Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To the Ship We Go!

We woke up in Venice to a beautiful day. We had a glorious view from our room. The hotel had a little garden which we could view from the window. Keep in mind that gardens like this are few and far between in Venice.

Here you can see the buildings that are in our backyard, so to speak.

And then, I spotted our ship above the roof tops. Look for the red funnel.

Time to leave and head for our ship. We take our luggage out by the canal and wait for our private water taxi to take us to the ship. As we wait, some interesting shots of life in Venice.

These little buildings are everywhere. You can buy almost anything from them, depending on their products.

Notice the guys leaning against the wall on the left. They are porters for the various hotels in the area waiting for new guests to arrive.

Next to where we are waiting are several gondolas. Here is one of the 450 gondoliers in Venice getting his boat ready for business.

There are over 400 bridges connecting the various islands.

Everything in Venice goes by water. Behind the gondola you can see a working boat hauling what looks like corn stalks.

Obviously, you have to have police boats instead of police cars.

Venice is full of statues and beautiful architecture. If you are wondering, that is a pigeon on top of the head.

 We get to the ship and have an opportunity to see the main show hall.

As you can see, it is very different from the other ships in the fleet. Instead of having fixed seating, they have chairs on the bottom level. This way, they can move the chairs around based on the best configuration for the particular show. All the shows are updated and use a lot of technology.

This is Jamie, our cruise director for the next few weeks.

We decide not to go out to Venice that evening because the jet lag is still haunting us. Instead we get to bed early and will have another chance to see Venice tomorrow.

I must be off!