Monday, May 3—Getting Around Venice

Because yesterday had not been very productive in terms of touring Venice, we were determined to see some of the sites today. But the first order of business was to change hotels. We packed up everything and headed out for the Hotel Al Piava. After a couple of predictable miscues, we found the hotel we had booked yesterday and even though our room wasn't ready yet, the owner was happy to let us leave our luggage, and they promised to deliver it to our room when it was available! How nice was that?

The forecast was for showers and it was overcast as we headed for and got on vaporetti, using our 72-hour passes, and toured up and down the Grand Canal. The vaporetti is like a subway or bus system, and you can get on and off as you wish. It was a good way of getting a sense of the main attractions of Venice and where they are in relation to one another. By late morning, the sun broke out and the rest of the day was gorgeous—sunny, but the air was fairly cool, with the highs reaching about 72 degrees F. (Don't ask me how that converts to Celsius!)

We got off at the stop at the train station and walked a little ways and had lunch. Then we boarded the vaporetti again and took the Rick Steves-guided tour of the Grand Canal by reading his book along the way. When we finished that, we got off at San Marco Square and bought “Museum-Plus” passes to get us into the Correr Museum, to give us an overview of the history of Italian life and art, as well as the Dolges Palace, where the dukes of Venice had lived and where the government of Venetia, this whole region of Italy, carried out its functions.

The Correr Museum was interesting, even though we're not huge museum fans. But after about two hours of reading all the plaques, and walking and standing on terrazzo floors, we were beat. It was about six o'clock when we got back to the neighborhood of our new hotel, and we found a place to sit and relax and share a half carafe of red wine. That was a welcome break! My dogs were barking! Then it was off to dinner, which again got us lost for about a half hour, trying to find a restaurant that our hotel owner, Mariella, had recommended. But dinner was great and we actually found our way back to our hotel pretty seemlessly. Tomorrow we'll have to wrap up our sight-seeing in Venice by early afternoon, as we leave for Florence on a 4:27 train tomorrow afternoon.