Day 2 - Venice on our Own

This morning we slept late and just made it down for breakfast a half hour before they stopped serving.  Despite being in Italy, it was a typical breakfast buffet, with a few extra choices such as salmon and an assortment of cheeses you wouldn't see in the USA.  This hotel appears to get a lot of Americans.

After breakfast we met our tour guide, Tiziana .  She gave us some advice on what to see on our own and how to get around.  As I mentioned yesterday, we are not on the main Venice islands, but on an island just a bit south, called Giudecca.  Unlike the islands of Venice proper, where little walking bridges join them together, the canal separating Guidecca from the rest of Venice is about a quarter mile wide.  There are also a few other outlying  islands to the north.  One of those is where the Murano glass factory is located.

The hotel has a complementary shuttle to the main islands of Venice, so we took that around 11AM and walked around the streets and alleyways and bridges for several hours.  There are no cars on Venice, all the streets are pedestrian with occasional open squares and lots of bridges connecting all the little islands.  We walked across the Ponte Delle' Accadema bridge (left with Ray & I on it) and up to the largest bridge, Ponte de' Rialto (left, center).   The photo at the bottom is of the Grand Canal, from the Rialto bridge.   No museums or churches today, just a nice walk to admire the architecture and check out all the little shops.   And no, I didn't do any serious shopping today.  Only a nice little black leather purse.  Of course we stopped for gelato about midway on our walk.

When we got back to the pier we had a long wait for the next shuttle, so we had a late afternoon dinner at a cafe on the Canal Della Giudecca.   Ray had lasagna and I had veal with mushrooms and a broiled vegetable platter.  We each had a glass of the house red, which tasted like Chianti.   The food was OK, but not great.  Tiziana had warned us that Venice is known for the beauty of it's architecture, not for it's food. 

After a rest back in our room, we went down to meet our tour group for a welcome drink & briefing.  in addition to the planned stops, Tiziana offered us the option of adding a few other stops on our tour.   I think we will take her up on two of them - a gondola ride tomorrow and a stop in Pisa on the way to Florence on Friday. 

We are skipping dinner tonight.   Our afternoon meal was plenty.  After the briefing we took a walk along the banks of Giudecca and enjoyed the night light of Venice across the Canal Della Giudecca.  Tomorrow our official touring begins.