Buongiorno! The Weekly Update (from Venice)

Buongiorno!

I didn’t intend to take a week off, but the hectic touring on this cruise combined with the limitations of the ship’s internet (especially when sharing a log on .with my cabin mate) made finding dedicated time to log on and write more difficult than I thought.  But now I’m back just in time for the weekly update and a more regular posting schedule after 12 nights on a ship

I’m now at the Marco Polo Airport in Venice as I get ready to wrap up the last 36 hours or so of my grand Mediterranean vacation.  The last leg will take me to Doha and then home to Fort Worth on the nonstop DOH-DFW flight, both in Qatar Airway’s business class.  I’m looking forward to trying a new (to me) airline, especially since they service my hometown.

What a whirlwind this trip has been with touring days in Barcelona, Provence, Florence/Pisa, Rome, Naples/Amalfi Coast, Mykonos, Athens, Istanbul, Ephesus, and now Venice.  Most of these stops could easily be week-long vacations and so to try to knock out ten of them in short doses was quite ambitious.  Still, I did it.  And along the way, I got to work with five different tour companies (which I’ll review) plus a crazy taxi driver who really should be a tour guide.

I knew that somewhere along the way I’d have a favorite – and it turned out to be Venice.

What an amazing city.  It now tops my list of “can’t wait to go back” spots from this year (followed closely by the Amalfi Coast, Mykonos, and Cassis/Provence).  I wasn’t expecting these three to be my favorites, but that’s the beauty of travel is discovering new things about what you like along the way.

I’ll start my reviews this week so bookmark my master page for the trip to find the links easily.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a long trip for me if it was without incident.  Last year, while coming home from the Indonesian Adventure, I managed to break a toe in the Bali airport.

This year, I went on the trip nursing bruises from a nasty tumble I took on the sidewalk at the Marriott BWI a few weeks ago (I tripped on a jag in the driveway paving and fell hard onto both knees).  While climbing down the marble steps from the Terrace Houses at Ephesus a few days ago, I managed to aggravate the left knee (which is the one I suspected I should have had x-rayed after the fall to ensure no fractures or tears).  I took it easy in Athens (which meant skipping the final loop at the very top of the Acropolis) but was still sore when arriving in Venice three days after the Ephesus day.

Yesterday it poured in Venice which made the streets very slick with puddles of water.  While rushing to make a vaperetto, I slipped on the sidewalk and took another tumble, this time twisting my right leg under me as I fell, which awkwardly landing on the inside of my right knee, my right ankle (which has plastic pins in it from a long-ago injury), and my left hip.

I’m a sore limping hot mess today.  I badly need a restorative yoga class.  And a heating pad.  And my own bed.

For now, I’m self-medicating with Aperol spritzes.  Those may be my new favorite front porch beverage when I return to the homestead.

And now it’s time to fly… next stop, the Middle East!

Ciao!

xoxo