It's Been a Long Cold Winter

It's Been a Long Cold Winter
Originally uploaded by CHEEZMAN

The Solstice seems a long time ago and unforgettable. On the shortest day
of the year we were in Venice, having driven down with Grandpa Chuck, who
arrived two days earlier for a three week visit. The drive to Venice takes
five hours, but, like any trip down into Italy, is broken up in interesting
sections and so the time flies by. The boring part on the German A-8 comes
first, but, as the Stau was light, we were able to cruise at 150+ k/h and so
soon we were turning onto the autobahn to Innsbrucke. Within an hour and a
half we pass Innsbrucke and climb over the Brenner Pass into Italy. As we
began our descent down through the gorge past Vipiteno, Bressannone and
Bolzano, the car was quiet. Our attention was given to Lynn Redgrave,
reading over the speakers Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke. I realized that the
heros of the story were traveling over the same route as us. Looking up at
the many old castles; some crumbling, some shining, made it easy to imagine
the world of Silver Tongue, Meggie and Dustfinger.

Eventually we slid out of the mountains and on to the littoral plain that
crosses Italy from East to West until stopped by the rising Alps toward the
Swiss Border. The plain is anchored on the east by The Veneto, and that's
were we headed as we turned left at Verona and rolled toward Venice.

Continued in later post. This is a test to try emailing a blog post with
photos via Flickr. To see the photos from Venice with explanations and
captions, go here
.

www.flickr.com/photos/zilavy/sets/72157614021752537/