Monday September 24

After a pretty good night we went to the main dining room for breakfast. Bit too stuffy for us. It was fine, but we decided to try casual next time. We took the shuttle in to Venice to take the ‘secrets’ tour of the Doge’s Palace. The Doge was the elected ruler who with his cabinet held absolute rule over their empire. Venice was self ruling for centuries and was quite powerful. Beautiful paintings, gold work on the ceilings, etc. One of the most famous prisoners there was Casonova who managed to escape. Another famous Venetian was Marco Polo. His maps are on the wall.

We caught the shuttle back and got ready for our muster drill. Pretty uneventful…until I realized that I had left both our room keys in the room. It was 3:45 and the ship was leaving Venice at 4pm, and we really wanted roof top views for that, but without my camera??? Fortunately we were able to get help, get the door unlocked and run up to the top deck to watch the most incredible sight. The ship sailed along the island and we could see over the entire city with the red roofs, sparkling canals and masses of people and boats.

We dressed for dinner and again had a marvelous meal. We have noticed that most of the people on the ship are within 10-15 years of our age. Not a party ship, but not an old geezer one either. (and no comments from our children, please!)