Venice--Gondola Ride & Dinner

Our ride on the gondola, as the sun fully set and the moon popped out...was a great ending to a very special day. As a group, all the gondolas headed down the canal...it's unbelievable how so many boats move at the same time, in the dark...without hitting each other.



The weather was perfect as we were serenaded on our ride down the canal


It was difficult to get photos, this one captured him best


They were in constant motion, it is amazing how well they maneuver through the canals

After the ride, we snaked our way down the streets as a group, to find our dinner venue and enjoy a nice meal before heading back to the ship.


More beer tasting


I ate pasta...who would have thought????


Now here is the good stuff....best fried calamari ever...light and fluffy...just right


The shop windows had these incredible displays of Venetian costumes


Although I tried...it was impossible to capture the magnificence of these costumes

The beauty of this city, lies in it's back street shops and alley ways. You can wander for days and never see the same thing twice. At this point in the evening, we were exhausted and still had to find our way back to the ship. Imagine our surprise when we turned a corner, and ran into the same couples we share dinner with every night on the ship. And then we happened to glance down into a canal as we walked over a bridge, and saw the couple, in a gondola, who we had shared a meal with during open seating lunch that very same day...what are the odds of that happening??? There are thousands of people, in hundreds of gondolas, and walking down thousands of streets in this city...we were amazed by the coincidence.

We were quickly running out of steam and decided to make our way back to the ship. At this time of night, the vaporettos were jam packed, but I managed to find a seat and fall asleep amid the chatter of Italians standing all around me. Back at the transportation center, we just missed the last People Mover ride. Little did we know that it shut down at 11pm...so we had a bit more of a walk back to our bed that night.

Next up....shopping, eating...eating....eating....our 2nd day in Venice