Venice, Murano, Istria and Friendship

While Stephanie and Paulette were here, the four girls went on a long-overdue trip (the last time we were all together for a vacation was in Washington State in 1995!) to Northern Italy, Venice, Croatia, and Salzburg. It was an amazing trip; we've resolved to get together again in September of 2008 for a birthday bash - three of the four of us have birthdays between 25 and 30 September!


View of a canal in Venice...

A crowded street in Burano, a little-known island in the Venetian Lagoon...

Paulette, Stephanie, and Mom standing next to...er...
UNDER a true Venetian Masterpiece...

"Come on...Vogue!" posing outside our hotel in Venice...

After a horrendous drive through a snowstorm...IN APRIL...(long story) we arrived in Opatija, Croatia...on the Istrian Peninsula. A beautiful old resort town - Stephanie was soaking up the sun whenever she could...













In Poreč, where we had a fabulous fish dinner...with lovely Istrian wine...


One of the lonely streets in the south of the Peninsula...

The Ampitheater, in Pula. One of the best-preserved Roman sites in the WORLD. It was lovely...




















...and I even got to see a kitty-cat. She followed us all around the West Side.











Stephanie at the castle - in the Rock Star Coat...

Our view from our room where we all congregated for antipasti and drinks at sunset. It was like living in a movie from the 1920s...

Our room is on the top left...

On the Balcony of the Master Bedroom (from when this hotel was a private residence for vacationing Austrians.) We hated to go back home.