Venice is now one of my favorite places on earth, even after seeing one too many churches and scribbling lots of notes. For the past two days the class has been traveling around Venice, and we’ll have a short day here tomorrow before heading back to Orvieto.
Yesterday was spent half traveling and half touring. We had about a five hour bus ride to our hotel and then a quick boat ride to the city. Venice is a car-less city. How neat is that? To get into the city, we took a little party barge type boat that acts like a bus. You buy a ticket, stop at all the boat stops, get off where you’d like, and then it circles around again.
Arrival in Venice.
Our touring yesterday was going to start with San Marco (famous cathedral), but we missed it by one group. They closed right after they let the big group before us go in. Then we visited the Rialto and saw the Grand Canal (big river through the city). Since Venice is known for its seafood (ha), I found a Rick Steves restaurant for us with seafood. We went to Trattoria Bepi, known for good seafood. Everyone seemed to like it a lot. I thought the seafood was…subpar. I understand, I biased. The shrimp were the size of a dime.
This morning’s touring was filled with lots of churches. I’m not going to name them all because by the end, they all started to look the same. The most memorable one was San Marco (the one we tried yesterday). I had to tie my scarf around my legs to cover my knees. I wasn’t about to buy a cloth to cover them for one euro. Nevertheless, the church was beautiful.
Jane and I...knees covered. For free. (Sorry it's a bit blurry.)
For lunch and dinner, we picked up sandwiches on the go. And today we did a gondola ride! It was definitely worth the price we bargained for. We got to see Venice from a different perspective, and our gondolier was great.
The night in Venice ended outside in the picturesque Piazza San Marco, listening to the grand piano music playing for all the rich folks dining on the outside patios. So romantic and beautiful. Oh, what a night.
