Italy - Day 7 (Venice)

On day 7, we went downstairs to get the hotel breakfast and immediately felt under-dressed. Up until now, we had been staying in tourist hotels, but this definitely had the business crowd.
After breakfast, we packed up our stuff and got on the train headed for Venice. Today was the first day of our R.ick S.teves tour, and we needed to be at our hotel by 4pm to meet the group.When we got to Venice, we had two options for getting to our hotel, which was on the opposite side of the island from the train station. We could take a vaparetto, a big water taxi, which would take us down the grand canal to a stop close to our hotel...or the other option was to walk approximately 1 mile through the small streets and bridges. We took one look at the huge line of tourists (and their huge suitcases) waiting for the vaparetto and we decided to walk. Ten minutes into our walk we were incredibly frustrated. We knew that our hotel was within a couple blocks from San Marco Square, so our plan was to simply follow the signs to San Marco, and then use our map from there. This proved to be more difficult than we thought. Signs for San Marco would sometimes point in opposite directions, and at other times we'd arrive at intersections with no direction arrows at all. Did I mention it was around 80 degrees, muggy and we were carrying all our luggage?
A picture of the Rialto Bridge, about the half-way point of our walk.....Brooke and I have traveled quite a bit, but until now, we had never been on a tour and didn't know what to expect. Now I know I should expect to be bored....
Brooke and I like to travel quickly and spontaneously. Even our downtime is usually spent randomly walking through the streets. So when our first 90 minutes with our tour group was spent sitting in the tiny hotel dining room doing introductions, going over logistics, and getting a speech about the philosophy and history of R.ick S.teves Tours, I was more than anxious to leave.

When we finally got to leave the hotel, the first item on the Venice tour itinerary was an "Orientation Walk". It began by teaching us how to find our hotel from San Marco Square. Brooke found it to be very useful. I say "snooooze".

Here's our 28-person tour group in San Marco Square getting yet another long speech on the history of Venice. I'm sure it would have been more interesting if we didn't just spend the last 7 months planning and researching. Next, our tour guide took us to see the Rialto bridge, and then onto our first Venetian dinner. The food was only average, but it was nice to have time to get to know our tour members. As we had expected, we were one of the youngest couples there. But despite the age differences, we really enjoyed the company.

After dinner, we all walked back to San Marco Square and said our goodbyes. From here, Brooke and I stayed out to take night shots.
Looking south from the Rialto bridge....Looking north from the Rialto bridge....Just one of a hundred tiny canals...Being the young ones in the tour group, we were always given a room on the top floor, and of course there was never an elevator. Here's our room at the Hotel Mercurrio: 80 degrees at night, no air conditioning, and full of mosquitos.....