Day One

Well, it sure has been some time since I’ve blogged a trip! Covid slowed our travels down, especially overseas, but that’s ok…lots of lessons learned during this time and even tho we have our masks in hand, we hope this is the beginning of some sort of “normal” travel again. 

Our day started hectic as usual (I bring this on myself) but after going about 10 miles I realized I left my must-have scarf and sweater hanging in the closet. We turned around of course and mix that with trains and traffic we scratched a quick visit to Abby and Jason’s house, but met Rosalie for lunch and got to the airport early. Just enough time to catch my breath, relax my inner nervous-traveling self, get my blog set up and type my first thoughts before we head to Frankfurt, Germany, then a jumper to Venice, Italy.

As always, we never take these trips for granted and we are certainly appreciative and blessed by God to be able to see new places and re-visit our old favorites. Guy hooked us up with this amazing deal he found during covid (when discount traveling was offered) and managed to snag (and keep after a few rescheduled trips) first class seats from STL to Frankfurt with Lufthansa. This will be a first for us, pun intended, but I have to say I’m a bit squiggly in anticipation (totally envisioning the Seinfeld episode where Jerry is living his best life in First Class next to a beautiful woman and Elaine is in coach smooshed between two smelly fat guys) and hesitant to take my little peach colored night-night pill too early so I can take in the offerings in these close-to-the-captain seats! 

What’s on tap for this adventure you ask? After arriving in Venice, we are going to acclimate for a little over a day and then on Monday I’m going to be taking a three-day mosaic glass class at the famous Orsoni Glass Factory. Orsoni is the historical Venetian furnace (the last furnace permitted to operate with fire in the city of Venice) that uses the same techniques since 1888 to produce 24K gold leaf mosaics, colored gold and Venetian smalti (opal glass tiles) in more than 3,500 colors. I’ll be creating a mosaic using their world-famous smalti and adding another creative glass technique to my art tool belt. :)

 

From Venice we’ll head to Berchtesgaden Germany to re-visit a beautiful town the fam saw a few years  ago, but one I missed when I stayed back with Nero. My mother-in-law is excited for me to see it along with the amazing breakfast spread they have at the hotel (my belly is excited!). From there we’ll visit Garmish, Germany, a beautiful mountain town that hosted the 1936 Winter Olympics and is where Eddie the Eagle went to learn ski jumping. From Garmish we’ll head to Stresa, Italy … our favorite Italian lake-side town where we’ll soak up all the view, food and Italian vibes before heading home. 

So signing off for now, but will accept as many safe-travel prayers as we can as we head out on first post-covid trip.