Venice day Two

Day 53

30th August

Todays plans were to see St Mark’s square, the basilica, Rialto Bridge, The Peggy Guggenheim Museum and a Gondola ride! The Guggenheim museum is closed on Tuesdays so there went that plan pretty quick, which is a shame but we kept on track for everything else.

Rhys has had an obsession with finding good pizza served by the slice after seeing an episode of Everybody loves Raymond years ago so when we came across a buzzing little pizza place that sold by the slice we had to get in on it. I must say … it was probably one of the best slices of pizza I have ever had! Very tasty! We sat on the step and Rhys made friends with the birds by feeding them bits of crust haha! and now he thinks the birds are following him around europe because we see the same ones everywhere. Very cute.

After a quick bite we followed our map over the bridge to head to St Mark’s. Took some photos a long the way. There are so many art galleries in Venice and we found a really great one that painted political and social comments in cartoon style. It was very cool. In the center of the gallery was an amazing statue of Jason of the Argonauts cutting off Ronald McDonalds head haha. Very clever art, it got a lot of peoples interest.

We got to the square and the place was flooded, people were walking through the water laughing and playing, but its a pretty sad reality that Venice still hasn’t fixed the rising water levels. They have a plan that won’t be put into action for many years but it would be sad to think that some of these buildings will be badly damaged in the meantime!

The Basilicas first level with its beautiful mosaic floor was also flooded and we had to walk in on a platform. Again on entry they commented on my knees showing and I had to buy a shawl off them to cover the 2cm of my knee that was showing, seriously 2cm haha and again I got all angry about it… I really need to not take it personally haha but I saw about 15 girls and guys showing a lot more leg than me… urghh oh well

Then we wondered the streets and looked at all the shops, you could get lost in there for hours! Rhys found a chocolate shop and bought himself a chocolate granita and a few chocolates and biscuits. It looked so unappetising. I don’t really like chocolate all that much and there was that much cocoa in his drink … gross! haha I bought some fruit after to balance out the unhealthy chocolate snack.

We walked the the Rialto Bridge, well more stumbled upon since we had no idea where we where going haha. Rhys got 2 granitas along the way, for himself. Healthy kid.

Then we walked for longer and chilled in a park for a little while, which was nice and Rhys played around with my camera. He will be a pro by the time we get back!

We realized we had walked our way off the island so we jumped on a ferry and went back in the direction of our hotel to get a gondola ride since it was almost sunset.

We found our Gondola driver, he wanted to charge 100 euro since it was past 7pm, but  Rhys pointed out it was only 7:04 so he let us have the 80 euro standard charge. Woo! 

The ride was OK, it had to be done, but its a bit awkward. Sitting relaxing while this poor dude has to paddle you around … haha! The views were nice as we went though because the sun was going down.

We went straight out for dinner afterwards for our last pasta in Italy 😦

We walked to the square again so we could hear one of the many Orchestras play before we got some food. The restaurant we went to was good, I had a great lasagne. It was a nice way to end our time in Italy. Tomorrow we are off to Innsbruck since we were able to get our tickets mailed to our hotel here in Venice so I am excited to see the Austrian Tyrollean Alps wooo!