Thursday, November 22, 2007.

WE'RE BACK --
Venezia on Thanksgiving!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We arrived this morning after a perfectly fine, though long, flight via Milano.

We left Northampton at 11 a.m., and drove to David's sister's house in Lawrence - she is letting us leave our car there and is driving us to the airport (Thanks, Ruth!). We flew out of Boston at 6 p.m. Wednesday, and arrived in Milan seven and a half hours later at 7:30 a.m. Italian time (1:30 in the morning to us.) We then flew from Milan to Venice - an hour flight - and arrived about 11:30 a.m. (5:30 Thursday morning to us!)

I just hate being crammed into those little airplane seats for 10 hours! Oh, to be able to afford first class! Someday, maybe.

We took the LONGGGGGG way to the hotel... Instead of a bus directly to the bus station, which is crazily close to our hotel, we thought we'd take the romantic way into the city by boat.


Ah, but the boat could not get close to our hotel because there was part of the canal closed. Anyway, we ended up taking a VERY long boat ride and then making a very long walk to get here - somewhere around two hours. Would have taken about 5 minutes by bus..... and have cost about $25 less... It's expensive to be romantic.

So by the time we checked into our hotel, we had been awake for about 23 hours.
We are tired, but soooooooooo glad to be back in Venice!!!!


We're staying in a lovely hotel for four nights - the Olimpia, in Santa Croce near the bus station. We are on the second floor, and when we look out our windows we are right over a small canal where there are some gondolas parked!

Actually, those are our arched windows right behind the flags:

hotel website

The bedrooms are all decorated in a typical venetian style dating back to the early 18th century.
The breakfast room has wall-to-wall windows facing into the canal, and the hotel lobby opens in the back to a lovely little square, where you can sit and have breakfast if you want.

After naps, we walked southeast, through the Dorsoduro section in the south of the city, which we have not explored before.

See how Venice looks like a fish?

We found a charming little piazza - Campo Santa Margherita.

David used this little building in the Campo as a navigation point all week!

There were several restaurants around the perimeter of the square, and we strolled around reading menus. We were checking out a cute little place when the young couple eating there gave us two thumbs up, so we decided we'd take that unsolicited testimonial as a sign, and ate there. Even though the name of the place translated to something like "the Old Hen," it was wonderful.



After dinner, we strolled back to our hotel, and collapsed for a good night's sleep.