Vacay

A week today we left Vancouver for a three week vacation to Europe. We flew into Gatwick and then took the train to Worcester (pronounced as “wooster”) to visit Jeff’s grandchildren. We enjoyed our time with them, doing things grandparents normally do – play, park, picnic and watched them “dance” at ballet lessons.

After a few days we made our way to Venice from Birmingham Airport with a one hour layover in Paris. I had some concerns about about luggage not making the connection but was assured that it would not be a problem. At the airport we saw a wonderwoman-like character in a mini-skirt complete with a cape. The only thing odd about it is that it was a guy wearing the costume… okay… move along now, nothing to see here. As the plane was descending into Paris, we looked for the Eiffel Tower, not knowing if we were even sitting on the correct side of the plane. And there she was! We could not miss the distinct structure despite the less than clear skies. So.. if you happen to fly to Paris from the UK, you want to be on the right side of the plane.
When we landed in Paris (Charles de Gaulle Airport), we had to go through security and passport inspection again, we were right smack in the middle of a big tour group and took longer than anticipated. We ran to our gates but still arrived too late. We had to see a ticketing agent to get new tickets for a different flight – fortunately it was only a three hour wait instead of next day. Our original flight was delayed for 20mins – because they had to pull our luggage out. It would have been faster if they had let us on!

The winged lion is the symbol for Venice. The open book means the building was constructed during peaceful times and a closed book means it was constructed during a period of conflict

Grand Canal

Gondola ride anyone?

The next morning we made our way to a different part of the neighbourhood to meet our guide Lu-that is short for some italian name no one can remember – for the Venice free walking tour. Lu is a native of Venice and showed us the not so well-known places in Venice. We went to the most beautiful bookstore in the world – beautiful because some of the books sit in boats and tubs that float when the tide rises and they also had a book staircase at the back of the store. I think the book staircase came as an afterthought..

Books stacked high in a little boat

Books in a bath tub

Book staircase to nowhere

We also visited the Rialto Market which has been around for seven centuries.

Fresh produce

Seafood

We walked by a church that is the only one in the world that is built completely out of marble. And if you plan to get married in the church, the wait is three years..

Marble Church

After the tour, Lu recommended a osteria (restaurant) for lunch. She said to avoid any restaurant with pictures of their food and the ones where they have people outside trying to get you to patronize the restaurant. Lunch was somewhat expensive but very tasty. After lunch we walked to get gelato, the real gelato, not tourist grade gelato. We went to Suso which is rated to have the best gelato in Venice, oh my, it was so good! We explored the other sights later in the day. San Marco Basilica was on our list and we paid €3 each to skip the line. Once we got in there was another line to pay €3 if you want to see the altar up close… umm, no thank you. So, we walked on to see the Doge Palace from the outside.. Guess we’re done at St Mark’s Square.. We then walked to another part of Venice to have a front row seat by the canal and sip a Spritz. The Spritz is Italy’s most famous wine-based cocktail and I didn’t care much for it, in fact I struggled to even drink half of it. Yeah, I’m just a lightweight when it comes to booze. We then wandered over to a fancy departmental store that lets tourist access their rooftop deck for free. It is perhaps one of the best views of the city you can get for free.

View from T Fondaco Rooftop Terrace Venice

Venice is a romantic city – we saw a lot of newly weds that were easily identifiable by their shiny rings and googly eyes. Yeah, we’re past that stage, show us where the best food is and we’ll be happy.

Love locks…

After all the sightseeing we walked to a quieter district to have dinner. We sat outside the restaurant by the canal and watched the gondolas go by. The rate for a gondola is €80 for 30 minutes, more if you need singing to go with it.. Somehow the gondola ride is not something that interest either one of us. Our guide had said that if you really want to go in the gondola, just go across the canal for €2 just so you can say you’ve been in one.

Beautiful windows and flowers everywhere..

Dinner was exceptional too and we tried the traditional venetian dish of “sarde in saor” which is sardines prepared with vinegar, fried onions, pine nuts and raisins. After dinner we went back to Suso to get another couple scoops of gelato goodness. Yum!

This morning we took the water bus to the train station. It was interesting seeing all the activities on the canal. The garbage boat, the UPS boat, the ambulance, many delivery boats with cargo from produce to construction supplies and of course wine etc.

Delivery – small packages are thrown to the other worker on the dock

Today we arrived in Cinque Terre. Stay tuned for an update in a couple of days or so..