A Little Ludwig Goes A Long Way

Spent some time this weekend looking at vaca property — goal is something a) on the ocean, b) rustic area, c) within a couple hours driving of seattle so that we will really use it and we can transport the dogs there.

Toured the hood canal area and the near olympic peninsula a little this weekend. South hood canal is way too developed for our tastes. North hood canal started to feel a little better, tho we didn’t fall in love with anything.

I had previously ruled out the San Juans because of the car ferry lineup — I love a ferry ride, but I don’t love sitting in the car queue on busy weekends. But I’ve started to rethink based on a new plan — drive to Anacortes, leave the car there, and take a water taxi out to a location — for instance Island Express Charters or Paraclete charters seem to offer taxi service, there are more in the yellow pages.

I know it is fairly routine up at my folks’ cabin in Pointe Au Baril for cabin owners to take a water taxi out 10-15 miles to their cabins, so I am sure there must be a similar level of service to the San Juans.

If so, this might open up a lot more choices to us. For instance the Windermere office on Lopez has a lot of interesting properties

You leave the country for 5 weeks and everything is turned upside down when you return.

We have a new nickel. A new coke. And our trash collection day has been moved to Wednesday.

It’s like coming back to a freakin’ foreign country.

OK here are some of the highlights from the remainder of our trip:

• Isola bella on lake maggiore. Previously blogged. Beautiful and the lake seems way cleaner than lake como. If we went back to this part of the world I think we’d stay on lake maggiore instead of como.
• Florence. My initial impression was ?gosh this is a butt ugly city”. But it grew on us — the beauty is clearly not in the streets but in the art, culture, interiors of buildings, etc. And it is a very manageable size.
• The Uffizi was much more to my liking than the Louvre — a manageable size, and I just prefer the style of painting. And of course David was just amazing. I just didn’t understand the scale at which these artists operated — when you see the size of the works and the level of detail, it is just amazing. I know, my fine arts education is woefully lacking, I am discovering all this somewhat late in life.
• Venice was of course beautiful, we didn’t have enough time there. We had one really great meal there at Osteria Oliva Nera, a family run place.
• Milan. Everyone told us ?ugly, no point in visiting?. But in many ways I liked even better than Florence and Venice. Florence and venice are ?cities in amber? — frozen in time, operated for the benefit of tourists. Milan is a living breathing city, I like a living vibrant city.
• Ferrari museum out in modena. Man this place is like a shrine. A huge number of “pilgrims” visiting, getting their picture taken with the Enzo on display. What a car.