Off to Venice
Gebellina
We left Sciacca on Monday, driving via the ruins of Poggioreale and Gebellina to Cinisi where we spent the night before flying to Venice for our two week vacation within a vacation. This iPad app will only allow one photo per blog so I chose the one of Cathy and Rachel on the terrace of the TAM Case Vacance in Cinisi. It's in the city center and has a view of the mountain ridge that looms over the town. It's a short drive to the Palermo airport so we made reservations for the night before we leave for home since we have a 7:00 AM flight.
The TAM Case Vacance is recently opened and is a real nice place. Cinisi doesn't have much in the line of restaurants, mainly pizza joints, but good ones. We ate at the Basilico based on the recommendation of our host, Nino. I'll add photo's once we get back to Sciacca and I have my laptop. I didn't want to drag that extra weight around on this part of the trip.
This afternoon we arrived in Venice. Our apartment is in the southwestern part of the city on the main island group, north of the Grand Canal. It's about a kilometer to the bus and train station.
Rachel scored big time on this place. It's carrying a holiday price tag since there's a carnival during the holidays but it's recently renovated, has all the modern conveniences including dish washer, oven, washer and dryer. There's also a courtyard off the 2nd bedroom for the use of the residents of the building with one side being the canal. The carnival activities are not like what happens before Lent, but there are activities everywhere. We may go to a Verdi concert and ballet of the Four Seasons on the third. It'll depend on the cost and availability of tickets. I believe it's being held in an old church that has been converted to a concert/ballet hall. More on that later.
After Margaret, the owner's friend that helps guests get to the 5 apartments that he lets, dropped us off and shared insights on where to go for groceries, food, etc we headed out to wander around and look for some lunch. We made it to the Campo San Margerita, a piazza about 1.5 km away and had a bottle of wine, fried potatoes diavolo and meat tray at the Bollicine SRL on the square. It had fairly good prices. The meat tray was 15 euros, potatoes 5 and the bottle of Mandarossa Petit Verdot 30 for a total of 50. It's Venice and they have tourist pricing all year. Thank god we can cook our own meals and will do so most of the time. There's a bodega a block away and a Conrad store on the Grand Canal that we will walk to tomorrow. On our way back to the apartment we found a church near the university where an organist and flutist were practicing. We heard the music from outside and went in to listen for about 10 minutes. It soon became obvious that they were going to close the church for the evening and we needed to get back to get ready to go out for dinner at one of the restaurants we saw on our jaunt. I hope we can find a couple of them again.
Well that'll do it for now. I DO wish I could upload more than one stinking photo per post. Maybe someday Squarespace will get smart and make it possible to do so.
We are back in Sciacca so now I'm adding photos.
Ciao for now.