Venice PT.2

The next morning was foggy but it quickly burned off by the time we finished the breakfast buffet at the hotel. What a great place to people watch! The international mix of our location, the situation of what is perceived as "free" food, people being time conscious. People have the most interesting expressions and behaviors at a breakfast buffet! The look on a person's face when there are no more croissants in the bin!! The searching eyes - - where's "this", where's "that"? You can see the wheels turning. "Do I want this?" "What is this?" "Where are the coffee cups?" "How do I get cappuccino out of this machine?" "Where do I sit?" "Where are my people?" And the kids running around pushing the levers of the juice dispenser, yelling what they want and don't want. The older people trying to fill their plates while keeping their fragile hips from breaking dodging the kids. But we didn't want to linger long there, so we were soon off to Venice. Such a unique place! Amsterdam has it's canals, but Venice is really one-of-a-kind. We used the vaporetto which are basically buses on water (let's just call them boats!) to get around. The transportation system is not too hard to figure out. With a map and the information at the stops, you know which one to take so you go in the right direction. We went to St. Marks Square, which is the suggested place to start you visit. It's one of the settings you see towards the end of Casino Royale. Over the course of our 2 1/2 days there, we visited many of the sights and several of the smaller islands, but one of our nicer more unique experiences was attending a concert in a church one evening. Five violinists, a cellist, contra base, and clavichord. It was fantastic! The talent was first rate and the presentation and atmosphere couldn't be beat! The group will actually tour the US in 2009, I believe. We completely enjoyed our visit and have definite plans to return again as our time there was very short. Wednesday morning we checked out before heading to Venice for our last 1/2 day, as in the afternoon we had to drive to Florence. Because we enjoyed our current location so much and found it hard to leave, we began a habit of getting to our next destination after dark, which sometimes made arrival a little more difficult. More on that later. On to Florence!