My own private Venice

Venice? Private? Hah. With 20 million visitors a year, you can't possibly hope to feel like you have this eternally beautiful city all to yourself. 

But you can try. Because while the sights you share with countless, faceless others are truly stunning, they are just easy pickings.

And while the Venice of the Grand Canal, of the Doge's Palace, the Venice of the Piazza and Basilica San Marco is as beautiful and evocative of a splendid past as anything you've ever seen...

... it is the Venice of the narrow side streets that is the most special, because it is the Venice that will become your own. 

Thankfully, the city provides no shortage of these small, winding alleys to get lost in. And I was happy to share my own private Venice with the love of my life, and with one of my dearest friends (and the love of her life!). 

Far away from the grand piazzas and palaces, and close to sunset, after the hordes of day trippers have gone home, is the best way to find your own private Venice. This is what mine looks like.

End of the road

Buon giorno from Marina di Carrara, Italy! We are in the apartment of Marlon's aunt Lorna and her Italian anarchist husband, Gino. (Yes. It's been interesting.) While Marlon watches Tita Lorna make siopao, pizza and focaccia alla stracchino (all from the same dough!), I'm catching up on a bit of blogging and downloading pictures from my camera.

It's the last day of our Big Trip. I can't believe we've been traveling for 17 days and now the journey has come to an end. With our stomachs full of good food and hard disk full of gorgeous photos, we're just about ready to go home. It may be the end of the road, but what a ride it has been.

Our itinerary expanded along with our waistlines. We made a few unplanned stops in Italy, like the tiny fortress-village of Monteriggioni...

and Monterosso al Mare in the famous Cinque Terre.

I can't be more thankful for these little surprises, and glad that we left ourselves enough free time to just go out and discover these places. Most of all I am thankful for a partner who is a wonderful companion both at home and on the road, and values travel as much as I do. 

There's lots to write about, so I'll get into turbo blogging mode when I return home. But till then, I will enjoy my last few hours in bella Italia. Ciao for now!

The journey so far

Marlon and I reached the halfway point of our trip. This is the story so far, in pictures. 

We started off in Ljubljana... 

then headed to Maribor... 

Bled... 

... and Koper, Slovenia.

Then it was a short hop over the border to Venice, Italy... 

and now, Bologna. 

Seriously. Bologna didn't earn the nickname La Grassa, or The Fat One, for nothing. There's not much to do here except eat. And eat and eat and eat. So that's all Marlon and I have been doing here so far. It's a miracle I still have a waist, but please don't ask me to turn sideways in pictures.

While we roll ourselves to Florence tomorrow, you all have a great weekend!

Spring break

I'll be away for the next couple of weeks on The Big Trip of the year. This trip will be the longest Marlon and I have traveled together. It's even longer than our honeymoon, and I'm planning everything. So while I'm excited, I'm also a little freaked out.

But that's all in the fun of traveling. Being able to go on a long trip was what I wanted when I started getting restless in Singapore. That bout of "metaphysical unease" two years ago eventually brought us here, and now we get to take that long trip. I couldn't be more thankful for that.

Our (rather ambitious) itinerary includes a mix of places I've been before, and new places that we'll discover together for the first time:

• The 2012 European Capital of Culture, Maribor, Slovenia, for the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing. The Glee Club qualified 11 years ago, and qualified again this year. Go Ateneo! One big fight!
• Ideally, if I wake up early enough, a day trip to Lake Bled in Slovenia
• The Mediterranean coastal town of Koper, Slovenia
• A double date with the Duhamels in Venice
• One night in Bologna, to stuff our faces with Italy's finest
• FLORENCE. Four days. Can't wait.
• San Gimignano, our base for exploring Tuscany and the nearby towns of Siena, Lucca and Volterra
• Marina di Carrara on the Ligurian coast to visit relatives on Marlon's side
• Pisa, where we catch our flight back to Amsterdam

I'll be traveling with the laptop, but don't expect to be blogging on the fly. So in the meantime, feel free to explore the archives, wish us luck and pray that we'll still be solvent/married/shaped vaguely like humans by the time this trip is over.

Over and out!

P.S. "Viaje" calligraphy above by yours truly.