Thursday, May 10
The hotel we choose for Venice is not in Venice, but about 20 Kilometers outside of Venice. I'm typing this at midnight on our grass patio that's "fenced" off from the next room by a dozen blooming rose bushes, a rosemary hedge, and some other plants. The only noise are the birds and my typing. It's wonderful.
It's a 20 minute walk to the train station, or a 3 minute ride, and then another 20 minutes or so to get into Venice proper. We arrived there around 11 or so, stayed till seven at night. Roamed around, took a few water bus rides to get to where we needed to go, etc. We visited the Rialto Bridge, Piazza San Marco, several churches and museums, and Palazzo Doge. We went up to the top of the bell tower at Piazza San Marco, where many of the pictures linked below were taken. The views were indescribable. While that sounds like a lot, it was a very relaxing day.
We wandered off the tourist area and hit some of the residential areas for lunch, picked up a couple loaves of fresh crusty bread, some sharp provolone, and some capicola de parma. All way better then anything you could possibly find back home. Sat out in a plaza on the steps of a church built in the 1100's.