Planned for over a year, departure day finally arrived on September 10. We flew to Philadelphia, waited around for several hours and then boarded our US Airways flight to Munich. And we sat. And sat. And sat. Finally the captain came on and said that "the log had been taken from the plane by the maintenance guys and they didn't know how long it would be to get it back." What did that mean?? Two hours later, still at the gate and still on the plane, the pilot announced that the log had been returned and they were cleared to depart. Our 2.5 hour layover in Munich, which seemed generous when we booked it, had suddently shrunk to 30 minutes.
There was nothing we could do about it, so we ate dinner and tried to sleep. Breakfast was served and we landed in Munich. 40 minutes to make our connection. We RAN through the airport to get to immigration, got our passports stamped and continued to run to the Lufthansa gate, which was as far as possible from the immigration check point. Of course. Is it ever the closest one? Not that I can remember.
We got to that gate and the agent couldn't find Larry's reservation in their system, although mine was there and we were travelling on the same confirmation number. She determined that we had been rebooked on a later flight, but managed to get us back on our original flight to Venice with moments to spare. Up we went over the alps and minutes later we were on our way down to Venice. After landing, we hiked another 10 miles (or so it seemed) to the baggage area and amazingly our bags made it. We were never so happy to see the strips of neon green duct tape that we have plastered all over our bags. (Hint for fellow travelers: those duct tape strips have helped us locate missing/misplaced bags several times and make traveling with checked luggage on long trips much, much easier).
We were traveling with Tauck for the second time (long-time readers will remember our trip to France several years ago) and we were met by their reps once outside the baggage area. They led us and a few others to a water taxi, our luggage was loaded on after us, and off we went. We quickly crossed the lagoon and approached the area of St. Mark's Square. Boat traffic was crazy busy and the congestion around the small canal to get to our hotel's taxi entrance was astonishing. Water taxis, private boats, numerous gondolas, a garbage boat and several vaporettos (water buses) were all maneuvering around each other on the Grand Canal. Think Times Square with no traffic lights.
Finally our water taxi was able to enter the canal and pull up to the back entrance to the Hotel Danieli, now a member of the Starwood Hotel Group and formerly the palace of a Venetian shipping merchant. The hotel lobby was rather overwhelming at first, but we got used to it:
Check in was easy and our room was ready - good thing, as we were asleep on our feet. We set the alarm and took a 3 hour nap, then rallied to walk over to St. Mark's Square and to find some dinner. Venice was still hopping and there were crowds everywhere. We managed to find our way around without getting lost and explored several back streets and canals:
After dinner we strolled back to the hotel, once again crossing St. Mark's Square. Most of the pigeons were off roosting for the night, but the crowds were still enjoying the nice weather and many of the square's cafes had musicians playing:
We said good night to the square and took one last look around before heading "home" for the night:
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