Venice and Tuscany
The big trip to Europe this month was to Venice and around Tuscany (Pisa, Florence, Sienna, etc). Tricia and I took a Cosmo tour as neither of us speaks Italian, and she wanted less hassle, which hopefully this would provide. We flew from London Stanstead (which is much nicer than Heathrow), and after a couple hours landed safely at Marco Polo airport. Some confused pidgin Italian and much walking backwards and forwards made us decide to take a taxi to the hotel where we would meet the rest of the tour. I was struck at how groomed everyone looked. Sure the English might wear 3-piece suits to look smart, but compared to the Italian's I saw, you realise that it's like dressing monkeys in eveningwear. They might have the goods, but they don't project the image. Often an Italian man wearing trousers and a tee-shirt appeared "better dressed" than a toffed up Pomm in his best.
The hotel was somewhat disappointing, but I guess we were not really paying that much for the whole thing, so I patiently waited for the next day, and our first true taste of Italy. We had our first of many unsatisfying continental breakfasts (give me bacon and hashbrowns any day), and then met the guide and drive for our time on tour.
As we were staying on the mainland, the first thing to be done was to take a short
boat-trip to Venice. I was slightly amazed at how busy it was, it seems that all the
tourists pour into Saint Marks Square, on the main Island of Venice, at the same
time, and the all leave again almost simultaneously. This irked me somewhat, but was
sadly often repeated, the touristy bits of Italy were far to overpopulated for my likes, I
much preferred the quieter non-tourist places we looked at. Canals. 
That is what I thought of Venice, then comes art, glass
making, and gondoliers. We did all of this and more, the thing I was most impressed
with was the mosaics. Often mostly made up of gold, and always impressive. A
small number of us took a joint trip through the canals, complete with serenade from a
"hunky" Italian man. Boy did he preen himself though, it was most amusing
watching him check his hair and clothes (including his groins and bottom) almost
continuously. We also took a "cruise" to Morando (sp?), where they make
all the lace, but it wasn't really very interesting apart from the colourful houses.
Then it was on the bus heading south and west, we got our first look at Italian countryside, and saw many quaint villages. I guess this part of Italy is like Germany, but instead of fields you get small Olive groves and Grapevine "fields", and the villages are a little closer together. It is also much more hill, but not in the NZ sense, just more so than England. Tuscany was much drier, with a lot of fallow fields, and the ground was more broken, ridges rather than hills. I did like the fact that many areas are preserved in their historic context, by law you cannot change the exterior (from period) of your house/grounds/etc.
We cruised through Ravenna, Sienna, Pisa and ended up in Florentine for three nights. The cities did not seem very distinctive, mainly size and locational differences. I guess the town planners were all of a similar mindset. The amount of churches, art galleries, and museums was amazing. Seeing so many originals was eye opening, a pity that many of the best things had been removed by various conquerors back to whichever homeland they came from, Napoleon was particularly bad for nicking stuff, but the French won't give any of it back saying that it is part of their history now!
The Italians sure did have some craftsmen however. 
So many churches are covered in great statues and engravings, many of which would
be exceptional as a stand alone piece, but when you see the huge buildings covered in this
stuff! Mind-blowing. The one amusing thing that struck me was that many towers
built in Italy lean. The Leaning Tower of Pisa just looks a whole lot nicer than
most, and looks as though it leans the most. But there were few old towers that did
look like they were leaning to some extent. I was told this was something to do with
the sandy nature of much of the ground, but surely the architectural techniques must have
a part to play in this as well. It is also worth while noting that many towers have
fallen over, as they just couldn't cope, and it only after they started building stairs
inside the towers that they became much more stable.
Although we didn't see much armour, 
we often found frescos of
Coats-of-Arms, along with the numerous religious scenes that Italians favour. Many
were not in very good condition, whether this is just a symptom of the way they are
produced, or from other sources of damage (we saw a few things that were bombed during
WW2).
Here is some armour pictures. 
I thought it would be so common it would be lying in
the streets, but was I wrong. Maybe Milan will have better collections than the
places we went to. Only the Doges Palace in Venice had a decent range, you kept
entering a new room that had more, better, and bigger displays of weapons and
armour. It was a total pity that you couldn't take photographs, and the fact the
they had almost no postcards of this stuff was very annoying. I took a few sneaky
shots, but the better rooms had a guard stopping people. This is one place that is
worth having a poke around in, they even had Mongol/Hun yak standards, and the single
photo I took didn't come out!
After Florence it was back to Venice, as we were staying on the island this time we had a much better look around. I was struck at how peaceful it is after the tourists mostly disappear. But even then the amount of wildlife was pretty scarce. I found one suspicious cat, and many small ankle-biting dogs. Oh and pigeons, buckets of the fly rats. St Marks square made even Trafalgar square look tame, and unbelievably, people were even selling breadcrumbs to feed them.
Italy was
not as cheap as I thought, even though you get 2,800 lire per pound, things were often
quite expensive. It took a while to realise that the symbols were
sometimes the same too, especially when some prices are actually quoted in pounds.
This last photo was of a pole on the water-bus jetty. 
It was
covered in cast off chewing gum, cigarette butts, and other such rubbish, the overall
effect was quite amazing. I am sure if you ripped it out and put it in a modern art
exhibition it would make some cash.
