Wednesday--Our Last Full Day in Venice

After breakfast we headed to San Marco Square in order to go inside St. Mark’s Basilica. Being adamant Rick Steves’ fans, we used his trick to bypass the line. Inside, while busy, it did not seem crowded enough for pickpocketers—Rick Steves’ promised the Basilica to be the most dangerous place in town. From the basilica, we also went into the Treasury (entirely not worth the €3—next time I would try the Golden Alterpiece area for €2,50 instead) and the San Marco Museum. The museum houses the original horses, whose copies are mounted on the basilica. The horses alone are well worth the €4 admission fee.

After leaving the San Marco, we walked to the north shore of Venice, grabbing some sandwiches along the way. We decided to spend the afternoon touring Burano and Torcello. We took a vaporetto from Fondamenta Nuove to Murano. We did not really linger there other then walking over to a different vaporetto stop to go to Burano. Another quick switch there, and we were in Torcello. On this route, the longest trip was between Murano and Burano—about 30 minutes of a very pleasant boat ride.


Only about 20 people now live on the island of Torcello, even though one time before the 14th century that number reached 50,000. Two churches and a bell tower is all that remains from those glory days. We looked into the smaller of the churches, and walked around main church of Santa Maria Assunta, which had some amazing mosaics from around the 12th century. After about an hour on Torcello, we caught the 5 minute ride on the vaporetto back to Burano.

Burano’s amazingly colored little houses are cute as a button. I cannot imagine that the locals enjoy tourists taking photos of their front doors, but it is simply irresistible. Thankfully the locals must feel relatively safe, because in the heat of the afternoon they leave their front doors open, covering them with a heavy curtain to block the sun.



Since Burano is known for its handmade lace, I couldn’t resist looking around a few lace shops. Most sold very similar beautiful items, sometimes more of what I would consider embroidery rather then lace. One shop had a large display of antique lace—exquisite.

After returning to Venice, we headed to the south side of town for a light dinner. We grabbed some “cicetti” (tapas) and white wine for a light cheap dinner at Enoteca Gia Schiavi on the San Trovaso Canal near the Accademia bridge. The sun was setting, so we walked to the water by the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute and sat “on the pier” until it was almost dark watching the water change colors and the lights go on for the palazzos.

Along the San Marco Canal At Night

Doge's Palace and Laundry

Today we decided to sleep in. And we did... except that around 9:30 (we were already up anyway) we got a call from the hotel reception checking if we were planning to go to breakfast (which was supposed to be till 10). I guess they did not want us to go undernourished.

After breakfast we walked to San Marco Square and went inside the Doge's Palace. Visiting the Doge's Palace included walking inside the Bridge of Sighs!

After a rather odd lunch (where I struggled with an enormous piece of pizza while sitting on the pavement by the Grand Canal) we walked around a bit passing through Campo San Polo and Campo del Frari, and then went back to the hotel.


Our goal before dinner was to do some laundry. Yesterday we have investigated a laundromat very close to our hotel. Nick had to wash all of his pants, so he had wearing his swim suite to the laundromat.

Doing laundry in Venice, besides being rather expensive, is also complicated. There is one central automated paying station where you pay for everything (soap, washer, dryer--there is no attendant). So there is a strict sequence to everything--e.g. select the temperature before you close the door, add soap before you pay, you have minutes to push start on the machine after you paid for the load, etc. On top of this it turned out that out of 4 dryers, only 2 had heat working. Of course we found out the hard way--by first running through a drying cycle of cold air.

On To Venezia

Bon Giorno, Florence

We arrived in Florence yesterday afternoon. Our hotel, Hotel Maxim, was a bit hard to find because, as it turns out, the buildings are numbered in two different ways, and we were not following the right numbers.


At least yesterday, it seemed like everyone in Florence was shopping. I can smell the leather goods just by walking down the street. As if the number of shops in the streets were not sufficient, we also discovered an underground tunnel connecting the train station with other parts of town that is full of shops.


A bit disorganized, we never did buy tickets to the Uffizi ahead of time, but we decided to try our luck anyway, and lucky we were! We got in line around 4:30pm, and in less then 15 minutes we were climbing the stairs towards the galleries.


We will see if we are as lucky getting into the Accademia today.

Visting the Vatican

Today we spent the greater part of the day at the Vatican. We visited the Vatican Museum not once, but twice!

We wondered through various rooms slowly making our way to the Sistine Chapel.

After spending some significant time in the Sistine Chapel we exited and found ourselves back in the museum's vestibule. However, the goal was to exit in such as a way as to bypass the line and the second security check for entering St. Peter's Cathedral. So... we took a break and grabbed some very mediocre but filling pasta at the self-serve cafeteria. Then we started the pilgrimage to the Sistine Chapel again together with the tourist crowds just entering the museum. Only this time, we took all the shortcuts.

Our second exit we more successful, and we were able to go inside St. Peters without standing in a long line out in the sun.


It was hard to spend any time in the St. Peter's Square because there is no shade, but we came out for a little while to enjoy Bernini's colonnade.

There are 2 spots marked on the square that indicate the center of the circle for each colonnade. Each colonnade has 4 rows of columns and they line up as one when you stand in the circle.

Here I am standing in the special spot:

View from the special spot--i.e. the center of the circle of one of the 2 colonnades.

View of the center colonnade from about 10 yards away from the special spot:

First Day In Rome

Our two major achievements today were visiting the Pantheon and the Colosseum.