3rd Annual Napa trip

For the 3rd December in a row, we journeyed to Napa Valley.  (here's why).  Mornings were foggy but the afternoons were sunny... not bad for this time of year.   Unfortunately, one of the couple that was going meet us there got sick, so we were on our own.

Courtyard at Clos Pegase

We grabbed lunch in Napa (the city) at the Fatted Calf,  and had soup and a sandwich (the are really a butcher, but have a special every day). We started our winery visits at Clos Pegase, one of our long time favorites (and a good place to start, since we had not bothered with reservations).  We re-joined their wine club which we had to stop when we moved to Arizona, fortunately the shipping laws have changed so we can once again get club shipments.   They also took care of making us a reservation that afternoon at Failla, a winery we passed on the way there. We had had (and really liked) their Pinot's, but  had never visited.  Failla was definitely the new find for this trip.  They are a small producer, mostly Pinot Noir's and a Chardonnay. Most of the fruit is sourced from the the Russian River or Sonoma, which is a bit cooler and better suited to these grapes.  They ferment in open containers (!), and then into French oak.   We tasted several different Pinot's ... they were all good.. and only one is available outside the winery.   Last, we visited Salvestrin, which is conveniently were we stayed (again).    Dinner was at Cook, a small restaurant in St. Helena.  Roy had some really awesome pasta, with roasted pork.  I had cioppino... lots of good seafood, but it was pretty spicy, which was OK but not wine friendly.

On Saturday, after a good and huge breakfast at the B&B, we wandered around St Helena a bit.  Then we went to Casa Nuestra, an even smaller winery.  They did some interesting stuff ... we bought a few bottles, I'm reserving judgement until we tasted them a bit more. Lunch was at Greystone, in addition to the temptations appetizer, I had the onion soup which had a fun meringue / souffle top.  Roy had the butternut squash soup.  That afternoon we visited Bremer Family Winery, one of our absolute favorites.  We liked everything we tasted!   After that, we were pretty much winery-ed out... and had enough wine coming to fill the wine fridge.   Dinner was at Martini House.  I had chicken pot pie and Roy has pot roast... nothing like comfort food done sous-vide!

There was another great breakfast Sunday morning, then we were back to airport to come home.  And now, the wine starts to arrive... did I mention that before?  Not like in the summer where you need to have the wine held before shipping.  Another great reason to go this time of year!

Tourists in DC

Back from a wonderful trip to Washington DC with my mom.  We did most the normal tourist things, visited one museum off the beaten path, and had a wonderful private tour of the Library of Congress.   Plus, it was really nice to spend time with mom.

1st Day ...

We flew into Baltimore airport on Wednesday, and although rain was forecast it was only overcast. Our hotel was very close to the Capital, and we got out for a walk after we arrived.   We found a great place for dinner just around the corner called Sonoma Wine Bar and Restaurant. 

On Thursday, we started out with a visit to the Botanic Gardens, which is right by the Capital Reflecting Pool, but not a common stop on the tourist route.

 Next we had a tour of the Capital, then lunch at the American Indian Museum, then spent the afternoon (which was just a bit wet out) going to a few of the Smithsonian museums. 

On Friday, we took a cab to Hillwood Museum (out towards the zoo), which was the home of Marjorie Merriweather Post.  (Note, if you plan to go, you need to make reservations, which you can do on-line).

The museum “features the most comprehensive collection of Russian imperial art outside of Russia”  plus a bunch of French decorative art and furnishings.  The house was really nicely done, especially considering how much "stuff" there was in it.  More impressive (to me) were the gardens, the sun came out that afternoon, so we took the opportunity to do some sketching.

Next, we visited the Washington National Cathedral.

It was dinner time by then, so we headed to DuPont Circle, and found a restaurant with tables out on the sidewalk for a nice dinner. We took the Metro back to our hotel, with a slight detour to walk by the White House.

The highlight of our trip was on Saturday, a tour of the Library of Congress.

In addition to the rare books, documents, and maps, the building is just layered with art – all with themes that relate back to libraries or literature.  And extra special was a private tour from my brother’s wife’s aunt who is a docent there.  

That afternoon we visited the monuments on the mall: Lincoln Memorial plus the Viet Nam, WWII, and Korean War Memorials.  

It was a beautiful day, but a little somber with the reminders of the wars and people killed.

