A Winner! and a bit of a travel story too...

We have a winner for the contest on our latest traveling!! The answer was... Venice! :-))
And the winner of the snail mail card is.... drum roll please....

    cockney blonde said...I'm guessing it could be Venice. Love that City.
How wonderful having a little kitty in the house. I love all our animals but its great when they're babies, so cute and funny, x

Congratulations, Cockney Blonde! Please let me know when I can mail the card, okay?? I don't want it sitting in your mailbox for too long if you should be traveling yourself...

We got a chance to travel to Venice coz Jan had to be there for his job. But boy, that's one heck of an expensive city!! I'm pretty sure this will be a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Everything is expensive there! And I do mean everything: food, drinks, taking the bus boats, even using the public restrooms! No kidding. And before you flip out over this, they are kept very clean and in really good condition. Kinda important. LOL
Since I had time on my hands while Jan was working I was able to explore the city. I got lost in the little back streets and alleys, found wonderful shops, great little tucked away squares were it wasn't as busy as St Mark's Square, got totally soaked in the rain on several occasions, took boat rides, and visited the walhalla of glass, the island of Murano..... I'm still lost for words on what I got to see in the workshops, demos and the Glass Museum. No wonder this is expensive stuff, some are really affordable though you have to search for those. They only use particular kinds of sand, are very specific on what they'll use to get the colors, etc. This is not your run-of-the-mill glass, even though the chinese knock-offs really do a good job at imitating them. I learned how to tell the difference on some of the items, especially some of the inside coloring (like swirls and some other types) and the glass itself. Hard to explain in a text if you can't hold the two next to each other to see the difference for yourself though. Of courste I came home with bunches of Murano glass beads from the island as well as some pendants and they all are the real deal. (ouch, my poor poor credit card!) I'll take a picture of them soon so you can see how gorgeous these really are. I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun working with these in my jewelry!!
Strolling through the little streets of Venice I also got to see a few artisan people working on the famous masks in their workshops. They preferred not to have their picture taken though so I respected that. One of them was making them with papier maché, while another one was making them in leather. That's right, real leather, coz it's nicer to wear on your face. Of course, you don't get these for a bargain price. For low prices you can buy a made in China mask from the street vendors. Another person was working on bookbinding, also with leather, she had the hides hanging in her shop. Very cool to see these people at work. I also found a book store that had books that had the covers of some famous books like Alice in Wonderland, Robinson Crusoe, etc. done by an "artist" and when I saw the price tags I almost fainted. Books ranged from 3000 to 8000 euros. For sure, the covers were nicely done, but the whole time I was thinking "I could do that". Well I could if I had the materials and more importantly, the outlet for it! Doesn't it strike you sometimes when you see some artist's work, that you think you could do this too? I think we creative people should all move to Venice and go make a fortune there. A bunch of us together and with all that creative talent I see amongst my online friends, what could be better? LOL
I saw a guy in his workshop who made everything out of wood. Nothing special? Wait, he had a folded shirt that looked so real, a shirt hanging from a clothes line, a biker's jacket, shoes, western boots and the list goes on and on. All done in wood. Now there's something where I think "I can not do this". I was impressed to say the least. :-))

Hugs,
Wezz