Day 11 - Exploring Venice

We're up early listening to the church bells of Venice. So we shower and dress. At 8 Cristina delivers our breakfast cart. Coffee, fruit tarts, toastt & cereal. Just enought to give us a kickstart for the morning. After breakfast we're off to St. Marks Bacilica.

It's before 9 when we get there and we have the square to ourselves. We walk through the square, past the bell tower which is open, but fenced off for reinforcement. The line to the Doge'z Palace is virtually non-existant so we decide to take the tour and we're glad we did. Two hours later we exit after seeing the private quarters, council quarters, the prision and walking over the "Bridge of Sighs". It was a great tour.

We leave St. Mark's ready to wander the streets and alleys of Venice. With the assistance of a good map, we find our way back to the Rialto, then walk through the farmer's market where we munch on fresh fruit cups. What's Venice without a (quick) walk through the fish market! It's only noon, but the fish stands are beginning to close. Locals buying their dinner and pulling their little shopping carts behind are are mingled with the tourist's. Wandering through the streets of the Rialto neighborhood we find a cafe with cold beer and pizza. The pizza's always cheap, but the beers - ah, who cares, we're on vacation. We're served by an Asian waitress and after a bit more observation we realize we must be in the Chinese section of Venice.
After lunch we take a traghetto, or public gondola across the canal. There are only 3 bridges on the Grand Canal. But there are 7 Tragetto stops used mostly by locals to get quickly across the canal. The streets in this area are much wider. We to head toward the train station and noticed there are alot of police standing around in riot gear. Mmmm, don't know what's going on but we decide to cross over the Canal at the station and then head back to the apartment for a siesta. Eating gelato is tiring.

This evening we head back to St. Marks before dinner. The crowds have thinned, but it's still quite busy. We're wearing long pants and jackets and we're glad we are 'cause the wind on this side of the island is quite cold. After a couple more photo ops we decide that neither of us are hungry enough to eat out so we head back to our neighborhood where we find a corner market to purchase some local wine, bread and cheese. Yummy. Yummy. Yummy. Tomorrow morning will come quickly. Time to head back to our place, nibble on our groceries, pack up and hit the hay.

Tomorrow .... Switzerland.