Venice

We sail into Venice to disappointing rain and are grateful to have, indelible in our memories, the sight of Venice in all its glorious splendor under kinder, brighter skies.  We disembark early, take the vaporetto from San Basilio to Rialto and miraculously find our slippery way to the hotel where we unceremoniously dump our luggage.  We take off, once again boarding the vaporetto down the Grand Canal, this time to Piazza San Marco.  Not even the chilling rain dampens our spirits as Venice cannot fail to take your breath away.  First order of business, buy tacky "I Heart Venice" sweatshirt to ward off the unexpected cold.

As second time visitors to Venice we can delight in discovering its "other" treasures and leave the fantastic but time-consuming museums, Basilica and Doge's Palace to the first-timers and so we find ourselves in Murano, poking our heads into every glass factory and shop and negotiating the price of an enchanting chandelier we have no intention of buying (at least not today).  We then leave the canal side and enter an unknown - and almost deserted - world of stately palazzos and wide car-free streets where scores of red, yellow and pink houses with green shutters sport tiny gardens adorned with some sort of Murano glass ornament or other.

Back in San Marco we score great pizza for lunch and later, after a walk around the San Marco portico, gelato and thick hot chocolate.  As the rain abates and the sun timidly pokes its rays on La Serenisima, the crowds spread out and we lose ourselves in Venezia.  Following a map to get anywhere is an exercise in futility, following a whim and finding a decaying, yet perfect palazzo hidden away at the end of a street so narrow that we need to walk single file, is incomparable.

We've walked through four of the six Venetian sestieri (districts) and Murano and with wet, aching feet, we plop down for a nice pasta dinner near our hotel.  A glass of slightly fizzy, sweet red Fragolino and Venezian biscotti are the perfect end to our day. The only task left is to learn the path from the hotel to the vaporetto station so tomorrow morning we can board the Alilaguna for our last canal ride out to the lagoon and on to Marco Polo airport.  Arrivederci Italia bella.

Till our next adventure...