Day 26 Venice

This morning we had thought that we would start off together, but that didn’t end up happening. I waved Trish good bye and she was off into the big wide world all on her own. She will have to add what she did herself.

As for me…. I wanted to find a pharmacy to get some antihistamine pills. I managed that, got some clarityne which had an amazingly quick effect. The shop next door to the pharmacy had a wallet which I had been looking at in Florence but decided not to buy. Luckily it wasn’t open, but I thought deserved a visit later in the day. Then I started wandering in what I thought was the direction of the Rialto bridge. I kept following some signs and ended up at the Acadamia taxi station which was quite a way down the canal from the Rialto. Never mind, I had seen lots of cool little shops on the way and there weren’t that many people. The most unusual was a pet store which had kitty litter in the shop window, but also sold leather jackets - perfect combination lol. I found a university and figured there must be some free toilets in there and yes struck it lucky. Then walked a couple of blocks and there was a young girl playing music on her part filled water glasses. She was really good, so I found a seat at the base of the fountain so I could listen for a while. Then I noticed a patisserie shop on the left so got some plain focaccia. Sat down again then noticed a supermarket on the right, so went and got some cheese and tomato, sliced that up and had a really enjoyable lunch.

My walk to Rialto included some more interesting shops, I may have purchased a couple more items… The foot traffic got increasingly busy and really annoying. So I managed to go back to get my wallet, and then decided it was time to go back to our hotel for a wee rest. Trish and I had been in contact during the day, and she was on her way back as well.

Trisha’s day….
I started off on my own looking for a bookshop I’d found online when researching this trip, Liberia Accqua Alta. Found it easily and spent sometime wandering around it. The shelves are filled to overflowing and are stacked in many unusual ways including a bathtub. There are resident cats but didn’t see any of those. The back door exits straight into a canal. The are stacks of old books outside that are a popular place for photos. A helpful guy took a couple of photos of me on the book stack.

From the bookshop I made my way to the Rialto bridge, with many stops on the way to take photos of beautiful canals and interesting buildings . Not many people were about so it was easy walking.

After the bridge I just wandered the streets, found a shop selling just rubber ducks, lots of shops selling ornate masks and some beautiful handmade stationery shops. Also saw some building work Venice style where the builders rappel down the outside of a building above a canal to make measurements.

I managed to make my way unintentionally to the bus station and decided at that point to head back to our hotel. By this time the sun was out as were all the crowds and was quite tired by the time I got back having completed 15,000 steps.

So after resting for a couple of hours in the heat of the day we then went out on a reccee mission for our bus ride in the morning so took a water bus to where we are catching the Flix Bus. That seemed pretty easy, so then we took a water taxi through the grand canal just for a bit of sight seeing. We got off at the Ferrovia station so we could buy the metre long licorice that we had not seen anywhere else, some fruit at a supermarket and then back on the water. We got to the end of the line, didn’t get off where we should have and the boat then went in the reverse direction so we went back a stop. That wasn’t so bad as the new taxi had seats at the front so we got a lovely view coming into St Mark’s stop.

We had a great view of a beautiful sunset for the third night in a row.

Steps 22,037, temperature 25 degrees.Read more