Thursday, August 6, 2009

HOME!

I have lots of pictures up now from our trip, but the first one is the BEST!

Welcome our new grandson, Luke Allen Kinchen, born on August 4th, weighing in at 8 lbs. 8 oz. Sage and Justin are doing great and Luke's big brother Micah is FASCINATED!

These pics are all put in from the end of our trip backwards...I still have jet lag brain obviously. This is the couple from the U.K. that shared our apartment, Lesley and David Foster. We had such great evenings with them, emptying wine bottles and exploring each others lives. Great folks!
Scott and I on the deck of our apartment in Vicenza. This was our last day in Vicenza and it was a frenzy of packing and feeling wistful. I was still in my bathrobe in this picture! Thanks to Lesley for sending us the photo. She loved Scott's "halo"! The garden is in the backround...great tomatoes!!Our last lunch in Vicenza-trying to clean out the fridge. Tomatoes from the garden outside our door (Bob, the man who owns the apartment, kept us supplied with these luscious tomatoes!), fresh bread from the bakery down the road, a log of Capri cheese on a bed of arugula, a small chunk of Parmesan cheese, some Tapenade and a bowl of Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar. YUM!
We took the train to Parma on one of our last days to buy salami, cheese and proscuitto. We ate in a restaurant we went to last year. This is a pic of their beautiful meat slicer. We ordered proscuitto wrapped melon as an appetizer and they sliced the ham directly after we ordered it.

Parma Hams hanging at the salumeria. We gave these people lots of Euros. They really liked us.

The Night Train. These have sleeping berths. We have never used one, but someday...Scott saw this train and said, "Hey, this one goes all the way to Comfort! Maybe we should take it!"

A building in Venice. Shutters are closed during the day to keep in the cool.

Look at that water! Venice is remarkable and, even though it was incredibly crowded in July, we managed to find little back alleys to wander through.

I took this picture in a cool mirror hanging in a shop window.

Scott and I in a mirrored door in an alleyway.

A chef ouside a restaurant visiting with two gondoliers. Classic Venice.

A glass sculpture. This thing was HUGE...about six feet across!

The shops and archway down one side of St. Marks Square.

St. Mark's Cathedral. Just plain magnificent. They don't let you feed the pigeons anymore, so there's not near as many as there was last year.

The Market in Venice. So much cool stuff and VERY busy.

The fish market, which is on one end of the vegetable market. It was amazing!

Eels at the Market. Scott had eel for lunch that day at our favorite restaurant in Venice, Ristorante San Trovaso.

OCTOPUS!!!

Taken from a bridge over a canal.

The kitchen of our apartment. That mokka (stove top espresso maker) was used numerous times a day.

THE ALPS!

Most every house in Germany was some variation on this theme.

Incredibly impressive!

Cujo, one of Tom and Cynthia's cats.

The Four Laverda 100's in the front of Tom's shop. Four guys rode these bikes from London to Northern Italy. These bikes do not go fast. These bikes are as old as me (I don't go fast either). These bikes had to go over the Alps and they obviously took back roads and not the Autostrada. It was quite an accomplishment. When they finally arrived in Breganze it made the local news! They said the hardest part of the trip was how uncomfortable the seats were for such long periods of time.

Cynthia took me to a hill overlooking the village of Simmerberg so I could take pictures. When I got out of the car, there was a tractor baling hay. The tractor stopped after a bit and an elderly gentleman got out of the cab and walked around to the back of the baler. He was wearing a Speedo!!! Now you would NEVER see a farmer round these parts wearing a Speedo while baling hay, so I had to snap a photo. Those Germans!

Lake Alpsee. Cynthia and I went swimming in this very deep lake full of snow melt from the Alps. It was the coldest water I have ever felt. It's a beautiful park like setting and TONS of people enjoying the sunshine. Lots of guys of all ages wearing Speedos. What is it with Germans and Speedos?

Moon Unit. Tom and Cynthia's other cat. She slept with us most every night.Flowers in the park on the island of Lindau.


Downtown on the island of Lindau. Cynthia is walking in front of me with the TEL purse over her shoulder.

A building in Lindau. They all looked like cake decorations!

A monument on Lake Constance, the largest lake in Europe. This shows the dates and the heights of the floods that occured on the lake.

The view from my morning walk in Simmerberg.

We were in Annecy, France a few days before the Tour de France came through town.

Scott on the lake in Annecy, France.