Like many other trip reports, this one begins with “Some friends planned a vacation, and I horned in…” But this one has a few twists.

Jen & Gary booked a Mediterranean cruise so they could visit the Egyptian pyramids. It sounded like fun to Angie and me, so we made reservations, too. We made these arrangements months before the Costa Concordia disaster, and years before the recent Carnival cruise ship ‘covered in poo floating aimlessly in the Gulf of Mexico’ debacle, yet Big D knew that cruising isn’t for him. His take on cruising: “Why don’t you just lock me in a mall for a week? UGH!” He joined us for a few days in Venice, Italy where we all explored together before we set sail.

I always feel like waiting for luggage at the airport is a crap shoot, but apparently it’s more like betting on roulette:

I was thrilled to maneuver our way to the Rialto Bridge for dinner the first night, and again each day we were there.

Gary & Jen

Our hotel was in an adorable area. In fact, meandering through Venice feels like walking through a post card:

We spent a fair amount of time in St. Mark’s Square:

Photo credit: Angie

And I snuck some photos inside the Basilica:

Pentecost Mosaic

I loved that ancient meets modern in a few places around the city:

sculpture at the San Marco Vaporetto stop

And like most trips, in addition to the architecture, what I remember the most is the food, drinks, and laughs. We had a lot of all three when we visited Harry’s Bar:

Don’t ask how much one round of Bellinis will set you back. But each comes with “free” chicken cakes and olives. It’s worth it, though!

We had our fair share of Limoncello, which brought on the usual hijinks.

And Gary made a silent, breadstick plea at lunch:

Venetian rain: one night it’s beautiful, the next day it’s a total pain in the ass…

But eventually we made our way on board our ship, though not quite to the Pyramids. But I’ll save that for another post.

More pictures from Venice and a day on Murano are over on Flickr.