Venetian Vehicles

As long as I am on the subject of vehicles, I thought that a quick survey of Venetian vehicles might be interesting. The most common means of transportation in Venice is some kind of boat. First, I will talk about the old fashioned way--the gondola, complete with gondelier, dressed in the traditional stripped jersey and white straw hat. Most of the gondolas are quite fancy, with carpets, and fancy furniture. Some even have musical entertainment, singing or accordian.
Since the streets are mostly pedestrian only, the business of the city is conducted by boat. There are delivery boats, beer delivery boats and garbage boats. There are vapparettos, the equivilent of busses, and water taxis.



The main drag is the Grand Canal. There are secondary canals and smaller feeder canals. Some of them are only wide enough for two gondolas to pass each other. We saw a few traffic jams in the little canals, and boats had to back up to let someone get by. There doesn't seem to be any type of traffic regulation on the Grand Canal--no speed limit, no stop lights, no "rules of the canal." It gets comical. Traffic is slow, the slowest boats are the gondolas, because they are powered by the human gondolier. I guess that the taxis are the fastest. I don't know for sure, because we stuck to the vaparetto.
Of course, I can't forget the biggest vehicle we traveled in--the Crystal Symphony.

The "taxi stand" next to the Rialto bridge.

The "delivery boat" complete with a German Shepard!

Cars and Smart Cars

Some random thoughts. Today I heard on the news that Daimler Chrysler is planning to bring the Smart Car to the USA in about two years.
To Americans, EuropeanCars look like toys. Some are electric, like golf carts, there are even electric trucks. Service vehicles are small too. We saw delivery trucks, garbage trucks and even a phone company truck--all tiny by US standards. Now in the US, people would laugh at trucks like that. To us, they are too small, but they seem to function just fine over there. Passenger cars are about the size of mini Coopers. I saw the Fiat, Renault, Citroen, all the European brands except for the Volvo. We saw Volvo dealers in Venice, but no Volvo cars. Not only do the cars look like toys, they also sound like toys. They whine. A car that is considered small here, like a VW Golf or a BMW, looks pretty large in Europe. The Mercedes is the status vehicle in Italy. All the private drivers for the cruise people seem to drive the Mercedes.
The amazing thing about the little cars is that they seat 4 passengers. In Rome, I actually say 4 adults sitting in one of these cars--two in front and two in back. You rarely see a van or SUV.
Some of the cars seat only two people, some only one.
I saw quite a few of the Smart Car by Mercedes. This car looks great, and seats two. It can fit into about half a parking space.
Space is at a premium in these old cities. Most of the places we visited didn't even allow cars in the central city--Rome, Florence, Taormina, Capri and Dubrovnik. The streets are so narrow, since they are medieval--or older cities. Only service vehicles are allowed in these towns--most of these are electric cars.
Gas is about$6 a gallon, but it is sold by the liter here--so the little cars make sense.
The funniest thing is that most Americans wouldn't drive cars like the ones that people drive in Europe. Can you imagine trading a Ford Explorer or a Hummer for a Smart Car? Someday we may have to, but people will fight it.
I have included two pictures--one of the phone company truck in Sicily and one of the Smart Car by Mercedes.

I'm Done!

I finally finished putting in my garden. After spending most of last week weeding, I put in the annuals I had purchased several weeks ago. It has been raining, but cool, so nothing is growing very quickly. If the growth stays this slow, I'll have to get some more plants.
The other news of note is the new dishwasher. The kitchenaid finally died. WE went out to ABT and planned to get another KitchenAid. Well, we bought a Miele, which is a German dishwasher. I have a Meile vacumn cleaner, and have had it for more than 15 years. So I had a good impression of their products. We tried it out after dinner tonight, and it is so quiet. You almost have to put your ear next to it to hear it work. I hope that the dishes come out nice and clean too.
I am still going to the Botanic Garden to help out with the summer day camps. I have a group of 5-6th graders. They are very nice kids, and just love everything that we give them to do. I'm sure that they think that this is much better than school!

Beautiful Venice

We decide to see the Peggy Guggenheim museum, walk around and see the Rialto Bridge in our short day. Every corner we go around gives a new oppurtunity to take a picture. The day was beautiful, warm and sunny. Once we crossed the Grand Canal to get to the museum, the crowds thinned out. Much nicer on the other side. I don't remember anything about the Peggy Guggenheim from 1976, except that I went there. I really enjoyed it this time. She was quite a character, in addition to collection art by about every important 20th century artist. She was married for a while to Max Ernst. The museum was calm and not too crowded. We stopped in a little art gallery and David bought a nice poster, which turned out to be a silk screen. I will frame it for him when we get home.
Then we walked back over the grand canal toward the Rialto Bridge. More wonderful pictures. When we finally got to the bridge, I felt like I was on Canal Street in New York. This was really wall to wall people.
Our final activity was to take a vaporetto down the Grand Canal to San Marco. So we bought our tickets and waited and waited. Finally it came. The trip back was slow, but spectacular. We made it back to the ship on time, and sailed away from Venice into the Adriatic Sea.

BACK AT HOME

I am home after an absence of about 3 weeks. The cruise is over. I didn't blog, even though I planned to, because the internet connections were terrible. I did keep a detailed journal, which will provide some blogging material. I also have a lot of pictures.
Now, I am just getting my garden together. I decided not to do anything with it before I left for several reasons. I wanted to see what I had before I added anything. I also was too busy. So, everything is growing now, I saw what I had and what didn't make it over the winter. There are a lot of weeds. My project is high powered weeding. I also bought a lot of annuals, which I am putting in now. My knees hurt, even though I used knee pads. All my little plants look pathetic now, but it is warm, so they should take off quickly. I am an impatient gardner.
So far, I have weeded and planted two beds. I have quite a bit more to do, and still have containers to put together. I bought hanging baskets at the Wilmette French market, they were only $10. Look nice too. Everything should look good by the 4th of July.