Up and out bright and early for our 7:40 flight. Airport easy to navigate, we’re on the plane and gone, arriving 10 minutes early into Venice. Easy transport into the city – the Express bus takes 20 minutes and drops us right in Piazzale Roma – where our hotel is located. It’s an easy walk to the hotel, which you can see from the bus circle – although easy is relative since we have our bags and have to lug them up and over one large bridge. Welcome to Venice with luggage!
Not too bad, we arrive at the Hotel Olimpia, they have our room ready and we are all settled in by 11:30 or so. After freshening up a bit, we hit the town. It’s a gorgeous day – once again we are inappropriately dressed – we keep expecting chillier weather and keep being greeted with sunny, warm days. Beautiful weather, but we’re in long sleeves and heavy pants. Oh well, we sweated them up in London, we’ll do the same here then get them cleaned on the ship (we have free laundry – yay!).
So wander we do, we head through the Dosudouro side of the city and stroll along through the Accademia area.
Deciding we are hungry, we stop for snacks at a local bar. Great food! Great find! Little smoked turkey, goat cheese and artichoke 1/2 sandwich, deep fried mozzarella cheese and prosciutto and a salami Panini all washed down with beer and wine – for only 10.50 Euros. Deal! Too bad we didn’t see this sign before we ate. LOL
We go deeper and deeper into Venice, snapping photos along the way and finally crossing the Grand Canal headed toward the Rialto Bridge. Now it’s tourist time. The Accademia side of the city is more local, less packed – over here near Rialto and San Marco – ay yi yi! But, we knew to expect this – so we shuffle our way back toward our hotel and a little less insanity.
As we round the Piazale we see all sorts of police and fire personnel activity. They are roping off some walkways and an entrance to the park area where a statue has fallen off the gate. How could that happen? Ed says the only thing that could make it fall would be an earthquake. I tell him he’s crazy – has to be something else – but…hmmmm…..
Back at the hotel, after a quick shower (wow! it’s HOT!) and a change of clothes – we’re back out to the grocery store for supplies and scoping for dinner. A couple of places look good near the hotel – one guy stops us and Ed asks for octopus – we know it’s available –we saw it fresh at a local market this afternoon. It’s not on the menu but he says he can prepare it for us. Ok – so – it’s early now – we’ll be back.
We have a couple of drinks on the hotel veranda overlooking the canal, then I take a nap while Ed does his work.
So – back to Rio Nove we go. We snag the last table on the canal and proceed to enjoy the now cool evening, the great ambiance and even greater food and service! Everyone is adorable here – our waiter remembers us and tells us he can prepare Ed’s polipo (octopus), so we order antipasto mixto, verdure griglia (grilled vegetables) and spaghetti con gamberetti e zucchini (crayfish and zucchine in a light red sauce).
As we eat and drink, one of the other waiters comes up and starts to chat. come to find out there was an earthquake this morning! It was centered around Bologna and it was felt all the way to Austria and was indeed felt here. He said he was in bed and felt everything shaking and moving! Oh my gosh! we were in the air – thankfully! But that explains the statue – Ed isn’t crazy – but then again – you all knew that!
We head back to the hotel and grab a beer and wine to enjoy in the garden. It’s lovely here in the back of the hotel where we’ll have breakfast in the morning before heading off to the ship!
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