Starting Greece cruise and Italy land tour

We started by flying on Oct. 3 to Venice via Frankfurt, arriving on Oct. 4. We took a ferry from the airport to the dock nearest our hotel, then walked from there. It was longer than I anticipated and quite a chore for both Ralph and I because of our luggage.
But we managed and found Hotel Ca'Gattordi fairly easily. It was a very nice place with its own dock for the water taxi. We planned to have my best friend James stay with us, but there was no room for a cot, so the hotel moved us to a suite, which was fabulous.
Our friends, Peter and Jonathan, arrived later in the day. Using Rick Steves' guidebook, we went to dinner that night at Osteria da Alberto. Ralph's octopus salad and my mushroom risotto were our favorites. The grilled fish was also excellent.
On Oct. 5, we took the ferry to the island of Murano so Ralph could look at the glass artwork. We found one beautiful piece that was unique of a male torso. We looked to see if any other shop had something similar or better, but no one did. We had a nice outdoor lunch, then returned to buy the torso piece, my gift to Ralph.
That afternoon we returned to Venice, which was overcast and chilly so we had expresso and hot chocolate at St. Mark's Square. It was idyllic and Peter and Jon were quite happy.