Yesterday was a day of exploring Venice and getting our bearings in this city of getting lost!! We started off by trying to make our way back to the Vaporetto stop near the apartment but of course failed and walked around in circles. We finally found another Vaporetto stop and hopped on to go to San Marco (as you do…and as do 50 million other tourists!!).
We went to San Marco Duomo with its golden mosaics and then spent time in the Doges Palace which was also very interesting. But the nicest part of the day is that the sun was shining very determinedly and the warmth was trying hard to push through the iciness. There are people parading everywhere in their Carnevale costumes, it is fantastic. Never a dull moment really. They are young and old, fat and thin and all decked out with masks and extraordinary costumes. Marvellous really. I think it reaches its pinnacle at the weekend.
This is such a nice apartment that it makes staying here a treat specially after the very basic place we stayed in Florence where my room smelt of mould. So we came back to the apartment earlyish, stopped at a Salumeria on the way back to pick up some cheese and Salami for lunch and had lunch back here. That was good and gave us some downtime.
Then later we went out again to find a place to eat. We sat down in the first restaurant, looked at the menu and realised that there weren’t dishes under 40 Euro. We nearly freaked and then had to explain that we weren’t staying. It was hard particularly as the waiter insisted on thinking we were saying we wanted the menu in English…humiliating!!! Tull had to put up with my bad mood until we found another place to eat that was acceptable. We had a nice meal of cuttlefish cooked in the ink. It is a signatory dish in Venice and absolutely delicious.
Then home to bed. I get woken in the morning by people in their boats outside my window, how lovely is that. Also a Skype call from Sally and Gordon this morning which was lovely.
Today we are going off to some islands to get a feel for them. We have to work out how to use the Vaporettos to get to them all and between them. More later then