Grape Stomping

Hey there!  Let me start by apologizing for being away so long...I am not dead and nothing is wrong.  With several people--family, friends, and perfect strangers included--contacting me each day to check on my well being, I thought it might be important to start with a little, "everything's ok" message.  But I appreciate the concern and the support.  It's so nice to feel the love.  I have just literally been bogged down with life at the beginning of this school year!  Yikes!  What a fickle bitch I am.  At the end of the school year last year, I was begging summer to hurry up and come and then at the end of summer, I was begging her to hurry up and end.  Now all I want is just a few more days!  Come back, summer.  Just hang around for a few more days!  Please?

So, like I was implying, we've been REALLY busy here at Via Fontanelle during my unintended break from the blog. Life in Italy with four brats kids in four different schools is hectic, never dull, but always fun (hahaha, I hope you can detect the sarcasm).  So I've got a lot of catching up to do over the next couple of blog posts, but I wanted to post today about something amazing that we got to do in Italy over the weekend.  When we moved here, I made this little Italy must-do list that I keep in my head of random things that I wanted to do during our time living here in Italy.  It includes things like:

*Ride in a gondola in Venice

*See the chess match in Marostic

*Pick grapes and mash them I Love Lucy style with our feet

I've done all of these now, by the way, because this weekend we went grape stomping!  What an awesome experience it was for us!  The kids LOVED it.  And Francesca and her wonderful friends and family at the Salvan Urbano Vinicola were super to invite us to give it a try.  The kids actually got to pick the grapes from the vine, dump them in the giant mashing tub and jump in with their feet to stomp them.  There was wine and local food for sampling, live music, and lots of fun.  It was a great way to spend a weekend enjoying what our local area has to offer us here in Italy! But I cannot even begin to describe just how sticky it was....

(Let me apologize for all the pictures now)

 (Tory and her boyfriend, Drake--they've been dating forever in teenage years.  This is the smile that I always get from them)

(Delilah's future husband)

The man up there pouring the wine carved his name into the stone back in 1993...

Sure would love your vote!

Burano, Italy

This weekend has been one of those weekends where I've spent more time living life and haven't gotten around to blogging about it yet.  Sorry for the delay.  I'm glad to say that sometimes LIFE just gets in the way :)

Several months ago, I started this unofficial running list of my favorite sights/things/places I've seen here in the past 19 months.  With each new place we visit, some places fall from my Unofficial Top Ten List and some get added, but it seems that the top four or five tend to stay the same.  In my opinion, the list includes some great ones, but I'm just as sure that many of my favorites wouldn't make it to some people's top 100.  I'm sure I've left off some pretty amazing places in the opinions of others--but that's just it....the list is my opinion--sights/things/places that have struck me as PRE-TEE amazing as I was getting to experience them.  One day soon, I hope to getting around to sharing them with ya'.  But for now, you'll have to settle with just one.  It was SO amazing that I couldn't WAIT to tell you about it--I actually went to it ON FRIDAY. Considering that I'm so behind in telling you about all the amazing places  we've been that I'm literally writing about places we saw a year ago, a 2 day turnaround is pretty impressive in my book!

Burano, Italy.  In a word (or really two words) AMAZING. 

Never heard of it?  I can't say that I blame you.  It's probably not on the radar of most people.  I'd be willing to bet that most people have never even heard of it.  Sure, maybe you've heard of its slightly bigger neighbor island--Murano, where they make the glass that the world has suddenly gone crazy over.  But what makes the tiny island of Burano so special IS that not many have ever heard of it.

First of all, it's TINY--like capital "T" tiny and it almost seems like time stood still there.  It's located about a 40 minute boat ride from "Main Land Venice" and getting to it isn't easy.  After a series of boat changes, we arrived at Burano.  After spending several hours on Murano (I'll tell you ALL about it later), it was almost dusk when we got to Burano.  The weather has cooled considerably over the past couple of day and the temperature was a wonderful 70 degrees.  The sun was juuuussssttt setting.  Even from far out in the Lagoon, the view was AMAZING. The tiny island of Burano is famous for its lace but when we arrived, all the shops were closed up tight.  Only and handful of restaurants were open and there were seriously less than 20 tourists on the entire island.

Instead, we were greeted by loads of neighborhood children riding their bikes and playing.  Old folks were taking an evening stroll.  We could hear the sounds of dinner being prepared from the kitchen windows we passed.  The entire island was perfectly quaint.  I was in love.

And if this tiny island Mayberry wasn't enough, what made Burano extra awesome was the COLORS! Tiny cement houses lined the canals and each was brightly painted a different color.  They reminded me of tiny little tictacs! The story behind their colors is that originally, the houses were painted colors that were so bright and different from each other so that fishermen who were arriving home late at night could recognize his own house from his neighbors.  On the community webpage, I read that residents must petition the town in order to paint their homes and that the government will provide them a list from which they can choose the color! The entire time we were there, we joked that the color scheme seemed well managed because all the colors seemed to go together so well!  Now I know why! I seriously took 100 pictures and wasn't ready to leave, but the sun was setting and I promised to return another day. Maybe next time I'lll buy some lace, but either way, I certainly won't be disappointed with the view!


Ok, before you go any farther, let me apologize.  I seriously took 100 pictures.  Everything on Burano was SO beautiful.  I was able to whittle the 100 down to the ones below.  Sorry there are so many, but I couldn't NOT share these with you!

When we were headed out to Burano from Murano on the vaporetti, we came up on two young boys who were in what we called gondolier school

I hope you've enjoyed reading about my trip to Burano.  It is an amazing place.  If you enjoy my blog, I'd really, really appreciate your vote for "Top Mommy Blog".  All it takes is one click from you on to the picture of the happy smiling mommy below.  Thanks!