In a previous blog I declared Switzerland to be the most beautiful place on earth; I have now found the second… Austria! The Alpine views are stunning and the pristine towns and villages are occupied by the warmest, friendliest people you would ever want to meet. The women are beautiful – tall, thin, blond and most all have freckles. Unlike the Italian women, these young ladies have a permanent smile and are just as happy to speak to you in English as German or Italian. I can’t believe that they all seem to know so many languages, but over and over I hear them switch between languages like it makes no difference to them. Maybe it is because I’ve stuck to a well traveled path along the Autostrada. I look forward to coming back for a long weekend in the country and we’ll see if my theory holds true in a smaller village.

So I woke up this morning in Italy and made my way north to the boarder. I’ve crossed Brenner Pass and am now doing a bit of exploring. There really are castles everywhere, I just wish I had time to tour them… maybe next trip. Today I will continue on up to Innsbruck and then on to Munich to pick Bill up in the morning. I don’t expect to spend any time in Germany this trip since he will be traveling with Chandler the dog and the cats, Leo and Rachi. I’m sure he is also anxious to get home and get settled in Italy. It seems it has been much longer than six weeks since he went back to New York.

I’ll give Bill a day or two to rest and then I’ll start dragging him out for sightseeing. I’ve been putting off doing a lot of exploring locally so that we can go together. I’m really looking forward to touring Vicenza and the Palladio villas as well as checking out the local vineyards and sampling their specialties. I also want to tour the Soave Castle and pick up a few more bottles of good Soave wine. Of course we will need to go back to Venice for a day of exploring and a trip to Murano too (we need some new wine glasses for all this good wine!). I’m sure Bill has a trip to the Ducati factory planned but I may sit that one out – it’s like taking someone who doesn’t drink beer for a tour of a brewery.

I know I’ve taken a hiatus from blogging but only because the bureaucracy of setting up house and getting established in Italy is less than exciting, leaving nothing to write about other than complaining -and that makes for boring posts. My lack of Internet access (and phone or TV) has started to impact my routine as well – the local Telcom people have a strange appointment schedule; they take your name and number and call you in a couple (or three) weeks when one of the service tech is near your house. If you are not there, too bad – you have to wait until next time someone is in the neighborhood! Once I get home internet access and and start having fun sightseeing again I’ll make sure to keep everyone updated. At this point, I’m just getting to know my town and my neighbors and trying to figure out the garbage pick up schedule (garbage on Friday, bottles every other Monday, cardboard and paper every other Tuesday, opposite weeks from bottles, compostable waste on Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday on weeks with a Holy Day - or holiday, cans are every couple of weeks too but I’ve not figured out that schedule yet – I’ll keep you posted, I’ve still not figured out where cat litter goes…. Sometimes I put it with compostable waste and sometimes with garbage, depending on which comes next). As you can see, even tho’ I’m not venturing out much life is anything but boring 

Happy Summer and don’t forget to wear sunscreen – the tan will fade but the age spots and wrinkles won’t!
LeAnn