garyandpearl

After a long flight and a good rest, we set out to explore Venice. Day 1 started by us figuring out the train. A group of school kids met us as we arrived at the station and practiced their English on us! On to see St Mark’s Basilica (his body was stolen from Alexandria, Egypt and supposedly buried there in the 9th century).

We took an elevator ride up the bell tower to see a fantastic view of the city.

Doges palace is next to the Basilica: the Doges were the rulers in Venice for about 1000 years.

We opted to skip the tour of the palace and began a hunt to find the Libreria Acqua Alta, a bookstore that stores its books in boats to protect them when the waters rise.

On our way winding through many nooks and crannies of back streets, we found gelato and a fantastic shop that makes hand made masks.

Our journey continued with a visit to the Santa Maria church, a music museum where we saw stringed instruments that were centuries old, and then we splurged on a gondola ride through the Grand Canal and smaller side canals. Our gondolier hummed a few notes and gave us information on the various houses as we passed by, including the hotel where George Clooney was married. It was very relaxing and I recommend it!!

After a supper of various local tapas and cheese, we enjoyed a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at a beautiful concert hall. The musicians dressed in Baroque costumes including the wigs!! This is Vivaldi’s home town, so it was great to see a live performance of this Joachim family favourite.

A sampling of cannolis ended off the day and we headed back to our hotel with well over 20,000 steps on our Fitbits.