Leaving London

Our last day was spent out of the city at Hampton Court Palace, once the home of Henry VIII. We arrived to see a reenactment of Henry’s wedding to his last wife, Katherine Parr. The tour includes visits to the kitchens, where actual cooking was ongoing. The weather was great, and we reluctantly left to get back to the city for dinner. This was at “MAZE” a Gordon Ramsey restaurant adjacent to the Marriott Hotel at Grosvenor Square. It was some of the best food we have ever experienced, very small plates but each with intense flavor. The place was hard to get into, so we opted to sit at the bar. Our waiter/bar tender was delightful and gave us a tour of the kitchen and gave us a copy of the menu to take home. No, Gordon Ramsey was not there!

The next morning we were up early to catch our plane to Venice. We flew BMI which is like our SWA but without the organization. Took us almost an hour to check in!

We arrive in Venice a half hour early and were taken by bus to the pier where we embarked for our 14 day cruise, on Oceania Lines “Insignia”.

Venice never disappoints, we spent the next day visiting St. Marks Square and the Rialto Bridge area. This time of the year is not the best time to visit, there were 4 cruise ships docked. Ours was the smallest only 650 passengers, and a crew of 396. The other ships were huge probably with 2000 passengers each, all of us visited the same places so it was very crowded, but we took lots of pictures and did a little shopping. We were glad that we had visited Venice in 2005 in May rather than late July. But, no matter when you go, please go because it is unlike anything else in the world.

We sailed from Venice at 5 pm and headed off in the Adriatic Sea. Next stop: Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Email is difficult and expensive so can’t write everyday.

More later on…..Joyce