Hello:

We left Innsbrook Wednesday morning for Venice. It was only 30 minutes to the Italian border which means at that point you are high in the Italian Alps. We drove downhill through small villages for almost 2 hours going towards sealevel. Very beautiful countryside and as you would expect a combination of Barvarian and Italian home styles - picturesque. We would suggest to anyone driving through Italy that they avoid the autobaun (freeway) as we learned there is no opportunity to view the countryside as they build solid high walls along the freeway.

We arrived in Venice around 3:30PM parked in  car park on the Island, then proceeded to try and locate the apartment. This resulted in us viewing a great deal of Venice lugging our luggage - apparently there was a more direct and shorter route. Asking for directions in Venice always gets a very friendly response but the directions are always the same - straight ahead and to the right - which brings you to another individual to ask direction again. We made it to the apatment and it is as advertised -  5th generation luxury apartment - Residence Palazzo Odoni - on a canal and the gondulas do past by and we can watch and enjoy the singing and music.

We are located centally and walk to all sites and points of interest. We have had 2 dinners: one on a patio overloooking the Grande Canal and the other at a resturant near our apartment which has a garden area and a 4 member band came in and entertained us after we dined. We had some very interesting courses such as octopus soup (12 small octopuses in a tomatoe base soup), black tagliatti pasta with scampis covered in a pumpkin sauce; and excellent veal with potatoe pie.

The weather was really hot for walking on Thursday and apparently Ed & Sharon could have used his new GPS unit to help get back to the apartment - who knew. The wine is excellent, reasonable, and plentiful as well we have acquired some lemoncello and lemon creame to augment the nightly wine menu.

There are a lot of very friendly people in Venice and we have talked to people from North Carolina, Calgary, Vancouver, and Ottawa. People seemed to gravitate to any one speaking English to get directions or just to talk.

Tomorrow we go to the out lying islands.

Photo to follow.