Hapsburg - Renaissance Trip - Day 25 - Tornare A Venezia (Return to Venice)

(Happiness is fast internet at lodging that allows you to upload your pictures efficiently!)

Wife and I decided that we really needed to give Venice another day. We very much wanted to wander around at our own pace and go to areas that were not on the major tourist trail. We were very successful with the former and only partly successful with the later. I say partly because at least in the areas of Venice that we went to (and we covered a pretty wide swath) it was pretty hard to not take a turn here or there and find yourself in the tourist maelstrom. But I think we got a full flavor of the city.

We left our rental at around 8:30 to find ourselves locked in by the big wooden gates. There had been a big wedding at the facility the night before but we were the only ones overnight. Then during our ride we ran into some sort of walk-a-thon and a billion bicyclists. In spite of all that and fighting mightily with the ticket dispensing machine, we made it to our train on time. Other than that our day went very smoothly as we wandered around Venice. The train back was packed (Sunday Evening returning folks) but we had figured out the system and had gotten on the train as soon as it was available.  Then we ran into some gigantic, all town market that had cars parked all over the roads and people walking with packages and crazy trying to get out of roads and parking - and remember we are in the Italian countryside where roads are very narrow to begin with!

It was a good day.  We were very glad we did it. But our heart belongs to Verona :)

Pictures

Miscellaneous Street and Canal Scenes

The Gondola Repair Yard

Taking the Water Bus

Today's Gastronomic Highlights

A 'Real' Hot Chocolate

(It was like a glass of molten chocolate. Haven seen this since we visited Alexis is Spain in 2000)

We ate lunch in a touristy part of town because I didn't want to get tied to a reservation but ended up with a decent place thanks again to the TripAdvisor App.

The highlights were this antipasti of fresh sardines and onions.

It was very much like the dish I had yesterday with the herring. The fish was cold and the onions had a sweet-sour thing going on while the polenta was hot, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside

And this looks pretty ordinary but it was a lobster pasta and it hit all the notes I love about pasta in Italy - simple with a taste that is unremarkable to begin with but builds and builds through the meal.

And now how about some videos

Bliss - Absolute Bliss

Listening to 'really good' classical music in a somewhere piazza for 40 minutes

And a slice of life on the canals