Last night, after suffering what seemed like terminal jet-lag, Jody and I returned to the hotel and immediately collapsed into a well needed sleep. The alarm was set for 6:45, plenty of time to get up and get ready for a 7:30 breakfast. Unfortunately, my internal alarm wasn’t working correctly, so about 5:30 I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. Fortunately, that gave me time to write the Day 1 blog entry, while Jody quietly snored away blissfully until 6:45. Breakfast was great! Plenty of selection, including some unknown and weird looking fruit-like items. No bacon, and the sausage was really just mini hot-dogs. But the croissants and the chocolate donuts were great! Jody also quickly figured out that café Americano will get you a black coffee, and café de leche will get coffee ... read more

Sadly, we leave Venice today. It's been an awesome trip! We saw a lot! Our flight today is at 12:30, so we were able to sleep in until about 7:00. We have an 8:30 shuttle to the airport, so we left our luggage outside the room and headed down to breakfast. After a quick breakfast and some good-byes, the "shuttle" turned out to be a water taxi at the canal right outside the door to the hotel. It turns out that water taxi's are not allowed in the inner canals because of the gondolas, but gondolas are not allowed out until 9:30. So before 9:30 we can get door to door service. It was fitting that our last view of Venice would be a water taxi ride. The boat pulled up to the hotel door and ... read more

This morning we said arrivederci to both the Dolomite Mountains of Cortina, and our faithful driver Pancrazio. Once we reach the outskirts of Venice, we will have no more need of the motorcoach since travel around Venice will be by boat. We really enjoyed the hotel in Cortina, even though it wasn't air conditioned, it was a kind of old world charming. Some of the other passengers complained about the noise, but it didn't bother us at all. We just opened all the windows when we first got back from dinner and cooled the room right down, then we closed them up tight as we went to bed to block the noise. We were both so tired we probably could have slept through anything. After a quick breakfast, we headed off to the bus at 9:00. ... read more

Waking up this morning in Lake Maggiore was wonderful! We opened the curtains, stepped out on the balcony looking over Lake Maggiore and pinched ourselves to make sure we were really in Italy. We each then headed to our own bathroom, since this is a 2-bath room, and readied for the day. The accommodations on this trip have really been awesome! Breakfast was great, though there was a French tour group that got to the buffet before us. But we just forced our way through and made sure we got plenty to eat. Once we headed out to the bus, we understood the advantage of having portage. With Insight Travel, we have portage included. We are allowed 1 full suitcase and 1or 2 small hand carry items for luggage. When we arrive at the hotel, we ... read more

This morning we had a chance for a little sleep in, and today was another "relaxed start", which basically means we don't leave until after 8:30AM. This is a feature of Insight Travel, and something I had trouble understanding in the beginning. Since I booked this tour under Grand European Tours, they had tours broken up by pace as in Leisurely, Comfortable, and Active Pace. After a discussion with Russ and Julie at dinner tonight, I realized that they had the same incorrect definition of Comfortable, Leisurely, and Active as I originally had. I thought that this had something to do with physical activity, and that Leisurely and Comfortable, would have less walking, less strenuous exercise, etc. and that Active would have lots of walking, steep hills, and lots of physical activity. But actually,these terms relate ... read more