New Year's Day in Venice

New Year's Day, 1 January 2011, Buon Anno

I did not quite see the new year in last night...we had our farewell dinner, which I did attend and had an awesome time, as well as giving the congratulatory toast for our guide. After that, we arrived back St. Mark's square around 9:00 PM....I walked around until about 11:30 PM, when I went up to my room and fell asleep. I did awaken at midnight thanks to the noise, so I was able to "hear" it in if not "see" it in.

Plastic bags are illegal in Italy as of today. At a minimum, those that are considered non-biodegradable are outlawed. I will be watching the situation, in the hope I can spot irregularities and thus claim the trip be a humanitarian tax-deduction.

I have to make my pilgrimage from Venice the island(s) to Venice the mainland in a few hours. Many of the tour group have already left, and that makes the hotel seem empty, for example, the Catholic family my room was "sandwiched" between appears to have gone, and it wouldn't be right to stay here any longer and see others in "their" room!

The weather has been cool, single digit celsius, but dry (no planks on St. Mark's Square), and nothing like the cold of five years ago. Still, this is the coldest part of the trip, as you would expect.

My New Year's resolutions revolve around drinking nothing for three months, eating less, and exercising at least a bit then evaluate if I do indeed feel better by the first part of April.

I have to look back and think on the children/young adults of the trip, and wonder, if not hope, that there is a sleeper effect….I am certain that for many of them, this was not especially fun--certainly not as awesome as, say, skiing or Disney World, yet I want to believe that in 3, 5, or 10 years they will look back on this and that the wanderlust will set in.

I took a 1.5 hour boat ride from Venice proper to the airport hotel, arriving at 2:00 PM. In many ways this is perfect: More of a "normal" Italian hotel, one that a family would stay in, not the large tourist type, but still had a couple of English TV channels, WiFi (10 Euros for 5 hours, a 5 Euro shuttle to the airport, a large sitting area, wine that can be purchased from the front desk, and--get this--an ice machine! This is the one and only place during this entire trip that I could get ice, yet I left my half empty bottle of vodka at the hotel in Venice proper. The hotel is in more or less a residential area, though there are a few eating places and even a supermarket (albeit most of the are closed today for the holiday. I did find one little bar/cafe open and am having lunch there. Yes, this is the best way to wind down the vacation far better than getting up at 4:00 AM with a hangover to get on the water taxi to catch the flight out.

I'm always vacillating on the merits of an escorted tour versus an autonomous one. This tour actually turned out well, in large part because it really was an awesome group, everybody well-behaved and respectful of each other---a far cry from the group of five years back. These tours certainly get better financial bargains than you can get on your own, they "know the ropes," and can get you in many of the venues before the normal opening time, thus avoiding the queues and crowds; the Sistine Chapel, for example, was with only about a hundred or so people. Still, there is something to be said for the self-guided autonomous tour, the freedom it brings, and the feeling of accomplishment when you do it all on your own. There is certainly no right or wrong here, and I will undoubtedly alternate between both types, with my trip to Paris this next May being on my own.

This is causing me to think about that upcoming trip and debate whether I want to spend the entire time in Paris, or possibly other places: Spain, Czech Republic, Milan? One of the few things about this trip that was not perfect was that I had seen all of these cities before five years back, though I certainly was not able to experience them due to the illness.