Venice 2014

11/04/14 - 14/04/14

We explored Venice together.

On Friday we flew to Venice Marco Polo Airport and took the Alilaguna boat into the city. After checking in at the hotel we visited the Frari church where we saw some spectacular architecture and paintings. We had gelato and explored south of the Frari, along the coast, and then found a nice pizza restaurant for our dinner.

On Saturday we got up early and went to the Naval History Museum, which was full of cannons, model ships, photos and paraphernalia all the way from the first boats to modern Italian submarines. Next we went into the Doge's Palace for the Secret Itineraries tour. Our tour started late because the English guide didn't show up, but a member of staff helpfully organized a replacement guide. Our new guide wasn't really used to doing the tour in English but she did very well (only struggling on a few obscure words), and kept us entertained us with tales of Cassanova while we explored the offices and prisons.

In the afternoon Laura started a watercolour and in the evening we had authentic Italian pasta and went out for drinks on the far side of the Rialto bridge.

On Sunday we went up St Mark's Campanile in San Marco and took lots of photos from high above the city. The square was cool and pleasant at 9am before most of the tourists have arrived. After that Laura found a quiet street to sit down and do another watercolour painting whilst I read my book.

Later we visited the Ca' Pesaro gallery, which had an excellent first floor of (roughly) 20th century art and an interesting third floor filled with Japanese artifacts. Laura wasn't impressed by the modern art on the 2nd floor though, which she described as 'lazy' - and I largely agree, I try to be open minded but quite a lot of it was from the 'look I can paint a canvas red' school of modern art.

After visiting the gallery we crossed the river using a Traghetto (gondola ferry) and had more gelato. We explored the Jewish Ghetto area and the north of Venice, and poked our heads into the beautiful Madonna dell'Orto (though we felt a bit guilty that we didn't have any change to donate). Laura decided she wanted to finish her first watercolour so we had to work out how to get back to where she'd been sitting the day before!

I'm not normally a big fan of sea food but since we were in Venice, I had tuna on my pizza for dinner. It tasted much fresher than the canned stuff we get at home!

On Monday we got up early and returned to the airport for our flight home. We had spectacular views from the plane as it banked around the Venetian lagoon, climbed over the Alps, crossed the English channel and returned to Leeds.