Home Sweet Home

The long flight home was uneventful.  Thank goodness.  Back at LAX after customs

Waiting for a Lyft

After cleaning up and a short nap, there was a cast and crew screening of "UnCorked" an internet television series that I am in so we spent the evening watching.  A great way to end a long day of travel.

Home Sweet Home.

Venezia to Roma Travels

We left Venezia late and ended up on the last train to Roma.  This time taking a water taxi to get to the Venezia train station.  As I struggled to get my bag up and down the stairs of one of the bridges an Italian gentleman took the handle to help me and breezed it up and over and down without skipping a step. Quite impressive.  Grazie!

That train was delayed an hour while we sat on it.  That was okay by me because I finished reading The Martian and Mark Watley's adventures.  That book only took me three days to read during this trip.  Scott would laugh when I told him I needed to check on Mark Watley during our train trip or right before bed.

With the train delay we got in to Roma Termini after midnight and too late to catch the fast train to the airport. We ran around awhile trying to find out where the night bus was but one bus driver told us it would be better to take a taxi.  More expensive but more reliable.  We ended up at the hotel near the airport (another Mercure) and in bed by 2 AM after repacking for the States.  Our shuttle to the airport was scheduled to pick us up at 7 AM so were up by 6 AMish to get breakfast, check out and get ready for the day.

Here is a view from our hotel balcony...

 A view from the balcony into our room...

 Photos of our room

 Waiting for boarding at the Roma FCO Airport...

Last day in Venezia/Venice

We finished our trip to Venezia with a tour of the Doge's Palace.  It was raining but the inside tour was nice and dry.

The stairs up to the first room

Glorious ceilings of the palace

The armory.  The knights were my size.  I measured the ankle to the knee and it was the length of my elbow to the tip of my finger.  Then I compared it to my own leg and it matched.  They were short back then.

More of the armory

There's also a bridge from the palace to the prison across the bridge of sighs.  It gets really chilly in the prison.

Venezia Day 2

The second day was spent in Venice/Venezia instead of heading to the outer islands.  We visited the Vivaldi museum with it's plethora of interesting musical instruments...

Walked down some sidewalks that dead ended at the canal/laguna.

Tried to get a private tour of the astronomical clock from a personal reference Scott had gotten but we failed to get in touch with anyone so just a outside photo.

Our gondolier was pretty awesome.  He speaks six languages and was super nice and knowledgeable about the city.  He's lived here all his life and has been a gondolier for over 21 years.

It was raining but it was still a cool experience.  We took the short trip but it was worth it.  I noticed some gondoliers would just be on their phones the whole time not talking but our guy was interacting with us and really good.

He told us that there are over 400 bridges connecting over one hundred little islands.  Venice is not one island but a conglomeration of a bunch of islands brought together by bridges and that is why there are so many canals.

Venezia Night 2 Continued

Everywhere we've gone there have been really interesting chess sets in the shop windows.

Cats vs. Dogs was my favorite

Going back to our hotel we noticed platforms were being erected in the fog.

The platforms are for flooding.

Rain is expected and the entire plaza gets flooded when the laguna cannot hold the water.

Night 2 in Venezia

After Murano we decided to have dinner.  Just some random place.  But the food was YUMMY!

Cuttlefish (in ink) and polenta

King Prawns

Ponte Rialto Bridge

On the way back to the hotel, I noticed that I have shop here.  Who knew?

A Day in Murano/Venezia Day 1.

Beautiful glass in Murano

One of the canals in Murano

Sunset.  I did a time lapse but just thought I'd share a photo.