My Italy Diary: Venice, Part 2

We slept late this morning and ate breakfast of croissants and coffee in our room. It rained last night, but lucky for us, the sun came out this morning and stayed for the rest of the day. We explored a bit and then made our way to the Rialto Bridge and the market, Campo San Marco, the Correr Museum and the Doge Palace. The Correr Museum is tucked in a corner of Saint Mark’s Square, we spent a few hours becoming acquainted with the history of Venice, Bellinin’s “Crucifixion”, and lots of religious paintings and weapontry.

We stopped for a sandwich in the square, wanting to soak up the sun and the sights of fellow tourists as they stopped to photograph each other surrounded by pigions. We had a couple of cokes and an absolutely wonderful sandwich of prociutto, brie and aruguala, followed by a glass of white wine. There was a group of musicans playing in the square in front of several restaurants, with a very talented young boy who played the accordian. It was only after we got the bill that we realized the cokes were as expensive as the wine (€7,90) and €9,00 for the music.

After lunch we took a relaxing gondola ride through Venice. Our Gondolier shared with us that there are currently 65,000 people living in Venice. Just 15 years ago there were 120,000. He expressed the difficulty of living in Venice with flooding that begins in November.

We spent the rest of the day at the Doge’s Palace and window shopping at the Rialto market, sharing wine in a small pub, and dining on pizza. All in all, a great day.

I am in love with Venice.