And we had dinner (again) at Sonoma.

The last morning, we walked through the residential section of Capital Hill to the Eastern Market.

Its centered around an old (but recently rebuilt) market, on Sunday’s a farmers market and flea market is set up on the street in front. It was nice to watch the people and their dogs out on a sunny but cool morning, and we picked up a few honey crisp apples (they were really good).  

On the way back we circled around the Supreme Court building,

and took a last look at the Capital and Library of Congress before heading back to the airport to come home.

I twittered along the way as well ... check it out for more pictures and doings.

Hawaii Trip

View from house at Puekea Ranch
We are back from the Big Island (Hawaii), were we had a fabulous time eating, snorkeling, hiking, and reading.  We rented a house in Hawi, a bit off the beaten path – not everywhere can you go to the annual “Trash Bash” to celebrate Earth Day. We will certainly consider the rental path on any future trips, especially where you have such an abundance of good markets with local food. Our house was really nice; it is part of an old property called Puakea Ranch (which was part of the Parker Ranch for a while). There are 3 rental houses plus the ranch manager’s home.  Emily the cow wonders around and provided almost daily entertainment. 

Bounty from orgainic farm visits
I posted a long review on Chowhound about our food adventures, including having Ashley Lueders with Safari Chefs set up 2 tours at organic farms in Hawi, then come to our house and do a cooking lesson us (what a treat!).

 Snorkeling

Snorkeling was quite fantastic; we ended up going out 3 times Kohala Divers.  The first time in, a pod of dolphins swam up just as got into the water.  There were lots of fish (including big schools of reef fish), and one little turtle.  The next time, we saw lots of turtles (at a spot called the turtle cleaning station, where turtles come and fish eat the algae off their shells), plus Moray eels (2 kinds – zebra stripe and the normal one) on both stops! 

Zebra strip morray eel
We also saw a big reef shark – we were following a turtle, kind of heading back to the boat, and about 30 feet down was a 5 foot reef shark.  The divers were just coming back, so we had a good reference on size.  On our 3rd trip (our last day there), we *only*  saw turtles, plus lots of fish, and some cool coral.  When we win the lottery, I want to move to Puako Bay, near where the turtle cleaning station is, so I could snorkel and sea kayak from my house.   Meanwhile, I will just try to recommend Kohala Divers , everyone on the staff was really nice, understood the local spots, and took care of you (including double counting to make sure everyone was back on the boat).

Beach at end of Pololu Valley
Our first hike was Pololu Valley. The trail head is at the end of the road (same one that Hawi is on), where we hiked down to a beach.

Beach at Waipio Valley, view from trailhead

We also hiked Waipio Valley (1000 feet up/down in a mile) which is where the road picks up at the other end.  Call us wimps, but we did not hike between them (our neighbor, who runs 10 hour Ironmans and used to live on the big island, said “it’s a tough hike”).  We also did the nature loop Kalopa State Park, a rain forest they are trying to return to native plants, plus a couple of other historic parks on the coast.

Ferns, moss, and other in the rain forest

Reading: its been a lot time since I have read so many books in a couple of weeks. But in addition to the long (but no stops!) flight, we had a few rainy days. Reads included The Lovely Bones, Asta in the Wings (this month’s book club book), and Daemon. Plus I am most of the way through another LONG book.  I’ll try to do some book blogs soon!

We "twittered" throughout the vacation, you can see more of a day-by-day view from both Roy and me (Firecooked).  I even posted a youtube (for the first time) of the cow trying to get into the hammock.
Too quickly I’m back in the normal routine (well, I quit working at 4:45 for a glass of wine and macadamia nuts!), but I do appreciate how nice it is where we live (and glad the cool weather is holding for a bit).  But its surprising how bright the light is here with 1-digit humidity!   Check out more pictures here.     Aloha!

Desert Botanical Garden

One of my favorite “tourist” destinations in Phoenix is the Desert Botanical Garden, and this spring they have a really wonderful exhibition Chihuly: The Nature of Glass.  There are incredible, large works all throughout the garden, interspersed with the cactus and other plantings (including the pond out to one end).  The best way to describe is a few pictures:

These might look like marbles, but they are really large, the boat is life size.

It can be hard to tell where the cactus stop and glass starts..

Inside the new cactus garden...

Yes, a little strange.

The one inside display.

