Venice

We really enjoyed this Kranjska Gora - it is a booming little ski town. The people at our hotel were so nice - one of the family came running out to the car as we were leaving with a bottle of wine! Leaving the town we saw a school class out for "PE" with their ski poles getting "tuned up." Oh, I should mention, that we had to scrap our windows this morning - it was a -5 Celsius.

We headed off to Venice through 13 tunnels this time heading "down" through the Italian Alps - if fact, the tunnels were literally down - I said to Charlie, "How did they keep the cement from sliding down when making the tunnel." It was quite an experience.

We, of course, got messed up on directions (who would think that a road sign directing you to Malano would take you to Venice and the one saying Venice dumped you out in the sticks), but eventually got our way to the parking garage to leave out car for 4 days. Thank goodness, no car for a while! We bought our Vaporetti ticket passes, which is a motorized gondola or rather public transportation. Or, as Charlie says, the city bus on water. So with suitcases in tow off we headed. (We did leave a lot of stuff in the car.) We are staying at the Hilton which is just a couple of years old - using accumulated points - no way would we have paid the money to stay here otherwise.

The hotel is from the renovated Molino Stucky Flour Mill. It is a fascinating building. We are on a canal and there is a shuttle boat taking people back and forth to Piazza San Marco.

We dumped our suitcases and took off for San Marco. This is such a good time to be here - not many crowds! Although, we did see 2 huge cruise ships leaving. We actually did not have to wait at all to get into the Basilica and then had time to really enjoy the place. Last time we were here you were almost literally pushed through by the crowds. This time, we could actually stand and read our guidebook telling us about everything inside. We were just feeling so fortunate!

We are very excited about the next 3 days exploring here - it is suppose to start raining. Let's hope the weather forecasters are wrong.

We both find Venice an amazing city - a total tourist place - but at the same time, just fascinating. We love all the boats, decrepit old buildings slowly sinking into the mud, water flowing over the sidewalks, whatever, it is just neat.