Italy Day 1

I finally was able to get all of day 1 pictures uploaded. Here is a look at our first day.

We arrived at the airport Monday around 10:15 am. Our flight to NYC took off around 12:20 pm. While we were waiting for our flight Brenda's mom and dad (Martha and Nathan) arrived at the gate too. We were so happy to know the were on our same flights all the way to Venice.

When we all got to NYC we had a 5 hour layover. The four of us decided to grab some dinner and we ended up talking at the restaurant for 4 hours :-) We then headed to the gate with a one hour wait.

Once we started boarding the Venice flight the flight crew let us know that they wanted us to board quickly because there was a pending STRIKE in Venice so they wanted to leave 15 minutes early to get us there before the strike. We ended up making it to Venice before the STRIKE began. Some of John and Brenda's family were not so lucky. John's parents ended up getting rerouted to another city and then had to take a bus to Venice. Also, thankfully our luggage all made it to Venice but one of Nathan and Martha's pieces got lost. Also, Johns's sister and brother in laws luggage was all lost along with some of John's friends luggage. Carlos and I are counting our blessings that everything of ours arrived safely!

After landing and dealing with the luggage problem we then had to take a 5 minute walk with luggage and all to the water taxi's. The only way to get to Venice is by water. They have public and private water taxi's. We ended up taking a private water taxi because it would get us to our hotel in 20 minutes. If you take the public water taxi it takes about 1 1/2 hours because of all the stops along the way.

I took this shot as we pulled away from the water taxi docks. You can see the water taxi's all lined up. Also, from our flight from JFK to Venice we had Brenda's makeup artist Marinella and her mother Maria with us. Here are Maria and Carlos on the water taxi.
Ooops! Carlos cut off Marinella's face. I will get a better picture of her tomorrow.

Here are some of our views as we came into Venice from the airport. It's amazing that all the "roads" are water.

The water taxi brought us right to our hotel. We waited outside for a little bit while they retrieved our luggage off the boat.

While waiting for our rooms John and Brenda came out to greet us. They invited us to wait in their suite. Here is one of the views form their suite. Before heading to our rooms Brenda went to show us where the wedding reception was going to be held. This hotel was built in the 1600's and use to be a palace. They recently remodeled the palace and turned it into a hotel. It is absolutley gorgeous!!! You just can imagine the history that took place in this building. The beauty and the artwork take your breath away.


When we arrived to our room we were surprised to have gifts waiting for us. John and Brenda bought Carlos a beautiful leather attache and bought me a leather backpack. What a nice treat! Thanks John and Brenda! Thank you for letting us be part of your special day!We got settled in our rooms and then met Brenda, John, Martha, Nathan, Marinella and her mother for lunch. The rest of the family was coming in later tonight. We took a walk through the streets of Venice and came upon a pizza place. The pizza was so good!

We then headed back to our rooms to take naps. The long trip had finally caught up with us all. After taking a long nap we headed back to the streets of Venice and ran into the rest of the family that had arrived. They had just come from dinner and were having some ice cream. Carlos and I wanted a little snack and some coffee. Kathleen, Brenda's sister in law, who is a good friend of ours, came with us. It was nice to catch up with her!

We all orderd Espresso's . . . . it was so good!

And a little Biscotti to go with it!

We ended up staying at the little cafe for a few hours. It's funny we all live in the same town but it takes going to Italy to catch up with each other LOL. Well, it is time to get to bed. The rehearsal for the wedding is tomorrow.