You’ve got to admit this is a nice place (here in Venice) to sit while I wait for the next bus to Mestre. I’m staying there to be near the airport where I’ll get my very early morning flight to Los Angeles.

I came into Venice to spend the day riding vaporetti. One special place I went to was the first place I stayed the first time I came to Venice. I saw it from the ship when we were leaving Venice on Day Three.  Then I saw it again yesterday from the ship as we arrived. Unluckily I never got a picture of the street in front of it. Today, after studying vaporetto routes I found a line 52 vaporetto would get me near there; I took it and found it, then walked around the area. Afterwards, rather than wait for somewhat slowish vaporetti, I found the Accadamia bridge and crossed it to walk to my favorite restaurant on Calle Dei Fabbri.

Day 4 is the day for leaving Venice and embarking on the Norwegian Jade cruise ship. Some views of that are here.

First I wanted to talk about transportation in Venice. With no cars and buses and without roads they can travel on what’s left is valporetti (plural of valporetto) and walking.

I got the impression the principal income in Venice from tourists must be what we pay for a vaporetto pass: 18 euros for 24 hours which in American dollars is about $27.

Back to leaving Venice: after a delicious lunch at the newly re-discovered osteria and picking up my bags left at the B&B I took a vaporetto to Piazzale Roma. My best guess was I would have to walk about half a mile in the sun to reach the ship. Forty-five minutes later after walking what must have been more than a mile  a sweaty exhausted me arrived at the ship.

Of course the obvious question is what became of Day One and Day Two? They are drifting away from me in that foggy sea of memory. Let’s see: after being packed into the tiny area Air France calls a seat I landed at Charles De Gaulle  airport where I planned to spend a relaxing productive time between flights.  Instead I had to quick-step to Terminal 2F (more than a mile) for my connecting flight to Venice.

At least when I finally got to the gate women from Air France helped load my belongings into the security X-ray,  very different from going through security in the USA.

Anyway I finally got to this little Venice B&B. Gosh this is supposed to be about Day 3 and what I now remember of Day 3 is spending the morning from 9:30 on looking (systematically I hope) for the simple osteria I had eaten lunch at the first day I visited San Marco square fifteen or more years before. Every subsequent trip to Venice I’ve searched in vain for it. This time I found it (Osteria De Campana, 4720 Calle Dei Fabbri) when, exhausted,  I was about to give up!

The wifi I was counting on in this little (let’s say “tiny”) B&B apartment doesn’t work on my smart phone.  But the woman and her husband are so helpful how can I complain — take the washer-dryer I couldn’t find: I had spilled wine on my shirt and Levis on the plane. She said to give them to her and yesterday when I came in I saw them hanging on her patio. Later they arrived neatly folded on my little couch.

My time in Venice was actually Day Three, part of Day Four before boarding the ship and Day Eleven after returning from the cruise. It almost felt like home.