Sunday, April 3rd-- Venice

I LOVE Venice. It was all that I hoped for and more. It is hard to describe but I will try....

The buildings are old and the plaster has fallen off many of the buildings, leaving the brick structure underneath peaking through. So much prettier than either of coverings alone. There are balconies everywhere with flowers boxes and ivy hanging from them. The streets are very narrow, only enough room for for two people across, usually in opposite directions. They wind around, up and down over the canals, with side streets randomly shooting out. The building are all about 4 stories tall, so there is a uniform height overall. Canals are *everywhere* with steps going up and coming back down in a graceful arch across the water.

Going through the canals are, of course, the gondolas, but also motor boats here and there. There is no driving here so the canals are their roads. We saw boats carrying wine, fresh fruit and vegetables, lumber, and even cranes. There are garbage boats carting away many black bags, police boats with officers using their radar guns to give speeding tickets, fire boats, and even traffic lights. Perhaps most interesting to me, were the construction boats with cranes and power tools on them. We actually got to see one working. Each time it got a load, the boat would tip somewhat precariously with the weight. When is dropped its load, the boat would tip way back the other way. Talk about motion sickness!

I think a two or three day trip to Venice is great. I felt sorry for all the people that were day tripping it here--they missed the best part of Venice. Its ambiance. On our first day here we started at the Friari Church. It was wonderful to see great artwork in the setting that it was designed for. I did not realize what a big difference that could make. My favorite was The Assumption of Mary, by Titian. Absolutely gorgeous!

After the Friari, we went to the Academia, an art gallery of Venetian artists. It was nice, but I would not highly recommend it. This is different than its more famous cousin, The Academia in Florence.

After these two stops, we decided to try gelato. Big mistake. It is wonderful! I was very surprised as I had tried gelato in the U.S. before and found it nothing to write home about. Italian gelato IS worth writing home about. I won't go into the details and tease you, but we all decided we would rather skip a meal and use the money for more gelato. It will be a daily treat for sure.

Last on our list was a cruise on the Grand Canal. Now that sounds romantic, but in reality, we used the public bus, which is the Vaporeto boat. Tip: definitely buy all day passes. The tickets are about $9 one way. A 48 hour pass cost us $30. We used it a lot!

Being quite clever, we took the Vaporetto one stop past the train station and then got on another one going the opposite direction and took the lovely seats outside of the boat that get filled at the train station. We listened to our audio tour from our ipods that we downloaded from Rick Steves. (If you are ever coming to Europe, buy his books. They are fabulous, save you a lot of money, and give you great insider tips for touring.)

The audio tour was fabulous and well timed with the boat ride. It described the history of Venice, what the beautiful buildings along the canal had been used for and how the canal had worked as the major trading center of Europe. Venice was so important that the Adriatic Sea was simply called the Venetian Sea.

The weather on our trip has been lovely. Warm and sunny, perfect. I definitely would not want to tour Venice in the rain. It would lose so much of its charm. Because the weather was so nice, we stayed on the boat all the way to the island of Lido and then back to the Academia.

We finished our day eating pizza along the canal at a super cute cafe. It is nice to eat here as the waiters will not bring you the check until you ask for it. Once you are seated, the seat is yours for as long as you want. It was a beautiful end to a beautiful day. I truly feel like I am in Italy now. :~)