Italy October 16, 2011

We arrived safely in Italy today. We left from home early (Lana wanted to get moving) and it was a good thing we did as there was a major traffic tie-up on I-95. We had to wait for a bus when we got to Providence, but at least we were there. We checked into Logan and then had another wait for our plane, but it did feel good to finally know we were on our way. None of us slept a whole lot on the way over, but we did get a short rest. We had a layover at the Rome airport. It took forever to get to our gate – this is a huge airport and sprawls all over the place. The gate on our tickets did not match the gate on the display board in the airport so we went with the one in the airport. It was a very long and winding walk to our gate. Thank goodness John was alert – as the time for boarding neared, he noticed that there was little activity at the boarding gate. We checked the display again and the gate had changed again! We were worried about making it to the new gate in time, but it turned out to be a very short walk. We boarded with no problems and arrived in Venice less than an hour later. We were met just outside the baggage claim area and met a couple from Maine who was on the same trip. We took a mini-bus ride to the dock and boarded a water taxi to get us across to Venice proper and to our hotel. We were in one of the smaller canals when we were stopped by the police. Not knowing Italian, I’m not quite sure what the problem was, but I suspect our driver did not have a current registration on the boat. They were all talking about carte, which to me means paper. At any rate, we did dock next to San Marco Square and were met by our Venice tour guide, Andrea. We walked across the square and found our hotel. The rooms are small, but neat and I was surprised to find a double bed as most European hotels only have singles. Lana and John had gotten an email and voice mail from Kelly telling of having to reroute to Paris and then missing a connection. We were concerned as both the tour guide and the hotel thought she had checked in, but we couldn’t find her. We walked around a bit and then stopped back to the hotel, but every time, it was no Kelly. We went down to the dock to see if she was there, but no Kelly. We did see a regatta of sailing ships (America’s Cup, perhaps? - see photo) and watched them sail down the Grand Canal. We finally came back to the hotel for our welcome meeting and who walks in 10 minutes later, but Kelly. She had not been met at the airport so had taken a water taxi over, but then spent the next 2 hours walking around trying to find the hotel – what a big mix-up. We were all glad to see one another, but there will certainly be some complaints made to the tour collapse into bed. Apparently, there is a company when we get home! We went out for a pizza dinner – very good pizza – took a shower and now are ready to charge for WiFi service here so I will post tomorrow after our tour. The other photo is a bird's-eye view of Venice.