Category: Venice

Nancy and I started our day by going to San Marco Square and San Marco Basilica while the guys went grocery shopping.

I think we got the better end of that deal.  We listened to Rick Steve’s tour as we walked though.  The mosaics are truly spectacular.  Unfortunately you can’t take pictures inside but here’s one I downloaded from the internet.

We went out onto the balancing overlooking the square.  Again spectacular. Here are pictures.

Then we walked back to the apartment past the bridge of sighs which is an enclosed bridge is made of white limestone, has windows with stone bars, passes over the Rio di Palazzo, and connects the New Prison to the interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace.

In the afternoon we decided take the vaporetti down the grand canal.  We walked across the island to the train station which was the start of the Rick Steve’s audio tour.  We stopped in a square for lunch, ordered our lunch and then waited 45 minutes and still no lunch so we left.  We ended up getting a sandwich at the train station.  Listening to Rick Steve’s audio I can visualize the grandeur of the grand canal at its peak.  It must have been amazing.

After our trip down the grand canal we went back to the apartment.  We packed up since we leave tomorrow and had some dinner.  In the evening we planned to take a vaporetti back down the grand canal because we heard that the palaces were lite up and it was amazing.  At my direction we ended up on the wrong line and instead went around the end of the island and only part way down the grand canal.  Frankly it was disappointing because not much was lite up.  Fewer and fewer people live in Venice because it is just so expensive.  It think it was obvious based on the number of dark palaces.  Here are a few pictures.

We got off at the bridge Rialto and walked back to the apartment.

 

Everyone slept pretty well so they felt ok today.  Rick was up early and went out and got us croissants for breakfast.  Mike also made eggs so some had a big breakfast.

We planned to go to Murano and Burano today.  We walked across the island to get the vaporetti to Murano.  Here are some pictures from our walk.

We took the vaporetti with 9 million of our closest friends; it was very crowded.  After getting off at the first stop in Murano, we wandered along the canals and went into interesting shops.  So many beautiful things and such large prices!  Nancy got a couple of small items as presents but otherwise we didn’t buy anything.  We had a nice pizza lunch in the plaza.  Here are pictures from Murano.

Then we got back on the vaporetti and took the 30 minute ride to Burano.  Burano is more focused on lace and textiles.  More beautiful things at high prices.  The houses are brightly painted.  Here are pictures of Burano.

We took a vaporetti back to Venice, returned to the apartment and relaxed a little before dinner.  We had made reservations for a special dinner at a restaurant called Covino.  Rick and I had had a wonderful dinner here when we were in Venice two years ago.  We had another wonderful dinner this time.  Here’s a picture of us at the restaurant.

All in all a great day.

Mom and I were up early to get ready to go to the airport.  We had breakfast at a nice little coffee shop around the corner from our apartment.

We walked back down to Arsenale which is where we caught the water shuttle to the airport.  The shuttle took about an hour an 15 minutes.  On the shuttle we met a nice lady who was born in Newcastle.  My mom is going to Newcastle in July so they talked about places to go in Newcastle.

Mom checked in and then we spent about a half an hour together before she had to go through security.  I waited about an hour and then Rick, Nancy, and Mike can out from immigration and customs.  We got back on the water shuttle to go to Venice.

I showed them to the apartment and they spent a few minutes getting settled.  Then we went out walking.  We walked all over Venice, we did almost 18,000 steps today. They had not slept much so they either needed to keep moving or they would fall asleep.  We started by walking by our apartment from our visit 2 years ago.  Then we went to San Marco square where Mike and Nancy got a gelato.  They we walked over to Rialto bridge stopping in a few shops along they way (but not buying anything).  Nancy and Mike were loving all the little alleyways, waterways, old buildings, bridges, everything; there’s really no place like Venice.

At the bridge we stopped for a snack and a glass of wine along the grand canal.  We enjoyed watching all the water traffic on the canal.  Refreshed we headed back to the apartment.  We made several provisioning stops.

That evening we had our usual dinner of bread, cheese, meat, and wine. Yummy!  They all stayed awake until 8:30.  Pretty good on just a few hours of sleep.

Here are some pictures from our walk through Venice.