Asia Cruise : Abu Dhabi to Singapore

Dubai

Burj Khalifa

Day 1 : Dubai!  We have arrived

Well let’s try this again! 18 months ago we booked this trip….. and here we are. Our first day in Dubai! After a long ( and sleepless) 13 hour flight we finally arrived. Amazing how efficient some airports are…. Getting off the plane and into the hotel shuttle ( with a quick duty free stop) was 35 minutes! After a quick rest at our hotel, we took an Uber to the Dubai Mall…. The world’s largest mall by area…. The size of 50 football fields. We quickly wandered through a small portion of the mall and headed put doors to explore. Wow! What a site! The Burj Khalifa… the world’s tallest building standing 163 floors! It’s huge and beautiful especially as the sunset reflected off the metal… wow! We heard the water fountain show was good so hung around to see. At 6pm the lights dimmed an the music cranked! Then came the water show…. Amazing! As expected, much bigger than Vegas with spouts of water shooting upwards to 275 meters…. That’s 900 feet! After watching 2 shows it was time for a quick bite to eat…. Lucky for us a family just left so we got an outside table right at the edge with amazing views of the water fountain and Burj. Then came the bid surprise…. A laser light show on the Burj along with the accompanying water show! Incredibly beautiful… you could hear everyone ooing and awing! After the final show, it was time to line up for a taxi back to the hotel…. There must have been over 500 people in line! But a it went fairly quickly…. After about 40 minutes we were in the car and on our way to a good sleep. Good 1st night in Dubai!

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A date with David

            An early morning rise on Thursday for our trip to Florence.  Before goin we decided to google parking in florence and we found a nice clean underground around the corner from the tram station. A quick trip on the tram and we were at the central train station on our way.  

Walking into Florence as amazing. Such spectacular architecture. Loved it all!  

After wandering around for a couple hours together we decided to split up and meet back in time for our entry into the galleria dell academia.  

I wandered around the town snapping photons like a crazy man!   So much to see.  

A tour of the cathedral was beautiful.  Not a religious guy at all but I can appreciate the beauty of it all. I decided to venture to the top of the cathedral before headin to see David.  Up I strayed and about 20 minutes into the climb I realized I wouldn't have the time.  Yikes! Now what?i continued on to the ceiling and viewed the fresco right in front of me.   Then I found the stairs down.  Getting that fr was ok but then the stairs to the too were spiral and narrow and only 1 way. We had to wait 10 minutes for those ahead I us to come down so my time was ticking.  I decided not to chance it and headed down at my next opportunity. 

On the train to Venice

Villa

I have about 2 hours to kill so thought id try to update a bit. 

Last I write we were heading to Florence to pick up our car.  We decided to pick

It up at the airport as I read it was much easier.  It was after a bus ride to the airport then shuttle to the rental place.  We picked up our 2 vehicles and away we went to our villa. 

About an hour and half later we arrived to our beautiful villa. About 150 years old it was originally a brick furnace!  Now it's been converted to a beautiful 4 bed 6 bath villa with 40' long inground  pool out back.  Very beautiful and comfy for the 7 of us!

We are here

Trevi Fountain

            Well I thought I'D DO A QUICK update as our internet connection at the villa is a bit slow. We arrived in Rome on the 31st and to our surprise had our luggage off the plane even before we got to the carousel! I've heard it could take upwards to an hour and a half but not this time. Heading into town we decided of take a taxi - reminder! Always negotiate the price before you get in! $110 euro later we were at our guest house. 

Italy 2014

Prelude

Well... it's time for another trip - can't wait. This year's trip is Italy for 2 and a half week. 8 of us going this year including me and Michael, my parents, niece Larissa and Michael's sister, brother-in-law and nephew. We fly out the evening of May 29th and return June 14th. Arriving in Rome, we'll spend one night at XY Rome Affittacamere Bed and Breakfast before taking the train to Florence to pick up our rental cars. Then it's off to our Villa for a week in the Chianti Region - Il Fornacino. Beautiful 4 bed, 4 bath Villa with amazing inground pool close to Siena, Florence and Pisa. After this, it's a train trip to Venice for 2 nights at Hotel Venezia then back to Rome to our hotel Suite Beccaria in Piazza del Popolo. We are staying for 5 days while Michael's sister and family is staying for 3. A side trip to Pompeii and maybe Herculaneum then it's back home - a busy, fun-filled trip but looking forward to every minute!! We have our tickets booked already for the Colosseum and Statue of David - now we just need the Vatican. While in Venice we are doing a pub crawl - 3 local restaurants with wines, tapas and lot's of fun. Stay tuned for updates and hopefully LOTS of amazing pictures - CIAO folks!!

Jimbaran

We left Uluwatu at about 11:00AM Saturday morning for a short drive to our final stop in Bali - Jimbaran. Here we rented a private villa with pool at Gending Kedis Luxury Villas and Spa - a deal we saw on Groupon Malaysia. What can I say - WOW! A beautiful 2 level villa - walking through the entry gate we approach our villa - upper floor consists of a large living area with bar, separate smaller bedroom and an en suite bath. Down a flight of stairs and there it is - our private infinity pool overlooking the jungle - nothing but trees and birds (and apparently monkeys but we haven't seen any yet). A huge open air kitchen over looking the pool is adjacent to the beautiful and HUGE master bedroom with ensuite. This villa is probably at least two times as big as out home in Toronto. The pool is beautiful - all natural stone lining with small boulders inside used as steps. And cool water so quite refreshing in this heat and humidity. Bathing suits have not seen the light of day :) On Saturday we decided just to laze around by the pool and relax. Lunch in the resort restaurant followed by a dip and nap.