Denise took the photo above in the few seconds that Venice was visible as our plane made its final approach through cloud and mist to Marco Polo Airport. By the time we had landed and picked up our luggage, the skies had begun to clear.

We made our way along a walkway to the waterfront where we were to get an Alilaguna waterbus to our hotel. The walkway was marked with signs indicating how much further we had to go -7 minutes, 4 minutes etc. At this point, the temporal distance from Ottawa to our bus stop had reached 18 hours and we decided that we could stop and have a coffee and small lemon cake. We were 'here' - we could relax.

As we sat drinking our coffee we were completely unaware that the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland had erupted and we would remain blissfully ignorant for several more days. As it turned out, the skies were cleared for travel the evening before we were to leave and we had confirmed seats so the volcano did not disrupt our holiday in any way.