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.