I’m home now, just after a 24-hour journey to travel the 7,786 miles between Venice and Honolulu, with stops in Munich and Los Angeles. Now I remember why I shouldn’t jump at low airline fares: my plane ticket only cost about $1,400 but the return journey took me on Air Dolomiti, Lufthansa and United Airlines. What happened was that I flew to LAX on Lufthansa, and arrived at Terminal 4 where I had to pick up my luggage to go through Customs, even though my bags were supposedly checked directly from Venice to Honolulu. It was quite a hike, therefore, to schlep all my baggage to Terminal 7 where I caught the United flight to Honolulu.

In case you think I went to Italy and did nothing but see and play organs, you are only half-right. Something I really enjoyed looking at were the narrow cobblestone streets in the medieval towns, a far cry from streets in Honolulu!

You may have seen my pictures on Facebook where I spent my last day in Murano, famous for its glass making. It was a place that my husband, Carl and I always wanted to visit—he liked to collect beautiful art glass—but we never got the chance to go together. I went to the Murano Glass Museum where I took some of these pictures.

Also in Murano, I visited the Basilica of Santa Maria and San Donato where there is a large and colorful mosaic floor.

I also took a lot of pictures of waterways. Most of these I would call quick shots, because they were taken while riding the bus, or walking along with the Historic Organ Study Tour group— in other words, there was almost no time to carefully frame each shot; they had to be done in a split-second.

Something that always impresses me when going to Europe in the summer are the numerous flower boxes. The flowers are so different from those found in Hawaii, and I couldn’t resist these brilliant colors.

And in the afternoon, some of our group took a gelato break, including me!

It was a great trip!