Thanksgiving Break With Mom and Erin

Photos of Thanksgiving Break Travel with Mom and Erin.

I just returned this evening from a fantastic week of traveling with my mom and sister. They flew in on Thursday evening, arriving in Riva, where they stayed in the hotel here for two nights, mid-day Friday. We took it easy the first few days; I showed them around Riva on the Friday they arrived and the Villa as well and on Saturday, we spent the day wandering around Lugano. We left Sunday morning, by rental car, for Milan. Driving was certainly an adventure; Traffic and difficulty navigating almost made us skip Milan and continue to Florence instead. However, we fought on and felt accomplished once we made it to the hotel. We spent some time wandering around Milan, where we happened upon a marathon in progress, saw some of the original fort that protected the once walled Milan, went to the Duomo, and walked through the Galleria, an architecturally beautiful, high-end, covered shopping area. The next morning we left for Florence, where we spent three days. We went to a few museums, including the Uffizzi and Accademia (where Michelangelo's David is displayed); we saw the Duomo of Florence, went to the Ponte Vecchio, did a bit of shopping, and wandered of course. We ate at a "self-service" restaurant, which was a cool experience; it was almost like a buffet line, so we went through it and picked out a bunch of things to share. It seemed like a more local thing to do, so it was nice to break away from the more touristy side of things. We also ate gelato... really good gelato. There is a place called Festival del Gelato, where there are an unbelievable number of unusual flavors; we went there both on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, Erin had to head home. She was picked up at the hotel at 5:00 a.m. to be taken to the Florence airport. I am very thankful that she came considering she would have such a long day of travel and then have to work 'Black Friday' for 14 hours. Mom and I left later that morning for Venice. At this point we had dropped off the car at the rental place, so we took a train and then the vaparretto, the boat taxi, to the Rialto Bridge, near our hotel. It was a beautiful, though cold, first day; Mom and I walked to St. Mark's Square and down the main body of water to the Biennale Gardens for the afternoon until time for dinner. The next day we were not so lucky in terms of the weather unfortunately. It was not just cold, but rainy and windy. We did have indoor activity planned; In the morning we went to San Marco Basilica, the museum that is on the 'second floor' of the Basilica, as well as the treasury, housing many beautiful gold, crystal, and jeweled objects of the church. Despite the poor weather, we did spend the rest of the day wandering, taking a break part way through the afternoon to warm up in our hotel. The next morning, today, Mom took a transfer boat to the Marco Polo airport on one of the islands of Venice and I took the vaparretto back to the train station to head to Milan then back to Riva.

I really enjoyed spending the week with both Mom and Erin and was very thankful to have both of them come visit; especially over the holiday. I thank them both for the week of wonderful travel and look forward to coming home soon!