June Travels...

After Josh's CFA exam, we jumped right on a plane in London to start our 8 day tour through Northern Italy and Southern France. 

First stop was the waterways and narrow walkways of Venice!

After our morning run, we had breakfast of omlettes and prosecco.  When in Venice...

The Art Museum

The Rialto Bridge that crosses the Grand Canal

The largest pizza ever that I was dying to dive into and the chef in the background.  Pizza was a MAJOR theme throughout this trip!

Live jazz music over the lunch hour in the Piazza San Marco

St. Mark's Basilica- home to hundreds of tourists and even more pigeons

San Marco Canal with the island San Giorgio in the background.  Love the gondola stations.

After a full day and night in Venice, we jumped on a train and headed to Florence.

My favorite church of all time...Duomo

The Loggia della Signoria in Palazzo Vecchio

Josh and his buddy, David

Ponte Vecchio in the background

One of our favorite lunch spots. Baguettes with "pink mayo."

Before our bike tour, Josh needed an hour to catch up on the Mavs playoff game.  Thankfully, they won...otherwise we might have had a crabby biker.

And we are off to see Florence on our cruisers with our guide.

The golden doors at the Baptistry

The sunset over Florence

Uffizi Gallery

We had dinner at our tour guides favorite local pizza joint.  A little hole in the wall with an option of house red or house white wine and pizza only.  We got lucky with a 10:30 reservation...we now know why it is booked ages in advance, and we even shared a table with two gentleman.

The last stop in Italy was Cinque Terre...undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places in the world, even with 48 hours of rain and landslide warnings.  Due to the weather, 3 out of 4 of the hiking trails that connect the "five lands" were closed the day we arrived and then all 4 were closed the day we left.  Clearly we need to schedule another trip back.

We started in the Southern most village, Riomaggiore, at lunchtime with high hopes that the clouds would blow over.

This was our only hike...Riomaggiore to Manarola.

Manarola behind us

Corniglia in the other direction

We then jumped on the train to get into Corniglia

We met a couple at a cliff point and shared a bottle of wine with them.  They had met 2 weeks prior to the trip.  One from Australia and one from Sweden.

Manarola in the distance

Again, we jumped on the train to get back the town we were staying...Vernazza...the most charming.

And we shut down a restaurant with a piano serenade.

The next morning, the weather wasn't any better.

We did venture out to the last town, Monterosso, but the weather had worn us out...so it was off to Nice.

The view from our hotel balcony.  We overlooked Jaridn Albert and there was a summer concert series all week...we woke up to music and went to bed to music.

Promenade du Paillon

One of the many squares of Vielle Ville- Nice's Old Town.  This is where we spend the majority of our nights...always a lively crowd.

We ate at an outdoor eatery our first night, and it backed up to this amazing church...and we had pizza.

And then we had gelato.

And then we went back to watch the Mavs win again.

The French beaches are rocky beaches.

The stairs are the entrance to park, Colline du Chateau

The East end of Nice.

Dinner with a view.  Wine, cheese and a baguette.

Our 8:00pm departure turned into 11:00 because we quickly found out that we were locked in.  The next three hours were extremly interesting with the language barrier, the crazy gate/wall security and the attempt to squeeze under and jump over.

The next day we were off to Monaco.  This is the view when you exit the train station.

Monte Carlo Port

And the famous yachts

Jardin Exotique

Lunch overlooking the port

The shopping district...we didn't do any.

I LOVE THE FRENCH RIVIERA!

We stopped by the Fairmont to have a quick glass of champagne.  We could have stayed for ages.  It was a beautiful hotel with an amazing view.  A bird decided to poop in my glass and I got an entire new glass of champagne.

Back in Nice the next day and Josh went for a swim in the cold water.

Last night in Nice.

At dinner, we had some time to reflect on where we have been and where we hope to go.  Josh's City Ratings thus far...

And Annie's. 

Cheers to a terrific and well traveled 10 months across the pond.

The Guernsey Donkey Parade

One of the many and random parts of my job as Marketing & Advertising Manager was deciding to sponsor a donkey in the Guernsey Donkey Parade which raises money for the Guernsey Adult Literacy Project (GALP).  We choice the local Beechwood school year 5 and 6 along with the Art Teacher to design our donkey. 

Karen, the Art Teacher wrote:

"We decided to paint our donkey with an Aboriginal design. Aboriginal art tells stories of journeys and the travels that were made, mapping water holes, animals, etc. Donkeys traditionally are a means of transport (Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem) and so we thought this was an apt link.

At the time that I was asked to decorate the donkey I was just about to go to Australia to visit my brother and his family in Sydney. I trawled the Art Galleries while I was there and found a contemporary Aboriginal painting, featuring concentric circles, which I felt we could base our design on.

At school, in the Art lessons, one of the areas we cover is ‘form.’ So to account for the differing ‘form’ of the donkey, the size of the circles vary according to the form of the body parts.  On Sparky, you will see five colours only, mimicking the  colours used in Aboriginal Artwork.  Black and green are two of the colours, making the link with M&S, our sponsor."

With that, meet Sparky, our donkey (named after what the locals refer to M&S as, Marks & "Sparks")

The start of Sparky

Year 6 hard at work

His Tail

His Mane

Sparky and the other 40 donkeys will be displayed for a week along the sea front of St. Peter Port, then they will "go on parade" around the island.  Our donkey will be displayed at our St. Martins location.  Mid September, the donkeys will then be auctioned off with all the proceeds going to GALP.

A Wonderful Way to Spend the Day!

On oversized bean bag chairs, in the sun, with good friends!

London for our 3rd Anniversary

A glass of wine at the oldest wine bar in London.  Great beer garden.

Saturday morning run across the Thames

And a few minutes to relax in the park

Portobello Market

Madness

Kensington Park

Beer break

The Rose Garden in Hyde Park

FINALLY Mexican cuisine! Wahaca in Covent Garden.

Sunday morning run to the London Eye

WOW

It is amazing what makes the front page of our little Guernsey Press...

70,000 people. I think we should start to panic now.

How Often do You Step Out of Your Front Door and See This?

Sailing practice around a cruise ship

Easter Egg Decorating

One of my friends had me over to decorate Easter eggs.  In Guernsey, you don't just decorate, you actually blow out the yolk of the egg so that you can hang them once they are dried.  Not the most appealing thing to do or see, but the end product was pretty impressive!