After a tranquil night in Venice the previous night, we took a vaporetto (water taxi) and sailed back from our Lido Island hotel to join the rest of the crowd in exploring Venice. The Grand Canal certainly had a different vibe in the daytime compared to its more subdued version the night before. As the main traffic corridor in the city, it was teeming with gondolas, motor boats, and other vaporettos filled with tourists like us. The ride was like a trip across time, from the

From the Lido, we boarded a small private launch to go to Venice for a little night of music after an early dinner at our hotel. We sailed down the Grand Canal at dusk, and as the sun was setting, we passed by grand mansions with facades in richly toned plaster work, glided along palazzos illuminated with twinkling chandeliers from the grand ballrooms inside, and went under Venice's iconic bridges. It was a most romantic ride...making us feel we were in a sepia-toned film as

After leaving Verona, we passed by Padua to head to another romantic Italian city – Venice. But we only got a glimpse of it at this time. We took a ferry from Tronchetto in Venice to San Nicolo on Lido Island, an 11-kilometre-long barrier island in the Venetian Lagoon, where our hotel was located. Along the way, we caught sight of bustling Venice from the Giudecca Canal side. I thought it was a good idea to stay a bit further away from tourist-laden Venice. The Lido was only