TRAIN TO VENICE, LA FENICE & A NAP

Moving day is not one to write home about, so let's just say that we made it finally to our hotel in Venice somewhere around 2 pm. After a half hour or so of down time, we headed to the famed opera house, La Fenice, and bought tickets for a concert there tomorrow.

In our favorite series of mystery novels by Donna Leon, Commissario Brunetti refers to the city's "tides of tourists." We struggled through them being careful not to lose any of the four of us in the eddies and undertows. Occasionally, we'd find a quiet back ally or a small bridge to catch our breath on. On one bridge a gondolier was singing quite well to an appreciative audience. On another, a couple of gondolas were just moving quietly along, as if it were the 18th Century, and a person in one of them seemed to be asleep. That gave us an idea of what we should do with the rest of our afternoon.