Farewell Venice

Today is Friday, May 6.  We started our day by taking our bags to be stored at the train station.  We then positioned ourselves to tour the Grand Canal using the Rick Steves podcast.  There were no front seats on the vaparetto, so we sat all the way in the back.  Good enough.  We had already gone up and down the canal many times, but this time there was commentary.  Although the 'tour' ended at San Marco, we did not.  We went to Lido.  Sadly the beach was no where in sight, and our time was limited.  

This is looking back at Venice from Lido.

We walked around a bit, had an okay lunch, and headed back to San Marco Square.  What a zoo.  It really was like Disneyland in high season.  Even watching gondolas on the canals reminded me of the rides ending.  Everybody off!  

And this was a Friday in early May.  What the hell?  It didn't start feeling over crowded until Thursday.  I guess the weekends start early here.  After a nice respite on Lido we re-entered the zoo, but just long enough to pass through.  Darcy and her family were flying in and I wanted to visit a little while.  They live in Idaho, so it's not like we see each other much.  I haven't seen her since lunch in Paris in September 2014.  We waited outside their hotel.  They finally arrived, very tired from a very long day+ of travel. The woman at their hotel was so nice.  As we sat out on the courtyard visiting she brought out some prosecco and snacks.  We discovered we are overlapping in Siena, so we will meet for dinner there.

After a nice visit with Darcy and her family we needed to get back to the airport.  We had a 5:50 train to catch.  Verona, here we come!!

We got to our hotel, the Best Western Firenze.  It was not exactly where I thought it was, but it will do,  the room is very nice.  We went into the old town for dinner.   We've now settled into our hotel.  Time to call it a night.  Tomorrow we will explore Verona.