I knew it would be hard for me to finish my blog of my trip but alas, after nine months of procrastination, I must face the inevitable. So here goes.
Our account was supposed to be printed and left in our little mailbox by our door. It wasn't there when we woke up at 6:30 a.m. so we called Johnny and he said they would be coming soon so we went to breakfast. At 7:30--still no print out so we stood in a huge line at the pursers desk to get ours. At 8:15 a.m. we left our beloved "Ruby Princess" for the last time ever. ;((
We collected our suitcases from the terminal and took a water taxi to the place where our hotel was located. The taxi dock was a choatic place and certainly an experience that was a memorable part of our trip. We got a great ride on the Grand Canal. "There were hundreds of small boats ferrying a dock stuffed with people, luggage, and workers from the ship pier to the various locations on the Grand Canal. We had the # (11) of our taxi on our voucher so we waited with the crowd. When each taxi would get close to the dock, the driver would shout his taxi number. When our number was shouted, we shouted back and hustled to the step off point where workers hustled us on to our taxi and handed our luggage to the driver".
We were dropped off right in front of "The Bridge of Sighs" aptly named by Lord Byron who observed that, because it connects Doge's Pales to the prison, crossing from the palace to the prison over the bridge causes a prisoner to sigh at the last sight of freedom they will have. "So there we were organizing ourselves and checking our maps on this dock, trying to orient ourselves so we could find our hotel. When what to our wondering eyes should appear? A PORTER! What an amazing human being! I want one of my own".
After our wonderful porter helped us find our hotel and we checked in, we were off to conquer our last stop--Venice. We did a Rick Steve's tour of Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square)and found yummy gelato (is there any other kind?). After lunch our desk clerk drew us a great map of a nice loop to take a walking tour of a good chunk of the island. A lot of where she sent us was well off the beaten path which was refreshing after August in Italy and Greece! But, as you can see above, we did get our last Where's Waldo shot on the famous Rialto Bridge. Then we saw Friari Church, Campo Barnada, Campo San Margherita, The Accademida Ponte (Bridge), and lots of cools little stores in between.
We ate amazing gyro's at "Peter Pan's Pizzaria" courtesy of instructions and a comedy of errors provided from a random couple from Miami. I can hardly wait to scrapbook the entire hilarious story about that. After a quick stop back at our hotel, we went in search of one more "fruit de bosco" gelato. "Michele had explained the yummy goodness of European gelato but her explanation majorly fell short to the amazing deliciousness of this frozen treat and it was our mission to eat it from Rome, to Florence, to Venice and everywhere in between. She loves pistachio and almost exclusively orders it. I started with melon in Rome but at the Ponte Vechio in Florence I had "fruiti di bosco" and I discovered Italian CRACK"!
After our last gelato of the trip, we sat on the steps of St. Marks square and enjoyed our treat, drank in the cool Venice evening, the beautiful lights, the famous dueling orchestras, and the serenity of our last night of an amazing vacation.
