Trips, Pics, and Tales

Before I go onto our next day, Florence...I want to go into a bit of what I call..."The Plan"! It's at this point in the trip where some of you, and myself at times may be wondering just why the heck we took a train from Civitavecchia all the way to Venice for just under two days, and now are apparently taking a train to Florence for just under 24 hours before apparently heading BACK to Civitavecchia for yet another cruise??? Why didn't we spend another night in Venice? Why go to Venice at all? Why not just stay closer to Civitavecchia or plan different cruises - say one that began or ended in Venice? Well, in the beginning we really had no intentions of going to Venice. We were going to do one long Mediterranean cruise, but as I mentioned we couldn't fine one that really fit everyone's needs. Then the more we discussed the ports my parents wanted to see, Greece (Athens in particular) kept popping up as a must see. That's how the semi-back to back cruise...

W e walked away from St Mark’s Square to find a place off the main path for lunch.  However, first Megan and Mimi had a more pressing stop to make - some hats!  The sun was hot and it was bright and it seemed everyone was wearing hats!  That must be the trick! After trying on a few dozen maybe???  And getting the advice of the lovely Italian couple selling them at the little cart, these are the two that won! They do look quite lovely don't they? For lunch we aimed for something just a few blocks – not sure if that’s the right term here in Venice – but that’s the idea – away from all of the hub bub- so maybe we could pay a little less and get a little more. We found yet another pizza and pasta place we could sit at. Do you see a theme here with us? That’s what we like and we stuck with it! It was really good – pizza, pasta, prosecco, acqua with gas for Alex and wine and still water for the rest of us! After lunch we split up for awhile. We had some ti...

We arrived at the Venezia St Lucia train station, got our luggage and met my parents off the train. We were anxious to see what Venice would be like! We had prebooked a water taxi to take us to our hotel. The Al Ponte Mocenigo. We are staying here for two nights, which gives us this afternoon and one full day to take in this city. Not a lot of time, but we’ve gotten used to making the most of what time we do have. This is the first we’re really on our own though in a city we haven’t been to. How would we handle it? We walked outside the train station and even though I’d seen pictures, for me, nothing could really prepare me for “Venice” until I set foot on the island. I immediately had that magical feeling! In case you didn’t notice, traveling is in my blood! The water, the sounds of the water taxis and the gondoliers. The tourists. It was all just what it was supposed to be. And we were only there for 5 minutes!  Here we go - I just had to say it...I'll say it again many times thi...