11 May-Venice

   What a fabulous day we had.  At 9am we had a tour with a local guide, Elizabeth, showing us some back streets and explaining many facts about the area; how Venice is sinking, the deterioration, and the difficulties, challenges, and expenses of living here.  The people are amazing.  The tour ended outside St. Mark's Basilica in the Piazza.  There is fresh, clean, clear water coming from fountains all over town.  We also see decorative cisterns all over town that in years past they collected rain water, of course they don't use these now. This arch is the ancient entrance to Marco Polo's home.    

    From here we had a great tip from Rick Steves to go check our back and get a pass to not stand in the very long line but go directly into the church, which is exactly what we did!  We also had an audio tour on our iPods that took us through the church, museum, and other exhibits, it was really wonderful to have this audio tour even though it took us a few tries to know we were pausing the iPod at the correct spot.  Again, no photos are allowed from the inside so I cannot send any of today.  I bought postcards to scan for my digital album of the trip. The city is a hub of activities all day but especially on the streets in the morning as young, strong men roll huge carts off supplies in by hand from the boats. Often we see what we can only think is a traffic jam of boats.   

    It was warming up and it is definitely humid today.  I am so glad we did not come later in the season.  As soon as we picked up the backpack we had gelato (ice cream).  That refreshed us and we spent some time walking around just looking at various things and ending up at a Venetian glass shop that Rolinka recommended.  They had a lot of lovely items and I got a few small gifts to bring home.  Believe me I will pack fewer clothes next time.  Three outfits and maybe and extra shirt and the rest of the room is for souvenirs. After this we decided to find something to eat. 

   We are not too hungry but it is close to 2pm so we better eat.  We passed up many options and ended up back at San Marcos (St. Mark Square) and ate at the Florian Restaurant, what ambience!  It is one of the three cafes on the Piazza that plays music and it was very special to sit there and listen to the music watching the people and Piazza life.  There is a cover charge of E$6. each and with any order you apparently get olives and potato chips (just what I need, more salt).  I had quiche and John had a salami sandwich.  John's first drink was a mimosa and mine was a Rossini (champagne and strawberry juice).  When we had a second drink we both had the Rossini.  The mimosa was pretty tart.  This was a large price to pay (E$98) for such food but it was the experience and we simply enjoyed it very much.  Now with full stomach's and souvenirs in had we headed back to the hotel.  We relaxed and reflected on all we had seen and eagerly headed out to meet the group for our gondola ride at 6:30pm.

   We had four gondolas for our 40 minute trip.  It was not so romantic,  but a lot cheaper than renting our own ride, which would have been much more.  It was enjoyable.  Now we are back at the hotel with a couple of take away sandwiches and the bottle of Bardolino Chiaretto wine we bought the other day at a rest stop, and some biscotti Veneziani.  It is time to pack for departure tomorrow morning at 8:30 am to head to Florence. I was happy to finally reach Deb by phone today too.