Italy '15 Bike/Boat Final European Adventure

September 30-Oct 3rd
Some think that traveling the world is glamorous but I do have to admit certain aspects of travel are not always so:
Sept 30th 7 am out the door
9am fly out from Sacramento airport to Dallas
Switch to flight to London.
Switch to flight to Venice.
Walk the length of the airport (it seemed)  to get to the water transport which took an hour to get us into Venice.
From 9am PST to 3pm Italy time Oct. 1st, the next day. Total travel time 21 hours.
Needless to say I was pretty beat tired by then.
After our lovely hostess had led us to the loft apartment and showed us how everything worked we only had a little bit of time before we expected Steve and Lisa.
Since it was not a good idea to nap when that tired, as it might turn into sleeping away the rest of the day, we went out and walked to the Rialto bridge and back to our lodgings. That was purely to reinforce that we could find our way again and then we promptly went back to the bridge to collect Steve and Lisa and lead them to the AirB&B.
At this point we are to the good part...
Off we all went to get dinner. We walked about a bit and rejected the seafood spot in favor of Da Mamo for lovely pizza and pasta. Our first meal in Italy a true success, we meandered back and all slept hard for quite a few hours.

Oct 2nd:
Our first full day we headed out on the ACTV (waterbus) to Murano where we admired the glass (much from China) and went to an entertaining glassblowing demonstration. Afterwards we hopped back on the water bus to Burano where all the houses are very brightly colored and the specialties seem to be seafood and lace making. After a meander, nice lunch and a short visit to the lace museum and we were ready to head back to Venice. Dinner in the Restaurante l'Olandese Volante in the Campo S. Lio was lovely. (The Flying Dutchman in the Square of Saint Lio)

Oct 3rd:
After we had breakfast (including by the way... warm fresh baguette at the little grocery store on the corner for 30¢!) we gathered up and headed out to catch the water bus to the train station and made our way to Mantua to join our ship.  The lovely Ave Maria was awaiting our arrival. With time to spare, we did a little sightseeing of the palace grounds once reigned over by the wealthy Gonzaga family. Our orientation and first dinner boded well for a fun and delicious upcoming week (excluding any possible weight loss!)