Ciao, Italia!

It's been nine months since we went to Italy.  NINE months.  And yet, I still want to spend time talking about it and posting pictures to remember everything.  Because, you know, this blog is one of the ways we remember our good times - an interactive photo album of sorts.

But I realize, nine months on, that I really do need to move on to other news and other trips.  Since we took this picture, we've traveled through Bavaria, gone to Athens, attended a sister's wedding in the U.S., and toured across Saxony.  And, in two weeks, we'll have the pièce de résistance, our trip to Paris.

So, I suppose it's time to say goodbye to Italy, though I never really got to tell or show you much about my favorite city (for overall feeling), Venice.  And I never got to really write about the hilarious passive-aggressive hotel notes we encountered ("Where are you from?  RUDELAND??")--actually maybe that's just aggressive-aggressive.  Or recount the time we sat in the Frari Basilica, away from the tourist glut near San Marco's gondola stands, and take in Titian's Assumption of the Virgin, not in a museum, but as the altarpiece it was always intended to be.

Or tell you about the tiny, little pizza shop off the Campo Santa Maria Formosa that we went to for lunch every day we were there.  No chairs, standing-room only.  We ordered pizza by weight -- "un etto!" -- and it was where I tried my first egg and asparagus.  

Or, maybe talk about finding a mask and costume shop one night when we were lost (that's what you do in Venice, you get lost.  It's the number one activity.), filled with silks and velvets and porcelain masks -- and we could never find it again.

Or about that last night we had in Italy, where we bought our final gelatto, and walked along the promenade, across the bridge of sighs, watching the gondolas and traghettos and vaporettos go by, as the sun set over the beautiful, old city.

But, it's time to say goodbye to Italy now.  Just for now.

...

And hey, at least we got this mask!