October 14 Departure Day/Oct 15 Arrival

Met Ferris at JFK at 6 pm for an 8:30 pm flight to Venice. Weather was very rainy during the ride to the airport but takeoff was right on time. Flew Delta in coach direct to Venice using frequent flyer points. Coach is not so bad; it's only eight hours and reasonably comfortable if you get aisle seats as we did. We weren't really sure what to expect upon arrival. I knew that various options were available for getting to the hotel but we'd decided not to reserve anything in advance; we'd wait to see how we felt at 11:30am Venice time when we landed. Sometime during the course of the evening or flight we decided to take the easy route into town which is to take a private water taxi. When we arrived at the airport we found the water taxi desk and were curtly waved away by the agent who said "water too high, no taxi today". So I asked what the alternative was and she said Alilagunia, the public water transportation system.

So Ferris and I bought tickets and walked the 5 minute walk with our bags down to the dock where both public and private boats depart. It was a beautiful day so the walk was rather pleasant (and downhill; the return walk, uphill all the way, might not be so easy).

But the tricky part for the uninitiated is figuring out everything about how to maneuver the boat ride and what to do once you get off! Ferris and I had been the first to arrive to wait for a boat and somehow, because we didn't understand where to stand, we ended up being the last people to board the boat. It was jammed with passengers and luggage. There was luggage precariously stacked on the top deck that I was sure was going to topple off into the water (one of which was mine). Passengers were squeezed into a small hot cabin below deck with scratched plastic windows that didn't open. Every inch that wasn't filled with people was crammed with luggage. I felt like some kind of boat person refugee in flight. Finally we reached our stop - Rialto Bridge. I'd received walking directions from the hotel that sounded very straightforward. I soon learned that the clearest of directions are only as good as your ability to find a street name on the corner of a building to plot your location. Eventually we found the street we needed and pulled our bags through the narrow streets until we found the hotel.

View from our hotel window

Our hotel is glorious - The Palace Bonvecchiatti on Calle de Fabri. By the way, in Italian the word calle is pronounced CAH-lay and Bonvecchiatti is bon-veck-key-AH-ti. The hotel is modern and airy; our room white with blue accents. And our room (#361) is large! Of course it isn't inexpensive but then absolutely nothing in Venice is inexpensive. And we were thrilled to find that our room had a view overlooking a canal! We took pictures of gondolas as they floated under our window. We unpacked and got ourselves a bit organized. By then it was about 3 or 4 pm and we decided to head off to Piazza San Marco. How can you arrive in Venice and not see it right away? We intentionally meandered around, trying to get our bearings. We found a very nice art to wear/craft shop not far from the Piazza and stopped in to look at lovely Murano glass necklaces.

Then in the Piazza we took time as the sun was setting to walk around, take pictures and stopped to have a glass of wine at one of the cafés on the plaza. What a glorious view we had from our table of the Doges Palace and the Campanile as the sun set! We relied on advice from the front desk for a restaurant recommendation for dinner. Will fill in the name letter but had a lovely meal with one of the best salads ever eaten. We couldn't believe the freshness of the produce. The salad had the reddest tomatoes, the greenest lecture and the orangest (if this is a word) carrots we'd ever seen. I had a grilled fish as my main course and enjoyed it very much.  Also lovely wine which Ferris ordered as a birthday gift to me:  2006 Amarone della Valpolicella, L'Amarone della Casa dei Bepi.  Wonder if I can track this down in NYC?

 

Postscript: I now realize (post Venice stay) that there was yet a third option which is to have the water taxi take us to the Rialto Bridge stop and have someone from the hotel meet us there and transport the bags. This is done all the time and certainly worth considering despite the high cost. Venice has many small streets with absolutely no name on them. And I have yet to find a map of of Venice that depicts all the streets that do actually exist.