We got about 2 hours sleep Saturday night, but made it out of the house bright and early at 6:45 Sunday morning. We checked in at the airport, went to the Red Carpet club, and noticed that they hadn't told us they'd moved the flight up 45 minutes. Whoa! So we left the Red Carpet club, boarded the plane immediately. We had the first two seats in first class, which Stephanie always wants. They’re great unless you are too close to the bulkhead, in which case those with long legs (me) can’t stick them out. But we were satisfied, and tired. We took off, and within minutes, as we ascended, Steph's root canal started throbbing, just as predicted by her endodontist. I thought her head was going to explode. Advil didn't do anything, so I gave her way to big of handful of vicodin. Kind of made her sick to her stomach, but when it kicked it, it really killed off the pain. She said "don't let me go off wandering, I might get lost" but I felt better seeing the pain gone. We landed at Dulles where she had some frozen yogurt, and that ended the nausea, so it was uneventful from then on. The pain didn't come back on the flight to Milan.

We had a quick layover in Milan. We arrived at 7:00, which was just dawn. 32 degrees Fahrenheit, no clouds, bright fall day, snow all over the Italian Alps. Beautiful.

From the airport it was a very long bus ride through the morning rush hour to the train station. Couldn't get on a train until noon, but arrived in Venice at 3 sharp, about as dead to the world as you can be. All of those little layovers build up, and you feel like you’ve been on the road a week. Here we are standing on the steps of the train station, ready to go find a vaporetto to take us to our hotel. That's the beginning of the Grand Canal behind us.

It took the better part of an hour to get around our exit. The vaporetto is like a bus, and we were stop number 12 or something. But what a view for a bus, huh?

That big boat is a vaporetto, and this is a wide spot in the Grand Canal. Little canals go all through the city, but no pictures of those yet.

Here's my bride looking out as we troll along.…..

Doesn't look too worse for the wear, does she?

We eventually found our place (Venice is tough to get around once you get on foot. Addresses are numbers, but don't have anything to do with the particular street you're on, just the island you're on. Makes it tough). Went in, they didn't have our reservation. Said we never confirmed. They had a room for the night, but weren't sure about the other nights. We brought out faxes, etc., and they had all of them too. Eventually, we got all settled, and they found a room to move us too the next day as well. We eventually realized it was our fault, we never mailed the certified check deposit to *this* hotel. Oh well, it all worked out and they were most helpful.

We laid down on the bed, and four hours later, at nine p.m., woke up and dragged ourselves out to dinner. Nice clear, brisk evening. The restaurant we wanted couldn't be found, but we found a nice little traittoria, and had a great meal. We had a half of carafe of house white, and I had a giant appetizer of carpaccio, with lots of thick slices of fresh parmegian cheese, and some kind of green. I think it was radicchio. Even Steph liked it. We had risotto with scampi and porcini mushrooms for two, for dinner - it's porcini season here - and it was just superb. Topped it off with a little espresso, and came back to the hotel.

The hotel is a small place, maybe 20 rooms. We're on the second floor, looking out over the garden, across their little boat entrance on a side canal. Further, across the Grand Canal, is the island that San Marco is on. Here's what it looked like at 6:30 this morning, when I thought it was light enough to snap a picture. It's a lot brighter and more colorful in daylight, but you have to admit it is quaint!

As we left to walk over to St. Marks, Stephanie took a picture of me by a gondola, on one of the smaller canals.

The hotel is almost at the end of the island, so we wandered over to the vaporetto stop and caught one to St. Marks, which just down the way one stop.

Here’s Stephanie at the same stop.

The square at St. Marks has all kinds of interesting places. The cathedral started in the thirteenth century, and is gaudy and ornate. All gold tile inside, a completely mosaiced cathedral, with pictorial mosaics embedded within the gold to serve for the paintings.

Outside, on the façade, are four bronze horses. They are replicas of these, found in a little room upstairs. I don’t know their significance.

Here are a few shots from above the entrance of St. Marks. The first is of Stephanie, looking back past the Doge’s palace to the Grand Canal.

This next one is out to the square itself.

And this one is down on the square.