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  • Day 11

    Day 11 - Mon, Apr 29 - off to Venice

    April 29, 2019 in Italy ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    With our now finely-honed military precision, we loaded the van and headed out right on time at 8:30 a.m. with our destination being Venice. It's the first day after the two-week school holiday - the traffic was fierce which put us behind schedule, but Simone is always in contact with those we will be meeting at our next stop, so everybody's schedule got adjusted accordingly. After enduring rain, traffic and having to slow down for an accident (can't believe we haven't seen more of them, given the aggressive driving style of Italian drivers), we finally arrived in Venice and rendezvoused with our expert local guide, Chiara.

    First some information about Venice.....courtesy of Wikipedia.....
    Venice, called in Italian: Venezia is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges.] The islands are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers.

    The lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, and artwork Venice is known for several important artistic movements—especially during the Renaissance period—has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi.

    With Chiara in the lead, we piled into a water taxi that sped across the lagoon to our destination of the island of Burano. The houses here are painted in a riot of bright colours. We enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the island and then stopped for lunch at a little restaurant that specializes in seafood. Another happy and full crowd....

    Just a few doors down there is a shop that specializes in the type of lace that is produced by an ever increasingly smaller number of women on the island of Burano. We got to watch Anna demonstrate the technique. There are 7 different stitches, and a women will specialize in only one of those stitches. The lace work is incredibly intricate but fiercely expensive because of the 100s of hours required to make even a small piece of lace.

    We jumped back on the water taxi and went back to the old part of Venice. One of the islands, Murano, is known for its glass making. We went to a store that sells Murano glass and has a small demonstration glass furnace. The artisan whipped up a vase in about 2 minutes and a rearing horse in about 1 minute. Incredible!! We did a little shopping there and headed off again with Chiara.

    She showed us St. Mark's Cathedral (where the relics of St. Mark lie), the Doge's Palace and the magnificent buildings that surround St. Mark's Square. We saw the iconic gondolas on the canals, the Bridge of Sighs, the Rialto Bridge, and the bridge where the prostitutes used to display their human assets from the windows! She took us on a meandering path through the maze of tiny streets and alleys, which often opened up onto pretty squares with a central fountain or well.

    The Bridge of Sighs is an enclosed bridge is made of white limestone, has windows with stone bars, passes over the Rio di Palazzo, and connects the New Prison to the interrogation rooms in the Doge's Palace.

    The Rialto Bridge is the oldest of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy.

    Eventually, we got to the train station where we caught the People Mover train that took us back to where Simone was parked. We are staying at a Best Western hotel - feels very North American! We had dinner at a nearby "western" style restaurant called Galloway. It was nice to see familiar things like Western sandwiches and hamburgers and fries on the menu. No pasta tonight!!!

    Tomorrow, we will have the morning to explore the city on our own, and then we are off to Assisi.
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