In addition to the glass, the butterfly tent is open.  I was not able to make reservations today to visit either today or tomorrow (Saturday or Sunday), and next weekend is the plant sale…  Plan ahead, and best bet is to visit weekdays (we went on a Thur a few weeks ago, and even then, it was pretty busy).  But don't miss it!

June

What a month.  I suspect Phoenix will set some kind of record for # of day’s in June over 110F, which was even more delightful on Friday when ash from the Ethan fire (no relation to our dog) was falling on the house…  Roy suggested that we go to the neighbor’s and start their fire pit, just to see what hell was really like.  But hot or not, we have had a great display of flowers on our night blooming cereus cactus.

I have been busy in the kitchen (as a side note: its way cooler slaving over a hot stove in the air-conditioned house than doing anything outside on the grill).  I made Apricot Jam, which didn’t seem very hard… just cook chopped apricots, sugar (2:1 ratio) along with a bit of lemon juice until its jam.  I didn’t make much, so it’s just in the fridge for PB&J sandwiches.  As a follow-up, I made peach sauce (which is really good on Roy’s waffles). You make this just like apricot jam, but with peaches and you don’t quite cook as long.  I bought a bunch of peaches at the farmers market so have more in the freezer… maybe I will try some peach jam later.  But I think that this week is the last week we will see peaches a the farmers market (and the apricots are long gone..  but still getting good tomatoes).     I also made soufflés for the first time… Its not that hard, but don’t expect it to be a week night staple – way to many dirty dishes. Let me know if you want the recipe.  

My adventure has been swimming class. The name of the class is the Mile Club (at the Awatukee Y).I figured this meant the goal of the class was to get you to be able to swim a mile.  What they really intend is that you swim a mile every class, which includes a bunch of drills where you only do one part of a swim stroke (like breath).  I really never realized that there was so much to think about when swimming, its almost as bad as golf.   Some of the people can actually swim more than one lap without resting (not me..yet), so  the swim coach said she would start teaching us flip turns.. and bring a video camera.  Let’s hope she doesn’t post them on youtube.

The biggest highlight was celebrating our 25th Anniversary (which sounds much better than a Silver Anniversary, implying that you should have grandchildren and drive a Buick).   We celebrated by going to Tucson and staying at the Westward Look (same place we stayed for our honeymoon), and having dinner at Janos.  Here’s to another 25!

Water Color Workshop

You would think that I plenty of time to blog (including time to read and cook so I would have something to blog about), but seems that I have been plenty busy and I haven’t even been golfing!  Last weekend I attended a watercolor painting workshop from Raleigh Kinney. It was a lot of fun, especially since I attended with my Mom (who is already very good at watercolors). 

The technique that Raleigh uses is to start with a value painting (well, after you have found an “interesting” subject).  This is a mono-color painting, starting with a quick pencil drawing, then filling in light and dark.  Only after you are done with this, do you start the final painting.  You start with a pencil drawing, then lay in the background (on wet paper) with low intensity color, then focus on the subject (he does a lot of “negative” painting, doing dark behind something like tree branches), then finish with more shadow and color as needed.  He uses a 2” brush to do most of the work, and can do a full painting in a little over an hour.  His painting technique (wet on wet), from what I know of ceramics, is something that I’m sure would take years to perfect – so while it was interesting, I didn’t set this as my goal to learn.  But where I found he really excelled in design -- how to tell a story in a painting. Plus the value studies were a new concept for me… my sketches have always relied just on lines and color, so this was a new way to look at things.  My big project was doing a painting of a side street in Sienna on a rainy day, based on a photo from our trip last year.
Its scary when you realize how much like your Mom you are, but fun to find the differences.  Mom has done a workshop with Raleigh before, and liked his teaching style. Her goal was to learn how to do landscapes.  If you look at the subject of her paintings, they are mostly things – flowers, birds, animals.  She struggles with landscapes, buildings, things you stand back from.  On the other hand, I suck at drawing things, and going through my sketch book, its pretty much buildings and landscapes, with a few bad drawings of things (like a pigeon).   In the end, Mom ended up with a great landscape painting, I like my painting of a Sienna side street, and still think my flowers.. well, could use improvement.  I’ll stick to buildings and landscapes…  they are fun.

