Sunday, July 30, 2006
We didn’t stay long, because we wanted to get out of the heat and high costs of Italy, but we did spend a few hours in Venice on our way to Salzburg. We got there in the late afternoon, when Venice was at its most beautiful. We walked to Piazza di San Marco, stopping along the way to peer into the tourist shops, to watch a woman perform with her marionette, and to eat gelato at Boutique del Gelato on di Cavaldoro Silvio Castello. When we got to Piazza di San Marco, we were shocked to find that tourists were willing to pay 1 euro to feed the pigeons. (Why hasn’t anyone started this lucrative business in Chicago?)
Flypaper moments during our few hours in Venice:
- walking through a beautiful old hospital/sanitarium next to the Grand Canal
- riding a vaporetti (water bus) down the grand canal and realizing how much water shapes life in Venice (we passed a boat delivering luggage to a hotel, an ambulance boat, and a police boat)
- walking through the winding, narrow streets and finding quiet places free from tourists
- finding people dancing to a band on a side street - Venice’s version of Chicago’s summer dance
