ITALY RETREAT

2026

As we travel around Italy April/May 2026, painting, drawing and taking in the history and sights, I will upload photos, videos and a running account of our adventures.

To follow, I will post about the following:
Milan 4 days, Venice 4 days, Florence 5 days, Tuscany 7 days,Naples 4 days , Rome 5 days

Milan

I visited Milan in 2023, so there were several things that I wanted Kade to experience. The Duomo, The Last Supper, The Science and Technology museum (where his drawings ie.flying machine, tank, parachute have been built by modern engineers. Also, they have many of his pigment grinding apparatus, painting gear etc.). Something for everyone!! While Kade enjoyed this, I was taken by my friend Savino to a permanent art exhibition of Keifer, a German artist, out in the industrial estates. We visited the Sforza castle as well (home of the Duke of Milan, who employed Leonardo when he arrived from Florence).

We booked an apartment very close to the centre of Milan, in the Brera district. The host messaged a lot of hints, tips and directions and told me he is so happy to be receiving guests from his ‘favourite country’, and he has been a Kylie Minogue fan for 27 years 🙄👀😳

Actually, since we came a day earlier, we’re staying at a hotel for the first night. My friend of many decades is showing us around.

Default position on planes and in transit cafes, actually... anywhere."I'm such a Boomer"!

Our Apartment Building (we are on the fourth floor, no lift (-:

inside the little foyer was 4 very large flights of stairs, fun with luggage!!

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Kade went through the Science and technology museum which has a lot of artefacts from Leonardo’s studios and more importantly, the machines built by modern engineers from his technical drawings.

Meanwhile my friend Savino drove me out to a hangar in the Peroni area (world class tyres) where there is a permanent exhibition of the German artist Ansel Kiefer.

The site-specific installation, created for HangarBicocca in 2004 and curated by Lia Rumma, is one of the most important works by the German artist Anselm Kiefer.
Expressly for this space, Kiefer has designed seven monumental towers that symbolize the mystical experience of the ascent through the seven levels of spirituality. The towers, which consist of a “stratification” of structural elements made of reinforced concrete and lead, adopt the “universal section” of the container for the shipping of goods as a modular “measure”, a recurrent feature in the artist’s most recent output and symbol of the globalization of the urban landscape. Kiefer has experimented with the use of this “material of our time” to create his own aesthetic utopia at his workshop in Barjac, France, where he has been living since 1993.
The towers (which have been given the titles Falling Stars, Deposit of Stars/Sternenlager, Die Sefiroth, Tzim-Tzum, Shevirat Ha-Kelim, Tiqqun, and The Seven Heavenly Palaces) represent the metaphysical principles corresponding to the various levels of human participation in the divine. They are also associated with the emotional situations that characterize the daily life of every individual and that can lend its order and meaning.

Then we dragged our luggage to the Fast train at the Central Train Station, and 2.5 hours later we were at the Ferrovaria in Venice. From there we took the Vaporetto (public boat) to a stop only 5 minutes from our digs.

Venice

The last time I visited Venice was when I was nearly Kade’s age, trying to find a moment here and there to update here, it might be a few days in the making. The highlights for us have been St. Mark's Square, the Cathedral, the Doge’s Palace and the islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello. There are 2000+ other amazing things to catch all along the way, 4 days allowed quite a lot.
Our apartment only has a fridge and a kettle, so we have improvised our breakfasts and eaten out for lunches and dinners 👌💰(Kade is making up for 6 weeks of high protein, low fat, low carb body builder eating before we came over. He told me yesterday we have been averaging 14,000 steps a day, so I guess we won’t blow up if we keep that up. (Big pharma is helping me to keep up with Kade).

BEST TO WATCH VIDEO ON YOUTUBE (click at the top left) ON PHONE OR ON WEBSITE WITH LAPTOP

Florence - Tuscany

We arrived by fast train from Venice. The rain started the last night in Venice and was also raining as the train pulled into Florence.
Every day since has been sunny and about 20-24 celcius
Highlights were :
***the Galeria Acadamia (sculpture of David by Michaelangelo Buonaroti)
*** The Uffizi Gallery, Pitti Palace (we skipped the Boboli gardens)
*** Cathedral of Santa Maria de Fiore, Brunelleshi dome
*** Cooking class- Pasta and Gelati
Right) Is it just me or is this some seriously creative drapery from Kade? The curtain rod fell down day 2, so I threw a spare blanket up over the tall doors to our little balcony because the light is full on in the early morning. It had come down, so I asked Kade to climb up on the chair and throw the blanket over again, using the doors to wedge it in.
I complimented Kade on his uncanny drapery design, he responded “reminds me of a scene from the Sopranos (then I had to watch said scene on his phone!!). I then decided not to suggest a career as an interior designer. 🤣

BEST TO WATCH VIDEO ON YOUTUBE (click at the top left) ON PHONE OR ON WEBSITE WITH LAPTOP

Kade cannot decide between the Uffizi gallery and the Pasta and Gelati cooking class as his favourite experience in Florence. Since I have seen it all before (albeit decades ago), I am definitely going with the cooking class on the Tuscan farm.
Tomorrow morning we will get a cab to the car hire place at the airport (no city driving on the wrong side if I can avoid it)

Tuscany cont’d

This is the most exciting and also possibly the most challenging, in that we have a car hire for the week we spend in Tuscany and I have not driven on the wrong side of the car and the road since living in Brazil.
At least the rental is the same make and model as mine back home (although it’s a hybrid)…Update, its a Toyota, but a good sized boot, especially when you need to keep your luggage invisible for on the way stops, even though we are using paid parking every time. They all say here, that the smash and grab is common, and the thieves have an app, knowing all hire cars to target first.

Spending uo last night in Tuscany after visiting the Cascata Molino at Saturnia. It was fairly busy for Spring, the weather was ideal. Pitigliano is carved out of and built onto rock mountains. It was known as ‘Little Jerusalem” due to the large Jewish community before WWii.
Below is a slideshow. to get there meant driving through windy, shoddy broken roads 30 minutes drive there and back but to enjoy a few hours there was worth it. We found out from locals about a secret shady section not visited by most, then we went also to the main section.