Napa Valley

One of our favorite places is Napa Valley. Maybe in a little attempt to recapture a bit of Italy (lots of food and wine fanatics), we decided it was time to go (again).  December is really a nice time to visit.  The crowds are not bad, even on a weekend, and its not difficult getting into restaurants.  Everything is nicely decorated for Christmas, with lots of real trees, and not overdone like most  anywhere-retail-USA.  Yes, the weather can be dicey, but the real rain usually doesn’t start in Northern Cal until January (and then it can be everyday).  We were lucky -- it was cool, but the sun came out every day.  I actually wore my cashmere sweater.  We stayed in a very nice B&B, Sunny Acres, which is located at Salvestrin Winery.  This was the first time, in many visits to Napa, that we found lodging that we will definitely stay at again.  Its an old Victorian house, nice antiques, great breakfast, and wonderful hosts.

We met up with friends from Grass Valley on Friday for lunch at Redd, one of the trendy places.  It was quite good, with interesting soup and salads.  For my main, I had quail (which I believe is the latest trendy meat).  What can I say?  It was good.  For dinner we went to Cindy’s Backstreet.  It’s more low key, with lots of comfort food on the menu.  Roy had meatloaf, I had a duck burger.  The burger was OK, but the fries that came with it were really, really good.  So good, they make you wonder why you eat the typical frozen things. For lunch on Saturday, we stopped at Greystone.  We have been there many times; it’s the restaurant at the CIA (Culinary Institute of American).  We both had excellent soups, Roy had butternut soup, they gave us the recipe (starts with 12 pounds of squash, ends with a gallon of cream).  I had a quite wonderful ciopino (fish soup).  They took my email address, and hoping they send the recipe for this too!  My only complaint was the wine list (irony alert - restaurant owned by Wine Spectator); it seemed overpriced for the valley, and the wines by the glass were not too exciting. For dinner on Saturday night, we had originally planned to go to Martini House (high-end tasting menu over top kind of place), but since we both had colds, decided to go for something simple, and had sushi at Go Fish (which is owned by the same Cindy as Cindy’s Backstreet).  It was good, and nice that it was walking distance to the B&B. And they had really cool Christmas decorations – silver snowflakes hanging from the ceiling, and pots of narcissus and paperwhites in the windows around the room.

For wineries, we of course visited Salvestrin, as well as Robert Bialli (they just do Zin’s, and buy some of their grapes from Salvestrin), and one other (ok, I can't remember how to spell it, but we will be getting some wine shipped).  Plus, we stopped at Trefethen Winery, which is the first winery we visited 15 years ago in December the first time we went to Napa… and got hooked.

Merry Christmas !

I love to get Christmas letters, to hear about what everyone is doing.  But, I usually don’t seem to actually do one for myself.  So, I thought maybe I will just do a Christmas blog instead! 
We have had some wonderful trips this year, the highlight being Italy.  I also managed to get back to visit Sharon in New Jersey, and we made a quick trip to Napa Valley.  For Christmas, we will be heading to Tucson where the Norman’s will be gathering.  (click on the links and you will have pictures and more information than you ever wanted!)

Roy continues to be the car nut, and has recently bought a 41-year old Jaguar.  Its very pretty.   

I took sabbatical (8-week vacation) this year, and had a chance to spend some time in my studio, as well as take a painting class.  I have also started doing Yoga. I am building strength and flexibility for the positions, but still really struggle with the part where you are supposed to relax and not think of anything (typically, my mind is drifting towards lunch).   After getting back from sabbatical, I had come to the conclusion that I needed to move on, fortunately Marvell downsized and gave me a nice package!  So I’m back on sabbatical, but need to decide what next.

My most surprising accomplishment (at least to me) is blogging, taking time to reflect and write about things I have done or read. This is post #72 (since February when I started).   Its nice to be able to share with friends and family food ideas, or books they might like to read (or not). I even like the writing part, striving to be concise but witty (and thankful for spell checkers). I just hope that all of you like to read it as much as I like to write!

May you have a wonderful Christmas, enjoying all the good things that come with the season.

P.S.     Please keep the comments coming, it’s good to hear your thoughts and feedback!  (its not hard, you can make up any name you want, and only I get to see your email address).  And it you want to get the entries via email, just subscribe (and I just know how many subscribers I have, not who). You can un-subscribe any time!

