Oct 30

This was a fairly uneventful day.  Munich weather got milder and it was sunny with hopes of temperatures in the low 50s.  We went to the Munich Airport and flew Lufthansa to Venice (a 40 minute flight.)  Regent provided a private car to take us to the ship, but the car was late getting to the airport so we and a half hour wait.  Venice was warm & sunny but, by the time we got checked in, there wasn't time to go into the city.  We joined friends Wolfgang & Cheryl and Jan & Harry for dinner in Prime 7, a specialty restaurant designed to be an upscale steak house.

Oct 31

Happy Halloween!  We docked in Ancona, Italy and it was cool and raining.  We took a bus tour to the Republic of San Marino.  San Marino was a 2 hour drive and up in the mountains so it was cold as well as wet.  San Marino is the world's oldest small independent republic and is completely inside Italy.  It's about 61 sq km in area and was founded in 301AD by a stone cutter from Dalmatia names Marino.  I don't know how or when he became a saint.  San Marino has always been independent and free.  Napoleon wanted to annex it and was rebuffed.  Hitler couldn't obtain it so the Nazis just visited.  The populace speaks Italian and they use the Euro for currency although they don't belong to the EU.  The old town has 3 castles and a lot of old buildings.  We had a walking tour of the old town which included quite a bit of uphill walking.  At the end of the tour we were set loose for a bit over2 hours to explore and have lunch.  Wolfgang & Cheryl were with us and, after checking things out, went to a nice looking restaurant with a view for lunch.  Cheryl had a pizza and the rest of us had the local specialty, Piadina.  Piadina is a very thin pizza crust which is wood fire cooked and folded over filled with meat, cheese, vegetables or any combination you choose.  We called it a San Marino Quesadilla. It began to rain hard during lunch but let up to an acceptable level for our walk downhill to the bus.  It rained the entire way back to the port.  At 6:00pm the ship's bell was rung an an announcement was made that we should take our wine glasses into the hallway for the "Block Party" and meet our new neighbors.  Wine & canapes were served and we spent about 30 minutes meeting people.  We had cocktails in the mariner Lounge before having dinner by ourselves.