A Day of Driving

Yesterday (Wednesday) was spent in the car, driving from Sorrento right up through the heart of Italy to Venice. It pretty much took the entire day by the time we got lost (brand new highway of which the GPS was unaware), parked, took a bus to the Grand Canal Ferry, and then got dropped at our dock. It was well after 8 pm when we finally got into the hotel, so we pretty much dropped off the luggage and headed out for dinner. Not a single picture!!

For dinner, we had some delicious pasta with seafood given that it's all so freshly caught. We sat at the only table inside the front dining room so we could have a view of the World Cup game that was on the little TV/computer rigged up. Before long, there was a group of Italian men crowded in there with us acting very similarly to Joel on Packer Sundays - hollering, ranting, cheering, shaking their fists at the screen. It was quite the spectacle and lots of fun. Spain won which made them all very happy and Calvin kept his disappointment about Germany's loss to himself. We can only imagine the fervor if Italy was still in the Cup.

We're staying in the Pensione Guerrato, a 550 year old hotel down the tiniest of "streets". We're not on a canal, but our view out the window is just as Sue described; we could reach out and shake hands with our neighbors across the alley. The room is spacious and modern, but you can see in the floor, built to last 1,000 years, the former grandeur. In addition, they left squares in the walls non-refurbished so you can see what they used to look like, with stenciled "wallpaper". For someone into old buildings, Venice -- and Italy in general -- is a paradise. I promise some pictures with the next blog.

More tomorrow...