Barry and Brenda came down last night so they’d be ready to go this am and save that extra drive to our house.

LJ has been “sleep training” this week, getting up earlier each day so he will be more acclimated for the trip so today he got up at 3:30 am. I value my sleep too much so he was on his own for that.

Our plane leaving Charlotte had a broken generator so the AC was off and it was quite uncomfortable- I am very glad it was only in the 70s today! Barry had gotten an upgrade to first class which he gave to Brenda so she enjoyed the “big seat” and we squished into steerage.

Our flight overall went well and we flew into JFK ready to tackle our overnight flight. We had a bit of turbulence to start so they delayed meal service for a bit but that was fine. We all chose the chicken thigh which had onion and mashed potatoes. A lemon blondie for dessert (too lemony for me so LJ enjoyed).

Sleep didn’t come easy for any of us so we mainly watched tv or played games. LJ and I enjoyed another episode of Stanley Tucci’s Italy show.

We landed a little late in Milan and had damage to one of our bags so we left Barry and Brenda with all the other bags. Delta’s damage service here is to repair or replace the bag so we were given instructions on what to do and back we went to get the train from the airport to Milano Centrale train station.

We were earlier than expected thanks to the United States having an electronic passport. The line for Italians returning home was so very long. We got on an earlier train and were thankful for seats. These tickets were $13 Euro each. It was super crowded on the train. This train from the airport to Milano Centrale station does not have assigned seats so it’s kind of a free-for-all.

We made it into Milan and after a little wait, got assigned to a track and settled in for our trip to Venice. The train to Venice was a high speed train ($64 Euro each for Business Class) and we had seats facing each other. It was especially cool coming over the water into the main part of Venice. At this point we were all pretty tired but excited to have arrived.

We walked out of the train station to an aggressive luggage porter. We declined and went down to the water front and he followed us. We ended up letting him take our bags to a water taxi, it was $70 Euro for a private water taxi to the closest point near our VRBO and well worth it because it meant no bridges to cross or long walks with our luggage.

Mario, our VRBO host met us at the dock and walked us the short distance to our apartment. Then he mentioned we were on the third floor, which we did know but it all kind of hit us at the same time, yikes! Lots of stairs at the end of a VERY long travel day. We trekked all the way up and got our orientation from him. We did learn during our trip that artisans would often put the date of the tile installation in the floor. We weren’t sure if that was what the “1852” was in the doorway at our VRBO or not

We had made reservations for dinner to celebrate Brenda’s birthday, it was a short walk from the apartment but in my tired state we walked right by it the first time. Dinner was delicious and we ordered a LOT of food.

Days one and two were long but we are ecstatic to be in Italy!

Additional pics may be added to posts as we merge pics from each other’s phones