Sunday 13 August Venice

I was woken up at about 5.30am by loads of noise outside the bedroom window, put head under pillow and ignored it. It didn’t go away so I wandered on to the balcony to find that we were directly above the delivery hatch on the canal, laundry was being delivered, and queuing behind was the fruit and veg. Deliveries accomplished I tried for more sleep. Alas it’s bins next – the rubbish was on the opposite side of the canal – the bin men went through it all with a fine toothcomb. Anything useful was kept, there was much shouting with glee involved. We decided we might as well get up. We went down to the conservatory restaurant for breakfast, the sun is shining and it’s a beautiful morning. Went out to explore Venice, walked through San Marco Square which was all under scaffolding, we discovered later that there was a Pink Floyd concert here last night, most fed up that we missed it by not going out in the rain. There were queues a mile long to go into the Doges Palace, so we walked down to the Grand canal and stopped at a cafe for an espresso, behind the Campanile Tower, which due to location cost us about €20.00. We strolled along the banks of the canal in what is known as the Castello region. Found a bronze statue lying in the water, she is called La Donna Partigiana and is a monument to the women who were killed fighting in World war II, we were lucky to see it as it is only visible at low tide. A little farther on there was an amazing gondola statue in steel, could find no information on this, it hasn’t even a reference on the map. The Giardini Pubblici gardens are behind it we wandered through them, there is an Art gallery in the grounds, closed, on the other side of the park is San Pietro Island, we stopped at a little cafe on via Garibaldi for wonderful artichoke and Parma ham pizzas, coffee and beer before exploring further. Went over several bridges, including the Rialto, where we wandered around the fruit and veg. market. Bought some figs and stopped for another coffee. Then walked into the Dorsoduro region and found the Chiesa San Moisé 1668, with the humpless camels, our guidebook calls it the ugliest church in the world, a bit harsh we thought. We went past the Museum of Science and Art a lovely building with stunning windows, the gates were shut. Further on we crossed the famous wooden Accademia bridge, built in 1932 as a temporary bridge. The Accademia is a stunning building and houses the worlds largest collection of Venetian paintings. We ate at Ristorante Gianni sitting by the canal Della Giudecca in the Dorsoduro area, excellent pasta and wine. Afterwards we sauntered back to the hotel, a fair old walk, on the way we stopped to watch three men playing classical music on wine and other glasses, I recorded some of it, they sounded great. Time for a nightcap in the bar, then bed.