Sunday, April 29 - Venice

Our first objective this morning was to attend 10am mass at the nearest church. The breakfast room was crowded and the streets even more so. We arrived just as the service started and took our places toward the back. It was a large, old church with great sound, so we really enjoyed the  music -- perhaps it was a choir or maybe just the congregation -- accompanied by a guitar. All in Italian, of course, so hard for us to follow, but parts were recognizable, and when everyone started turning, shaking hands and saying "Pace" we felt right at home! Afterward we looked at the art on the walls and behind the altars. We discovered it is the Church of Sts. Jeremiah and Lucy. Lucy's remains are on view. We didn't look too closely.  We could see that the walls and some of the art have been damaged in floods. Next, we decided that for our one museum/gallery we'd go to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Since so many people are coming and going, the vaporetto line-ups were gruesome. "Let's just walk" we decided. Uh-huh. Turns out that even with 2 maps, navigation is nearly impossible. What do we expect in a city built on many many islands? And obscure street signs? And narrow streets? So, we went in at least one full circle, but finally ended up in a square with vaporetto signs and arrows. That made it pretty simple and at that stop there was no mob. Of course the vaporetto itself was like a low-floating sardine can, but a stop or 2 later we got off and quite easily found our way to the museum. It's a lovely, serene place, with a sculpture garden (one Henry Moore & lots of others) and a few galleries, as well as a café. We wandered through all of them and found a few new-to-us artists who were quite interesting, as well as many familiar names. From there we walked to the beautiful Basilica Santa Maria della Salute, which we simply walked around outside and admired. Back onto the floating sardine can, and across to San Marco. We thought it was crowded yesterday, but today was at least 50% worse and I heard someone say it will be even worse tomorrow! From there we started walking, following signs to the Rialto Bridge. Our quest was for a small gallery we'd both noticed the day before, with pictures in a style we enjoy. We'd dashed past it on the walking tour, so knew it was somewhere between St. Mark's Square and the Rialto. We got to the bridge without finding it. So we started back toward San Marco by another route. After about 15 minutes we turned back toward Rialto. At one corner I said "Let's just go to the end of this little side street before we quit. It was the last shop on that street! We found it and it was open and the prints were framed and affordable! Hooray! I got it! Tired and happy we made our way to the nearest vaporetto stop and back to the hotel. After a brief rest, we headed back out. I wanted some Murano glass jewelry and we need dinner. The first store, where they had exactly what I wanted in the window, refused me service and closed the door in my face. Closing time! Luckily, a few doors further along they had something similar, less expensive and were happy to sell it to me. We found a pleasant restaurant, enjoyed dinner and local wine, and wandered back to the hotel. The crowds were thinning out but still lots of action outside our window. It's interesting that in this city of water, there are few insect flying around. A couple of those that are, did bite me, but it's OK to keep the window open, and enjoy the sounds from the square and the view of purple petunias and yellow snapdragons in our balcony flower boxes.

Photos 29 April