Ah, Venice! How I love you. You are so much better in person than in pictures, I swear. I promise to visit you again one day because you are THAT cool! Today we woke up early and checked out the Rialto Market, the large farmer's and fish market in town. The fish DIDN'T smell like stinky ocean ass either. Yeah, win! We bought a package of strawberries and ate them for breakfast while standing on the Rialto bridge. It was a great setting, and the berries were delicious! Also, we were out so early that the day trippers hadn't even arrived yet, so the bridge wasn't overcrowded with tourists! Double yeah!
Today was our big attraction day. We first saw the Doge's Palace, which had been around for forever. We did the "Secret Itineraries" tour. I honestly didn't care which tour we did, as long as we got to go across the "Bridge of Sighs" or "Whispers" as the tour guide often said. We got to see the upper class prisons as well as the torture chamber.....oooh, and we also got to stand inside Casanova's cell. Pretty cool, eh?
This place is massive....the Palace, not the cell. We got to learn all about the Doge (kind of like a Pope or mayor of Venice), the Chancellor, the Inquisitors 3, the Great Council, and the Council of 10. These Italians were crazy about keeping secrets. They had scribes making copies of all documents but the scribes were illiterate. We finally got to the Bridge of Sighs, and sorry to say, I sighed to myself because the thing was pretty much covered by a huge Toyota scaffolding. It was SO sad. WHY?! I guess they're doing renovations and Toyota is paying for them, but damn, it was disappointing. The prisons for the common folk were your basic cells; small, dirty, and depending on the season, unbearably cold or hot.
We then went right next door to the Basilica. Gorgeous mosaics. We were smart and ordered a pass for 1 euro each to skip waiting in the mile long line. The mosaics are along the entire ceiling and walls and contain 24 karat gold and gem stones so it glistens. However, I couldn't take pictures....didn't stop any of the other tourists, but I figured I'd be a good shiksa and not piss off anyone in a Catholic church. I'm not a huge church person, so we did the walk through.
After St. Mark's Square, we high tailed it to the Guggenheim. We got to take a Traghetto, or a poor man's gondola. You share it with whoever else wants to take it and it's super short, probably a minute total. You only need to take it across the grand canal. It cost 50 cents! What a bargain. The Venetians stand when you go on these, but no one on my boat was standing....sad face. I should've just been a brave soul and done it by myself. Oh well. The Guggenheim was meh. It had an outdoor sculpture garden and a nice view of the canal, but I'm not a fan of art....er, I'm a fan of art when I haven't seen a million other pieces in the same day. I mean, I live in NYC, the city with the Met, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, etc. I can see art whenever I want. I guess the best part of the museum was that Peggy G. was buried there.
We got some delicious seafood noodles for dinner (because Venice is famous for its seafood) and afterwards, set out to find a gondola. Yes, I got Aaron to agree to it. We couldn't find ANY at 10 PM at night. I was really bummed out. No gondola trip in Venice?! we walked towards St. Mark's Square as one last attempt to find a gondolier, an idea that Aaron didn't like because it's the tourist area and the gondoliers can up the price due to lack of product, but lucky for us, we found a nice guy with a gondola who spoke excellent English and took us through the canals late at night. If you ever go to Venice, please do this at night. Also, do it at the end of your trip. I really felt like it was best way to cap off our Venice experience, getting lost on the bridges, and then getting to look under them at the end. Going during the day, you are on parade like an animal at the zoo. For real, I took tons of pictures of random people in gondolas and there was NO romance for these people. It was very expensive, but worth it, even to Aaron. He and I both recommend a gondola ride if you can afford to do it.
For a nightcap, we went to Harry's bar which is only one block form our hotel. Why this bar? Because it is the birthplace of the bellini! Delicious prosecco and peach juice married together to make one of my favorite drinks! It was small and the prices were steep, but I live to do things that can only be done in one particular place in the world. This was a damn special drink and the atmosphere reminded us of Peter Luger's steak house in NY.
Tomorrow we leave for Florence....
Oh and gelato flavors today?
Stina- We tried to go to the "best gelateria" in Venice which was a pain in the ass to get to, completely on the opposite side of the city, only to get there and it was closed....so I was mad! We found a nearby place and I got peach which was excellent and later that night I got vanilla from Gran Caffe Lavena in St. Mark's Square. The vanilla was so creamy.
Aaron- chocolate chip and tiramisu
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