Get update alerts
Locations
- .All Trips
- Art
- Car Culture
- Central America/Caribbean
- Food
- Food Tour
- Pic of the Week
- Sl;ovenia
.All Trips / Europe / Italy
La Dolce Vita (Part 7) Padova (Padua)
There are several good day trips one can make from Venice, one of the easiest being to the fun small city of Padova (which we Anglophiles often call Padua). The city is an easy half hour train ride from Venice, with trains leaving around every half hour, so advanced reservations really aren’t needed.
For centuries Padova lived under Venetian rule although several hundred years ago it became an independent city. The town is well know for its historic University, in existence since the 13th century (and highlighting such faculty as Galileo, Copernicus and Dante). So Padova has many of the enjoyable features of visiting any smaller college city. It also features two unique and worthwhile churches and a historic core that’s …
.All Trips / Europe / Italy
La Dolce Vita (Part 6) Murano and Burano
Venice is just one “island community” (actually it’s an amalgamation of 100 smaller islands) in the shallow brackish waters of the Laguna Veneta. There are several other island communities in this large (>200 square mile) lagoon that can be comfortably visited in an enjoyable day trip from Venice all easily accessible by vaporetto. Settlers fled to these islands when the barbarians invaded Italy over 1500 years ago because the islands were safe from these marauders and sheltered from the strong winds and waves of the Adriatic Sea.
Murano Fire Watch Tower
1) MURANO
Murano is best known for its glass factories and the wondrous assortment of beautiful glass products they generate. The island itself was initially developed in the 13th century …
.All Trips / Europe / Italy
La Dolce Vita (Part 5) Venezia (Venice)
So it was finally our time to visit the legendary travel destination of Venice. With increasing excitement we journeyed from Florence through Tuscany and finally over the long bridge to this island city. I usually try not to have ‘great expectations’ about big name travel destinations because I’ve often been disappointed by them; fortunately this was not the case with Venice. When we walked out of the train station it seemed that we were walking onto another beautiful planet named “Ocean”, not “Earth”. The sky was a mesmerizing blue color and there were no roads or cars — just boats cruising along the calm waterways of the Grand Canal, past elegant old buildings. If there’d been …
