Shopping, Palazzo Valentini, Aqua alta in Venezia

I'm the only one who is well at the moment, the others all have colds and are in various stages of recovery.  Today we all stayed pretty close to the centro.

Jules went to the Domus Romane di Palazzo Valentini in the afternoon and enjoyed it.  From what he said the exhibition has been expanded since we visited last year and now includes an underground area near Trajan's Column.   Palazzo Valentini is a multimedia museum - with images projected onto existing excavations.  The excavations are still a work in progress. 

When I first heard about Palazzo Valentini on Revealed Rome I thought that it could be either really good or naff.  It was brilliant and I guess that is why you need to book to get in. The entry fee is now 11.50 euros if you book online and the Revealed Rome review is of what we saw, not with the addition of Trajan's Column.

Sarah wasn't well enough to go to the Vatican, neither was Paul :)  Hopefully her flu will be a bit better tomorrow and she'll be able to go out. she needs to do some serious shoe shopping :)

We did some shoe shopping -at our favourite shoe shop in Rome, Altariva in Via Del Tritone, 31.  They have good shoes which are good prices -you don't have to pay 1000s of euros for a pair of shoes.  I love their boots and bought a few pairs last time -and a few more yesterday :) 

The staff at Altariva are always extremely friendly and helpful and are very patient with our  Italian.  They are very good sales people but are also genuinely friendly.  Last year while we were buying some shoes one customer tried on about 10 pairs of long boots - the shop assistant was very helpful and understood about getting just the right pair and was still extremely helpful and friendly.  I can imagine the same scenario in Perth but it would be with a hassled customer and totally impatient, eye rolling, pacing salesperson.


The apartment that we are staying in is in a great location, around the corner from Piazza di Spagna, but is extremely noisy -no double glazing like the apartment in Venice, nowhere near as comfortable either.  It isn't the best place to be staying when you're not well as it is hard to sleep. Home is going to seem so quiet after this.

It looks as though we left Venice at the right time, the aqua alta has been really high, about 1.5metres, that's 10cm higher than the highest when we were there.  Many people were caught unawares as the prediction was for much lower water. At 1.5m, the barriers infront of shops etc would have kept out very little and it would be difficult to get around as wellies would be useless.
Photos from newspapers:
Venezia Today

Affaritaliani.it

Andkronos

It is so sad to see Venezia under water -each time the water subsides you can see where a bit more paint, mortar etc has washed away.  Venice is slowly being returned to the sea.

Verona

 It was going to be a rainy day in Venice yesterday so we headed off to Verona by train.  Sarah wanted to see Verona and it was easy to wander around in the cool weather. We went to some of the usual tourist spots including the Arena, la Casa di Giulietta and Piazza delle Erbe.
Some of my favourite things about Verona are the ammonites in the beautiful pink marble.  There are heaps in the streets and the seating in the Arena.  I couldn't climb many steps in the Arena this time because  I had a sore knee but Jules and Rob took some photos for me.

I haven't added Jules' best photos because someone as already uploaded one of his photos from another program and claimed it as their own.

Last time we came there were just locks everywhere and names written on the walls.  Now people are declaring their undying love by also sticking blobs of chewing gum all over the place and writing on it - yuck!

If this screen hadn't been covered in crap, if you wanted to you could watch the screen and listen to a commentary about the place.

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These people were writing their names on the audio piece

Rob walking through Piazza delle Erbe

The Venice Lion

Piazza delle Erbe -more of a tourist souvenir market than a herb and vegetable market

This little dog was patiently waiting for a treat

Scarves for sale everywhere

It wasn't too cold for Jules to have gelato

The Arena is pretty spectacular

We weren't able to walk around much in the tunnels or go out in to the centre of the arena as there are major works going on with the ground in the centre

Today there is really high aqua alta  -about 1.4 or 1.5 metres, it is a public holiday (All Saints day -Ognissanti) and it is going to rain, a good day to stay inside. People going past our apartment have high wading boots, I think that our high wellies would fill up with water.

This afternoon we're going to visit the family in Mestre, the water should have gone down a lot by then. If not we'll be swimming :)

Aqua alta

There is aqua alta for the next three days in Venice -around 1. 2metres.  Jules and I went out when it was at the peak this morning. We bought wellies yesterday but I still manged to get wet feet from the waves on the Zattere.

The gondola was at the same level as the campo

Water being pumped from inside a shop

The marathon is supposed to be going through here tomorrow morning

and running through here as well :(

The squero/gondola workshop was very watery

Someone left a pile of cement :(

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