Venice

Our trip to Venice turned out to be blessedly uneventful. Aside from a few fearful moments when we thought we might miss our connection in Istanbul, and Stephanie's experience of being crowded by the largeness of the passenger next to her, it was smooth sailing all the way through. We decided to arrive at our hotel in style and hired a water taxi from the airport, enjoying the fresh air and the sights of Venice as we traveled the Grand Canal.

Thanks to the great location of our lodgings, we got to pass right under the Rialto Bridge and had only a short walk from the dock where we got off.



Upon settling in, we immediately headed out to wander and decided to go ahead and take a boat to the island of Burano, known for its quaint and colorful houses. On the boat, we found ourselves sitting behind a couple of Russian women who were chatting away. I accidentally bumped one of them and said "Excuse me" in Russian, without thinking. The look of surprise on their faces was priceless.

On Burano, we enjoyed an afternoon of walking soaking up the scenery and found a great little restaurant on the canal to have our first Italian meal. Food was obviously a centerpiece of our trip and we often spent over an hour reading various menus and trying to decide which restaurant to visit, so as not to waste a single culinary opportunity.One strange feature of Burano was the herds of cats that we saw. They would periodically get into a scuffle, but continued to travel in large groups.



In the evening, we headed back into Venice and wandered the streets on our way back to the apartment we rented. In Venice, there's a new, intriguing view around every corner, truly beautiful.



The next morning, we discovered the joys of Italian breakfasts, which are basically comprised of dessert and some form of coffee. We had a hard time tearing ourselves away from the bakery windows to continue with sightseeing.


When we got to St. Mark's Basilica, we were disappointed to see that the church was half covered in scaffolding - this became something of a theme on our trip. Fortunately, there were usually angles where I could get the buildings without the scaffolding.


It seems that all of Italy's top sites are under repair at the same time. Even more frustrating, was that photos, even those without flash, were prohibited. This was also a common experience that sort of baffled us and we took the decision early on to become covert photographers, so if you see pictures that are not as clear, or are taken from odd angles, that's why.


Our next trip was to use our 24-hour tickets to take a boat to Murano, an island known for its glass blowing.

We spent a good part of the day looking at various shops and trying to spot glass blowing in progress.

It was in Murano that we bought the only souvenir of our trip - a hand-blown Christmas ornament.

We returned to Venice for a tour of the Doge's Palace, the historic seat of government for the Venetian republic.

The layout of the place wasn't clear to us, so we kind of made our own roundabout path, taking in works of art as well as the dungeons, from which only two men ever escaped. We wandered around until dinner, and then toured the city by night.

Our last day was spent taking in some culture and history, like these...

- at the Correr museum (it wasn't on our list of things to do, but it was included on our ticket to the Doge's palace, so why not?) and then just wandering through the city, visiting churches and such. Another surprising thing for us in Italy overall was the number of churches that charged admission - up to 5 euros. The tricky part was that you often couldn't tell what was inside before paying, so it could be a crap-shoot as to whether it was worth the cost. We pretty much decided not to visit these churches unless I had read something specific about seeing them in my research, although we did see a few.

One of the nicest things was that our hotel was located on the other side of the Rialto bridge from most of the main sites. So we got to cross it frequently, taking in some of the best views of the Grand Canal.

We decided not to spring the 80 euros for a gondola tour, although we did pay 50 cents to have one take us across the canal so that we could say we've been in one - and I think we enjoyed watching them more than we would have enjoyed being in one.


And so it was with some regret that we wheeled our luggage over 6 bridges to get to the train station for the continuation of our adventure on the other side of the country, in Cinque Terre.

Click here to continue to Cinque Terre: http://theroadmoretraveled-nicksblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/cinque-terre.html

Other cities:
Pisa: http://theroadmoretraveled-nicksblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/pisa.html
Florence: http://theroadmoretraveled-nicksblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/florence.html
Tuscany: http://theroadmoretraveled-nicksblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/tuscany.html
Rome: http://theroadmoretraveled-nicksblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/rome.html
Naples: http://theroadmoretraveled-nicksblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/naples.html
Sicily: http://theroadmoretraveled-nicksblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/sicily.html

Pictures:

Part 1

Italy 2010 JPGS

1-151: Venice
152-224: Cinque Terre
225-286: Pisa
287-384: Florence
385-606: Tuscany (Gropina, Siena, Massa Maritima, Chiusure, Montepulciano)
607-960: Rome

Part 2

Italy 2010Part 2 JPGS

962-1040: Pompei
1041-1054: Naples
1055-1106: Capri
1107-1129: Naples
1130-1168: Amalfi Coast
1169-1186: Naples
1187-1233: Sicily (From Catania to Puntalazzo)
1234-1282: Sicily (Mt.Etna and Puntalazzo)
1293-1354: Sicily (Enna and Agrigento)
1355-1391: Sicily (Catania)