Day 19: Leaving Venice

We are leaving Venice, and this means that we are on our way out of Italy, and that means our Italy vacation 2012 is at an end.

Leaving Hotel Gazzettino, we splurged again on a private water taxi to the airport instead of the 1-hour ride on the water bus. Luggage is loaded and we are on our way.

Farewell to the Grand Canal.

Good-bye Rialto Bridge. I think we crossed you 14 times in our wanderings in Venice.

Venetian buildings reflected in the polished wood roof of our taxi.

The only thing about going to the airport in a beautiful polished wood water taxi is that we have to fly on Alitalia back to Rome.

Tim in line to check in at Alitalia. Is it me, or his is smile just a little fake? All kidding aside, our Alitalia experience makes all US airlines look like 5-star travel experiences. Suffice it to say that efficiency of processes, customer service, and user-freindly flying are still unknown concept to Alitalia.

Our destination after Venice is the Rome Airport Hilton--hopefully with American style air conditioning and level floors. No offense to our hotel in Venice.

Great vacation with wonderful friends and some fabulous experiences in (for us) new parts of the world. But it's great to be going home.