Venice
Trip Start
Jun 26, 2011
1
27
41
Trip End
Jul 30, 2011
Venice, Veneto, Italy
Monday, July 18, 2011
Follow your Tour Director through the main gate and up to Government House in the very heart of this tiny ancient republic. Later this morning, travel along the Adriatic coastline through the Po Delta towards the Venice area. (B)
Hotel: Holiday Inn Venezia Rotonda Romea ½ Venezia-Marghera 30175
Tel: 00390415092311
Our preferred options today:
Venetian Night Out And Dinner
Enjoy a motorboat ride along the impressive Giudecca Canal with a commentary of the most important sights. A leisurely walk to St. Mark's Square, passing famous buildings, small bridges and inner canals, will take you to a typical Venetian restaurant for an aperitif before your four-course dinner including wine, mineral water and coffee.
Approximate value: EUR €65 per person
What we did:
We had some more time to explore San Marino after breakfast before leaving at 10:00 for Venice. We stopped at the S.Apollinaire Restaurant for a very nice 3 course Lasagne lunch. You can get their Lasagne recipe from their web site if you want to www.s-apollinare.it . We arrived at the Holiday Inn at 3:45 with a 6:00 departure for the optional tour. Internet is 5 Euros/30 minutes or 7 Euros/60 minutes so I'll wait until another location. 28/31 of our group selected the Venetian Night Out And Dinner so Giorgio dropped us at the port of Venice. There was a lot of tour buses parked there with others like us arriving or leaving. Then a private boat took us to downtown Venice. We walked along the water, over some bridges and arrived in 10 minutes at the Antico Pignolo restaurant. Very nice place and people with good food and a beautiful back door view of Gondolier traffic. A few of us were enjoying the view and taking pictures but later they wouldn’t let us go back there. Apparently a person from another Cosmos group fell in the water so now their all worried. We left the restaurant and walked the town before our 10:00 return on the boat and bus. This optional was a very good idea for numerous reasons: Logistics from hotel to Venice are brutal unless you do the optional, to see Venice at night with no crowds is wonderful, who wants to wait until the next day to see it anyway?
