Here I am catching up in the transit area of Rome’s International Airport. The flight over was excellent. Darlene and I secured Air Canada aeroplan business class seats eleven months ago. As usual, Air Canada was excellent. With full flat beds we were able to catch 5-6 hours of sleep.
From Rome we will fly to Venice on Alitalia and expect to be there in the early afternoon.
After a short flight of approximately 45 minutes, we arrived in Venice. Our entire luggage was carry on so we proceeded directly to the water taxi station at Venice Airport, a walk of about seven minutes. There we hooked up with Christian and we secured our boat in less than two minutes and we were on our way to the Bella Arti Hotel in the Accademia section of Venice. En route we entered the “back canals” of Venice that see very little tourist traffic. Life moves on at a decidedly slower pace there. Of course we have to enter the Grand Canal to get to our hotel and thus we pass under the Rialto ridge, still one of my favourite sights in Venice.
The Bella Arti is a modest hotel. Smallish rooms but the rate was good and it is a short distance to our sailing ship, the Sea Cloud II, which we will board the next day.
For our evening out, we secured reservations at my favourite restaurant in the Cannaregio section of Venice, the Osteria l’orto dei Mori. We hopped on the water bus and after a few stops and a short walk we arrived. This osteria serves traditional Venetian fare and reservations are highly recommended. We had a wonderful dinner outside under the stars.