The Fischer Farm

Here are a few pictures of the farm house and some of its inhabitants. One picture shows the view from our balcony.

Monday in Bavaria

We slept in and relaxed on Monday in our lovely apartment at the Fisher farm (Wolfeicherhof). The Fishers are lovely. We gather that most guests are Germans and Austrians getting away from the city, so no one speaks much English. The Fishers have neighbors that speak English quite well and have been very helpful in helping us communicate with each other.

This is a working farm with "farm holiday apartments" added on to the property to supplement their farm income. Many farmers around this area have done the same thing. They have about 20 milking cows, pigs, horses, rabbits, a guinea pig, nine cats, etc.... It's also a great location - right in between Munich and Salzburg.

We are staying right near a large body of water known as the "Bavarian Sea." It's called the Chiemsee. There are several islands in the lake. One of them is called Herrenchiemsee and we took a ferry there this afternoon. King Ludwig II of Bavaria acquired the land in 1873 and built a palace modelled on Versailles. The palace was still incomplete when he died in 1886 and he only stayed in it ten days.

Having been to Versailles, it's pretty impressive to see what Ludwig built. He built all of his castles with his family's money (not Bavaria's) and pretty much ruined his family. He was enamored with Louis XIV - The Sun King - and built the Royal Palace of Herrenchiemsee as a homage to him (two hundred years after he died). It's such a good copy that people from Versailles visited often after the French Revolution to make sure the rebuilding they did was correct.

Another cool thing about the island is that the Constitutional Assembly met there in 1948 in the former monastery (Old Palace) to prepare the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany).

We saw a giant banana slug as we walked up to the palace.

After our tour, we ate dinner at a nice restaurant on the island.

Sunday - travel day

We left Venice in the early afternoon. We attended mass (in English) at the church right next door before we departed. It was VERY hot as we left. We drove to Eggstatt, Germany and arrived in the evening.

As we drove from Italy, through Austria, and into Germany, it rained. We went through the mountains as it did this and then a rainbow appeared. It was beautiful.

It's much cooler here than in Italy (high 60s). So, we've had to break out the long shirts and pants.

Saturday in Venice

We woke up early Saturday morning and went to the Rialto Market. They sell fresh fruit and vegetables, fish, meats, etc.... It was very neat to walk around Venice before the other tourists were out and about. All of the shopkeepers were getting ready for the day. Delivery boats were bringing supplies to waiting restaurant workers.

The fish market reminded me of the market last year in Kesennuma. It wasn't nearly as big (and almost all of the sea life were already dead), but it brought back a wave of memories from last year.

As we walked back to the apartment, we saw restaurant workers wheeling back big carts of seafood from the fish market to their restaurants. I haven't seen an obese Venetian yet. I don't they can exist given there are no cars and everything must be physically pushed/pulled from the canals to the interior areas of Venice.

In the early afternoon we went to Burano, the island of lace. It takes anywhere from 40 minutes to 70 minutes to get to Burano via vaporetto from the main island. The main church's tower is leaning (we saw another like this on Venice proper). The pilings under the islands are settling unevenly - leading to buildings and towers leaning in strange ways. Burano is a beautiful island with very brightly painted houses. They were originally painted so brightly by women so their fisherman husbands could recognize them from afar when returning to shore. It is a very cute, small island and we enjoyed a nice, inexpensive lunch at a little restaurant. We struck up two interesting conversations - one with a couple from Louisville, Kentucky and another with a female author from San Diego.

After Burano, the girls were pooped and I took them back to our apartment. Bill wanted to continue to explore and took another vaporetto to Torcello, an almost abandoned island near Burano. In the 10th century, it was more important than Burano or Murano, but the course of two rivers was changed and the area became swampy and malaria ridden. By 1680 it was almost deserted and only 30 or so people live there now.

Friday in Venice

On Friday we went to the Ducal Palace (Palace of the Doges) where we saw the largest canvas painting in the world painted by Tintoretto. It is called Paradise and shows Christ and Mary surrounded by 500 saints.

A Romantic Find....

We also found the spot where Bill and I (and others from the tour group we were with) sat and ate panini while we "lost" ourselves in Venice in 1991. It was pretty neat to find that same spot again (kudos to Bill for his "mission" to find it again).

Later on Thursday

Later, we went to Dosoduro area of Venice and saw the Basilica of the Frari. It was started by the Franciscan Order of the Minor Friars in 1330. The church was completed in 1443. It contains the only work of Donatello in Venice - a wooden statue of John the Baptist. It also contains major works by Titian and G. Bellini. The work of the Cozzi family, wood carvers of Vicenza, the choir has 124 stalls and some of the most beautiful woodcarving in Venice.

Thursday in Venice

We got in line on Thursday to go to into St. Mark's Basilica. We only had to wait 20 or so minutes. We pretty much explored every nook and cranny of the church. It's pretty amazing. We lit candles to pray for the health of our friends and family at the alter of the Madonna di Nicopeia. It is a Byzantine icon looted from Constantinople in 1204. It's one of the most revered images in Venice. We saw the original Horses of St. Mark (the ones you can see on the Basilica are copies) inside the rooftop museum and walked around the roof of the Basilica. They are the oldest items in the church and have been dated anywhere from 4 B.C. to A.D. 3.

Wednesday in Venice

The girls wanted to feed the pigeons, so we did. Then our family took a traghetto (a gondola that goes across the Grand Canal) and explored the Basilica of Santa Maria Della Salute on Wednesday. A plague hit Venice in 1630 and the doge of the time pledged to build a magnificent church dedicated to the Madonna. It did and he did. Over one million piers are used for the foundation of the church and it opened in 1687. We continued on and walked around the Zattere (a promenade along the Guidecca canale. We saw the San Trovaso boat and gondola builders yard. Boats and gondolas are still built and repaired here. The houses are a very different from the rest of Venice and mimic the style popular in the Dolomite mountains where the boat builders originated.

We had a great meal that night for dinner and met a lovely family from London.

Tuesday in Venice

Bill got his haircut on Tuesday and then we went to Murano (or as the girls call it - "Glass Island"). We wandered around the shops and the girls got a few pieces of jewelry. We went to a great workshop/furnace where we saw a bunch of men hard at work making different pieces of glass. It was very cool. They liked the girls and gave them little, beautiful, flower, glass beads. We spent quite a while watching all the different parts of the process. We watched the factory "master" make flowers for chandeliers. It was pretty darn amazing.

After, we went to the top of the Campanile (no line at 6:30 p.m.) and we all enjoyed beautiful views of Venice and the surrounding islands.

Monday in Venice

We wandered around Venice on Monday, buying gelato, purchasing fruit at the Rialto market, riding the vaparetto around Venice, and just enjoying the atmosphere of the city.

We also saw delivery boats (see DHL picture), garbage boats, construction boats, ambulance boats, etc.... Pretty cool!