Mixed Media

One of my endeavors during sabbatical was taking a mixed media art class at the Desert Botanical Gardens.  They have a very serious botanical illustration program, with drawing, pen and ink, and watercolor classes.  Mixed Media was a new class, to combine pen and ink with watercolor.  The instructor was intending this as an advanced class, expecting the students to have taken the pen and ink and water color classes as prerequisites.  She was a bit unprepared when most of us in the class had little if any experience.  Fortunately, she quickly switched gears, and did a great job …  in the end, everyone had some very nice pieces. Her background was doing medical illustration, and she patiently taught us how to dip our pens, draw a line, as well has how to use watercolors.  However, She did not have any patience for non-artist quality materials, and started us with a pricey list of materials.  I have now fallen for sable brushes, and today figured they how well they work well for doing a little oxide line work on my pots!

We started the class by copying some Beatrice Potter illustrations from “The Tale of Benjamin Bunny”, as she used a mix of ink and watercolor.  We tried ink first, then watercolor, and then the other way. We also tried different inks, including one made from walnut shells.   Either way, you start with a pencil drawing (which we traced) that is transferred to the watercolor paper.  For the watercolors, she taught us how to mix colors, we started with 2 reds, 2 yellows, and 2 blues. A good reference book is  “Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green” (hint, hint Christmas is coming).  The hardest color to mix was the grays. For the final project, I composed a picture of five different basils that I have in my herb garden (sweet basil, lemon basil, variegated basil, a purple basil, and Blue African basil).  I did cheat a bit, I shot pictures of each, cut out the background (so I also learned a lot about Photoshop), then did some tracing to get the basic shapes and perspective.  My biggest problem with getting big drops of ink on the paper, fortunately, the teacher had some watercolor whiteout (Creative Mark Aquacover) which did a good job of covering them up!   Here are pictures of my pieces.  I also did one of a yucca, hoping to get one without an ink blog (but not successful).

I’m really glad I took the class, I have a much better feeling for a few more more techniques, I might get to the point someday where my drawings have some level of accuracy(!), and have found that good watercolors are really pretty fun to use.  I was really surprised how quick you can get the colors down, but found that just like pottery, there are times you just have to stop, to let things dry out properly… because it can go bad very, very quickly.   Now to just get my studio arranged to support both pots and paints!

Boyce Thompson Arboretum

After many years of talking about it, we finally made the trek (with the dog) out to Boyce Thompson.  It is about 60 miles east on Hwy 60, just before you get to the town of Superior. There is a loop trail (a little over a mile) which runs around the arboretum, which takes you through the cactus gardens, rose garden, herb garden, and what I thought to be most unusual, the Eucalyptus garden, which has 80 year old (i.e. really big) trees for the middle of the desert.

Fortunately, you gain a bit of elevation over Phoenix, so it’s a few degrees cooler, which was really nice yesterday since it was 95F yesterday (and the end of October… if this sounded like a whine, well, it was).  There were a few things blooming, but I think the really nice time to visit would be March.  There would likely be some water running in Queen Creek, there are bunches of irises as well as other bulbs you might catch in bloom, maybe even the start of the roses.  Its nestled in a bit of canyon, so its protected from the wind.  I think it would especially cool to hit at the very tail end of a storm.  The first part of the trail is pretty standard botanical garden (and not too far from Hwy 60), but once you get to the end and circle back, its much more interesting.  At one end it the Picketpost house, up much higher than the park.  It used to belong to Boyce Thompson.  The walk back has two options, the main trail or the high trail.  The main trail follows the creek, going through a small canyon, I really liked the rock walls.  Also, back near the visitor center, there is a demonstration garden, a great place for ideas for landscaping your own yard. 

Its probably worth a trip back, but only with the right weather conditions.  The dog's new nickname is Dusty.

Fall Colors

So, I will just start by saying, yes, I went to New Jersey for fun.  My sister in law lives there, in Hunterdon County (which is on the Pennsylvania side of the state), and I was way overdue for a visit.  We had a great time… spent an inordinate amount of time eating, with museum visits, hiking, massages, kayaking, and top-down Miata driving fit in between.   Click here for some pictures.

The eating started with dinner at Fusion on Main in one of the cute little towns around where she lives.  It’s Thai-influenced, we started with chicken satay and vegetable triangles (each with a very nice sauce), and shared the coconut shrimp entrée… out on the porch of the restaurant, with a bottle of a French Chardonnay (non-oaked).  

