Hello, again, Blogonauts!

We (that is, my four favorite fellow vagabonds and I) have managed to plop ourselves into the land of canals and cannoli.

Venice opened both its arms and its clouds to us as we arrived Monday for a brief stay, before we head off for visits further afield from the local lagoon.

Our current domicile is a lovely 4-bedroom apartment located near the Ca' d'Oro vaporetto stop.

(The vaporetti are essentially the city buses of Venice, although rather than operating on (nonexistent) city streets, they instead transport the locals along the Grand Canal and to the various outlying islands that make up greater Venice. Once you give in to the fanciful idea of Venice, you begin to see that everything most folks accomplish via truck or car, Venitians do by boat.)

Our apartment is enormous, and has two sizeable terraces. Unfortunately, the rains that dampened the day of our arrival initially reduced the terraces to little more than window dressing.

Our first day was filled with wanderings-under-umbrellas, with brief periods of less-wet, but vanishingly few of non-wet. Nonetheless, we persevered so as to ogle the luscious architectural scenery through the perpetual mist: The Doge's palace, St. Mark's basilica, the Bridge of Sighs, and countless less-storied bridges that allow humans to inhabit this canal-crisscrossed city.

But ho! Our meteorological luck improved on Tuesday! Under blue skies, we voyaged via vaporetto to the nearby island of Murano. The claim to fame there is art glass and a more laid-back lifestyle than the irrepressible Venitian hubbub.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable amble: sidling along Murano's canals, poking into various churches (some of which were equipped with deceased archbishops on ready-display in glass coffins), and finding well-chosen souvenirs to add to our luggage tonnage.

More than anything, however, was the glowing, no longer obscured orb in the sky. The weather turned delightful, and we turned grateful.

I've included a small sample of the pictures I've taken...and you can see them in the album entitled Venice 2019.

Tomorrow, we embark for the Dolomites...the eastern version of the Italian Alps. Keep your eyes peeled for the next episode.

Blog to you later!