Italy ’98

Venezia

San Marco

panoramae

Murano Glass

famous bridges

gondolae

by foot

by boat

The day before Carnival, 25 February 1998, we set out from Cortina d'Ampezzo by bus to visit Venezia (Venice). We woke up well before dawn, grabbed a box lunch the cafeteria had prepared for us, and boarded the bus. After picking up tourists from several of the nearby hotels we started down from the Tyrolean Alps to the submerged city. Quite a change in altitude. It's a long and boring ride, and I probably should have taken along a book, but so it goes. This is my first view of Venezia (on the horizon). I knew we were near when the road flattened out and water appeared on both sides of us.

This was our first urban excursion on our "honeymoon", and being city people, Rose and I were quite excited. Rose was quite a sport in going skiing with us, as she was new to the slopes and not just a little bit terrified of the incredible verticals she saw around us. By the second day she was navigating through the advanced intermediate slopes with skill and humor (although nothing was as funny as my attempt to catch her at one point: I fell on her and we slid several hundred meters until we found a snowbank).

I expected us to pull up to some curb in Venice and step off the bus. I guess most of the others thought the same. We waited in the bus for twenty minutes while a flummoxed bus driver used his cell phone to call here and there, trying to find our connection. Confusion reigned when we were finally let off the bus, near some boat docks, without instructions. We made our way to the piers, to be greeted by our driver. We climbed into the water taxi and headed out onto the open water.