On Friday, we headed to “the city”, where we visited the Museum of Modern Art.  We had secured reservations at The Modern for lunch, which is right next door (and it fact, you don’t even need to leave the museum, quite convenient).  There we started with Champagne, Foie Gras Torchon with muscat gelée and Pumpkin, Couscous and Chestnut Soup with ricotta salata and spiced crème fraîche.  Both were great, the fois gras was wonderful and creamy, the pumpkin soup had all sorts of interesting things mixed in.  For mains I had Beer Braised Pork Belly with sauerkraut and ginger jus and she had Gaeta Olive-Crusted Quail with chorizo, barley, toasted almonds and pickled ramps.  Both were good, but the quail was better, tender and well matched to the accompanying couscous and sauce.  To go with, we had glasses of Pinot Noir. Desert was Apple Strudel for her, and a Chocolate dome (over Pistachio filling) for me.  And some port.   The museum seemed even more interesting after lunch.  By the time we were done at the MOMA, it was raining, but we braved a walk to Ideal Cheese, where we loaded up on some stinky cheese, a salami, and fig jam..  not planning to let our eating standards to go down hill! 

The next day started with really wonderful massages, followed by lunch (and more Champagne) on the porch of the Frenchtown Inn.   I had a plate of several different pates followed by a very light butternut soup with apples, she had a pear and procuietto salad followed by mushroom soup.  They were all quite wonderful.  I wish Phoenix wasn’t overrun with big-box chain restaurants!  This was followed by driving the Miata with the top down, and a stop at a farm stand – mostly for apples, but they still had tomatoes.  We kept dinner simple with a nice salad including those tomatoes.   We started the next day with a hike at Merrill Creek Reservoir (which involved more driving around top-down), where the trees were really starting to get into the fall colors.  For dinner, the kids (along with their kids) came for dinner, where we grilled pizza (using some of the cheese, salami, tomatoes).   Desert was apple crisp the local apples (some kind I had never heard of) which were really good.   And we ate on the back deck… which for mid-October in New Jersey is a rarity.  

The weather continued to get warmer, so kayaking seemed to be the best thing for the last day of the visit.  We went to Round Valley Reservoir and did some paddling.  This was followed by a visit to a different farm stand, where they not only had tomatoes (we were out), but Macoun apples and local pork products.  The afternoon was a drive along the Delaware River, lunch at the Stockton Inn (OK, but not the Frenchtown Inn), then a drive back on the Pennsylvania side.    Dinner (again, out on the deck) was country-style sage sausage, grilled vegetables, salad (more yummy tomatoes), with a delightful Ponzi Pinot, and the rest of the apple crisp for desert.

As I was writing this, it was 48 degrees and raining in New Jersey.  We had 3 dinners and 3 lunches (in 4 days) outside, glad I didn’t put the trip off any longer!

Italy

We had a fabulous trip to Italy.  Lots of good food, lucky on the weather,  and lots of arts and interesting sites.  I have put our pictures and a bit of a narrative up on the photo web site, please take a look (best in filmstrip or slideshow mode).

There is lots written and on TV about traveling to Italy, so I won’t bore you with the expected (the churches and art like David, Gelato on every corner, etc.)  Here is what we found unexpected (good and bad):

The food…  lots and lots of seafood, especially Venice, but even in Florence.  In addition to the expected cheese (Parmesan), we had lots of pecorino -- sheep’s milk -- cheese which ranged from young to well aged, with and without truffles.  All of it was good.   And Prosciutto ham is not saved for special occasions.

The crowds…  Both Venice and Florence had hoards of tourists, streets and squares around major sites are mobbed.    We watched a Rick Steve’s show on TV about Florence that TiVO caught while we were gone… not sure when they went, but there weren’t so many people. 

The weather..  Overall, it was wonderful (and we were a bit lucky on not getting much rain).  Daytime was short sleeves, evenings, maybe a sweater.  A nice break from the 100+ that we left in Phoenix.   It seems most of the country gets some ocean effect to modulate the extremes.  Not sure what the cause was, but my allergies were just terrible in Florence.

So,  “would we go back”?   Definitely would like to go back to Italy, but probably not to Venice or Florence.   There are some other very interesting places (Cinque Terre, beaches in southern Italy, the Alps) I would like to see – and hopefully without such big crowds.