blog.

Mountain View Inn ~ Aviano Air Force Base

In the last couple of days, we've been taking it easy. Sam came down with a cold and we all needed to rest. It was a good time to catch up on the blog, emails and reading. On Wednesday evening, Helen prepared some soup and with Saltine crackers and all those different cheeses from the local market made a wonderful change from eating out every night! Mind you, we certainly enjoy eating out, but a change makes one appreciate those experiences a lot better. 
We walked over to the ITT office yesterday and canceled our "Cinque Terre" tour on the 24th of October. I really wanted to go to Cinque Terre as I have seen Rick Steve on Public Television explore. Cancellation was far enough in advance to get all of our money back except for a minor service charge. Some of you might be saying, "Why cancel?" I'll explain in future blog!

A Fig Tree nearly ready for harvest!

Helen and I have been trying to stay active as far as exercise. We make it a routine of walking a minimum of three miles around part of the base each day when we don't have anything planned. My Fitbit pedometer has been getting a workout! It keeps track of everything. Last week we had 31.05 miles, the week before 23.11 miles and 29.25 miles the week before. My goal is for 5 miles a day which I haven't been meeting, but at least we're moving. I really wanted to do some mountain hiking, but that isn't going to happen because we would have transportation issues to and from and I'm certainly OK with that! This Space "A" tour was and is a learning curve. We will be, hopefully, doing more of this type of trips. I really have to thank Sam and Joan for letting us tag along. It is not an easy thing to have four people travel together and for that matter live together. They have showed us, as they say, "The ropes". 

Tunnels galore here in the mountains!

I hope to share more tips and tricks in future blogs, when I can sit down and recall many experiences. 
While I'm thinking of one. On our road trip towards St Magdalena, in the town of Cortina, Sam had to find a restroom. We all got out of the car and walked toward the restaurant. As Sam entered, I noticed that we were parked in a "Pay to Park" lot. Low and behold, a meter maid was quickly checking for payment tickets in the windshields. Helen and I quickly walked towards our car with map in hand. She, the meter maid was starting to look down at the windshield when I asked, "which way to St Magdalena"? She said in broken English, "Is this your car? Where do you want to go?" I repeated the question and she gave me further directions and was on her way without checking the windshield and giving us a parking ticket. All of this diversion comes from an old magician friend Paul, who always said, "magic is nothing more than diversion". We were on our way, but in the wrong direction. It was a good thing that she left because Sam had the keys to the car and he was still at the restaurant restroom. This is just an example of little hurdles one can find on any trip in any place in the world. 

What do you do with old telephone booths?
Turn them into neighborhood library booth!

Life in Aviano, at the Air Force Base, is getting into a routine. First I must say, that I've never seen a military base so quiet! Sure jet fighters leave from the runway just a thousand feet away from our apartment, but the building is so well insulated we never hear them unless we're outside. When we go for our walks in the morning, there is no noticeable traffic or personnel around. When at the end of the work day, the traffic does increase at the south gate, but that is for a very short period of time. This is a NATO base and a few Nations are present including United States, Britain and of course the Italian Forces. It would be a good place to be stationed. Our apartment complex is adjacent to the Base Exchange, the Commissary and just about everything else we need. Our church needs could be here in the Italian section or over in Area One which is a few miles away. As I have mentioned previously, Area One is completely surrounded by the town of Aviano. This not to say that one can walk into the area without being questioned.

The Italian church on Aviano AFB

A barrier is present around the entire area. You feel safe when inside our area. This not to say that we don't feel secure on the outside. The Italian's are a very friendly people and we've had many good communications and experiences with them. In another Italian experience, up in the mountains, in a small village, I heard one Italian say a few words to another tourist in French. I said to him in French, "Parlez vous Francais", (SP) he answered me. We had a brief enjoyable conversation!   

That is what we did and saw!

     

USA ~ "Rocky Mountain High" Italy~ "Dolomite Higher"

Google image of Dolomite Mountains
in Magdalena, Italy

Yes, finally time to explore the interior Dolomite Mountains also known as the “Italian Alps” . The weather on this day, sunny with limited clouds. Our destination was a very small village of Magdalena, Italy way up near the Austrian border. Why this village? Because every time, you Google, “Images of the Dolomite Mountains” this little village appears. According to Google maps it was 185 kilometers from Aviano, that’s about 114 miles.

After extending our, “on base lodging” for another three days, Sam took the wheel and we were off. Of course, we had a regional map and written directions. Now you must understand Italian routes are a little different from US routes. When you come to a round about, which there are many, directions are

This is where we stopped for directions and lunch!

given by towns. Not all towns are on the map and written directions are overwhelming. I had highlighted the route most of the way and we were doing just fine until we reached Cortina D’Ampezzo, the town which held the Winter Olympics several years ago. This town is overgrown with hotels, restaurants, ski and hiking enthusiast. Sam and I are good navigators, but we got turned around a couple of times before heading out on route 51, (in the wrong direction). All is not lost! It turned out to be a beautiful “circle tour". We all agreed it was time to eat. A wonderful Alpine styled restaurant just happened to appear next to a lake with people fishing and sightseeing. We were in “Parco Naturale D

Gnocchi was our choice for lunch and Karla
took care of us for directions!

olomiti di Sesto” (a mouthful, but we were after food). Low and behold a waitress, who spoke very good English. Karla was her name. She put an X on the map, gave us a direction and of course a delicious lunch of “Gnocchi”. I will put in a good travel review in Travelocity. Oh, the restaurant’s name is “Restaurant Duerrensee”. So, back to the road issue. We made a large circle and never had to back track any of our route. Also I haven’t mentioned anything about the scenic views! I think, we’ve been driving the last couple of hours with our mouths wide open in aah! I’ve never seen such grander around every corner! I can’t post every picture here on the blog, but I can tell you I’ve got plenty of keepers!

Gnocchi

From Cortina the route would be more isolated, but not deserted. Nearly every village or town had multiple skiing facilities. I mean large chair lifts, gondolas and ariel tramways! I mean multiple in each town. There was no end to this skiing mecca. From route 48, we took a right onto route 244. From here it was extremely difficult! In St Martino in Badia, we took our last recognized turn on route 29. We were one turn away on route 163 to our destination. It was now mid to late afternoon and we had to make a decision. Turn around and head back or find a place to stay. We turned around! I had plugged a geocache at ground zero which was 22.9 miles away. The problem with the Garmin GPS (handheld) was that the road switchback so fast that I kept loosing the satellite fixes.

I was not disappointed! We all had one of the greatest road trip explorations! Sam had done a great job driving all the way up here, some seven hours of aggressive driving! It was time for me to take over the wheel and get us back to Aviano. Sam had looked at our map and set a more direct route. We would be driving most of the switchback roads in daylight. Around 7:30pm, in this part of the world it does get dark.

We didn't make it to Magdalena, but I did get some awesome
photos!

It is no wonder that Italians make excellent road race drivers. Mario Andretti comes to mind. The thing you have to remember about left, right curves is this…in slow out fast! I soon got the feel and I was very comfortable and awake! We did stop one more time to photograph a village 3000 feet below the edge of the road.

That my friends is what we saw and did

Warm Sun ~ Cool Breeze @ Colle Santa Lucia