Wednesday in Venice

We started the next day bright and early with a 9:30 am tickets for the Academia Museum. This museum houses some of the most famous Italian painters such as Bellini and Tintoretto. We found a Rick Steven tour book of Venice in our hotel, which turned out to be god send because it gave a detailed tour of the museum explaining the paintings understandable.

We took a gondola ride after the museum, which was slightly over priced but we were realizing that everything in Venice was overpriced. Our gondolier told us about some of the most famous buildings as he paddled us through the Grand Canal and along the smaller canals. He showed us the house where Marco Polo use to live. While he paddled through the canals he hummed a tune to himself. It would have been quite romantic if Tim was there, but it was just us girls on the gondola

We stopped to try Italian pastries after the gondola ride. I tried one that was covered in peanuts and dipped in chocolate. It was amazing of course. Andrea's pastry was even better though. She got a green pastry was covered with pistachio nuts and chocolate pieces. It was incredible. We walked to St. Mark’s square again to eat our packed lunches by the sea. I switched it up and had a tuna fish sandwich instead of peanut butter. After lunch everyone was enjoying the sun so much nobody wanted to leave, so we all took a little siesta by the sea.

After our nap we decided we should get up and walk around. We walked all the way to the other side of the Island, which actually is not that far because we learned through our randoming wandering you can’t really get lost in Venice. If you try and get lost, you usually just end up back at St. Mark’s Square. This was perfect for our group, because we prefered to wander than be glued to map looking for streets. There are not streets signs in Venice so maps were just directional guidelines if anything. Along our walk we past an old man on a rowing machine. It looked like he was trying to simulate rowing on the water because the machine was facing the water.

We ended up back at St. Mark’s square, surprise surprise and took a Vap to a San Giogino Church which was a famous, picturesque church that we spotted across the Grand Canal from St. Mark’s Square. After the San Giogino we went back to the St. Mark’s Square and visited the museum in St. Mark’s Basilica. The Basilica was really beautiful because everything in the basilica was mosaic. The walls were covered with mosaic frescos and the floors were intricate marble designs. I have never seen so many different colors of marble in my life. The museum showcased a bunch of religious artifacts and information about the how all the mosaics were created. The museum also had a look out with a view of St. Mark’s Square.

After the museum we rode the Vaparetti along the Grand Canal. We rode the Vap all the way from the bottom of the Grand Canal to the top getting a full tour of the famous water way. Our Rick Steve’s tour book came in quite handy by giving us a play by play of all the important palaces along the Canal. It amazed me how old some of these buildings were, even though Venice is slowly sinking these building still stand regally against the crowded water ways.

We stopped back at the hotel after the Grand Canal tour to grab warmer clothes because it was started to get misty and chilly. Our search for reasonably priced restaurant was not turning up any options that met our table cloth and ambient lighting requirement we had created in Rome. I remember a restaurant that we had walked in morning, but we had done about million things, so I really had to jog my memory until I remembered that the restaurant was by the Academia Museum. My memory served me correct and we instantly decided on this restaurant after looking at the prices. We learned that a pasta dish under 10 euros was a good deal in Venice. I decided to try something different at dinner and ordered a Venetian fish speciality. I can’t remember the Italian name but the dish had cuttle fish and squid. The cuttle fish has ink so the fish and squid was served in the black sauce made from the ink. I told the waiter I was not afraid and once I got past the black sauce I really enjoyed by dish. I got the adventuresome award for the day with my order.