When we were driving from the Milan airport to our hotel on the very first day of this trip I saw a billboard advertising trains to Venice. We hadn't thought about what to do on our last day in Milan and realized pretty quickly that we were going to hit all the major stops we wanted to see in the first few days so we booked tickets on the high-speed rail for this morning to Venice. 

Have I mentioned how much we both love Venice? If not then I will reiterate it again here, we absolutely love Venice. We woke up this morning with huge grins on our faces. Its the first time all trip we've gotten up right away under our own will-power to go out and enjoy more of Venice. At around 8AM we were ready and went down to the first floor for breakfast. The Aqua Palace had a pretty nice spread for breakfast. The normal staples of eggs, bacon, sausage, cheese, deli meat, fruit, and pastries. We loaded up for breakfast in their nice little dining room and then headed out to an absolutely stunning morning. 

We made a last minute decision, we decided that we were going to make a slight detour on our Epic Europe Trip 2014. We decided while in Rome to tag on a train ride to one of our favorite places in the world, Venice. We set our alarm for 7AM and packed up an overnight bag and were off to celebrate 11 years together in Venice, Italy. Slightly different then the parking lot of Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, CA where it all began. 

During each trip Jenn and I try our best to capture both our days and the places we stay. A few years ago we decided to do room tours of all the places we stay for two reasons. First because it was a great reminder of what the hotels were like. And secondly and more importantly it lets us look back and see if we want to go back. So on our recent Europe Trip we took videos of the three hotels we stayed at during our stay. 

And so the cruise begins. After going through the check in process yesterday and exploring Venice with my family it was on to our first full day of the cruise. The cruise ship stayed in Venice overnight and departed today at 2PM but we had to be on board by noon. My parents with Amy and Ally left to go back into Venice for a few hours while Jenn and I slept and Jake worked out.

Jenn and I love getting in a routine while on vacation. It usually takes a few days but we have been in an incredible routine while in Venice. Sleep in, go into town have lunch, walk around, have some lunch and some wine, go back to the hotel rest, go back out for dinner and some more wine, eat some gelato, walk around some more and call it a day. Sounds like a beautiful thing to me and today once again follows that pattern.