We have a full day yesterday…and today is just now getting started. Our hotel is beautiful. The building dates back to 1100 but it’s only been a hotel since the 1500’s.

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I went down to the Marco Polo room for breakfast this morning to a feast! There were several stations of food – pastries, cereals, eggs, bacon, toast, fresh fruits, yogurts, and lots of things Italian that I didn’t recognize. All of this with coffee was the perfect way to start the day. Cindy was exhausted so she decided to sleep in for a while.

Last night, we took the most romantic and incredible tour of Venice by gondola. All the guys who operate the gondolas are Venetian and it’s a traditional passed from father to son. He took us through many of the smaller canals (there are more than 180 of them in the city) and into the Grand Canal (the main street of Venice).

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Homes of nobility, churches from the 1100’s, historic bridges, and more scenery than our cameras could capture. At one point, our Gondolier even sang to us.

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