Venice

April 7, 2011

Venice

The perfect way to arrive in Venice...by boat. A very crowded boat from Punta Sabionni filled with young people on a school trip, that took 20 minutes or so to cross the bay and arrive in San Marco. We disembarked on a beautiful sunny day in the midst of lots of other tourists and the usual souvenir stands. As we only had one day to explore Venice we stayed in the San Marco section and did a lot of walking. The city is straight out of the past with very few modern additions other than stuff to buy. Beautiful buildings with the ornateness of the 18th and 19th centuries, narrow streets, exquisite things for sale in the shops and no cars. It has a vibrancy that is everywhere. We splurged on a 25 minute gondola ride...everyone who goes to Venice has to do that! Our gondolier took us under the Rialto bridge on the Grand Canal and around some of the back canals in a big circle...but he didn't sing any Italian opera.

We did the grand tour on the cheap...took the city “bus”...another boat...the went round the outside of the city and across to several other islands and then down the Grand Canal back to San Marco. Other than no commentary it was great.

Then we had a coffee at Cafe Florian in the big piazza with live classical music from a trio. Little did we know until we got the bill that 6 E's each would be charged on top of the expensive coffee prices for the music. We could have had that for free just by sitting somewhere else.

We waited until after sunset to catch our boat- again filled with youngsters- back across the bay. Had a bit of a look at the lights of Venice as we pulled out to the water. An hour later we were back in our hotel in Cavallino-Treporti. Dinner was the final meat and cheese brought from home in our hotel.

Pictures at https://picasaweb.google.com/jsriet/Venice2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCK7sj_6Us62DcA&feat=directlink