Oak Street Ranch

Last Day in Italy

Greetings from Venice.

Today is a slower day. We're slipping off the strictly tourist/monument route, and settling down a little.
The day starts at the hotel breakfast - Actually pretty good. The first one that's included hot buffet - eggs, sausages, etc. But, we still stay pretty strictly "european" with our yogurt, etc. Though, Jen does discover that she enjoys Nutella. Fortunatelly, that's pretty easy to get in the States.

Next, off into town. Just browsing through shops, seeing the sights.
We cross the Rialto bridge and see food shops with salami, cheeses, local wines and pastas of every breed. We pass through some local markets - very cool. Its kind of like walking throgh Farmer's Market and then the Grove - REALLY expensive stores with jewlery, glass, clothing, etc, and then through stands with water, tourist items, embroidered aprons, etc.
Actually, the whole city is sort of a .... Palm Springs-ish place. Clearly there are LOTS of tourists here - From the UK, France, other Italians, etc. The native population is very small (because its hella-expensive to live here). So, everyone basically comes over for vacation. The town either caters to the tourist wanting to ride the gondolas and take pictures of old churches, or people who just want to sit in the square and sip coffee and people watch and get some sun. Its like sitting on a Universal Studios backlot - Narrow streets, the canals, guys in gondolier outfits. Very surreal - but also very relaxing (it doesn't hurt any that you don't have to dive out of the streets avoiding crazy drivers - since there aren't really any cars in the interior corridor). That makes it very relaxing. Plus, we decided not to go on any death-marches from historical site to ruin to site.

Lunch was just some pizza from a street-side stand (but, make no mistake, still excellent).

OH - I should mention - The folks at JK Place (our Florence hotel) did come through, and the power cord arrived while we were out sightseeing.
And, we have already booked our water taxi back to the airport - which is cool. Even the guidebooks say you should see the city from a water taxi, crusing down the Grand Canal.
Tonight, we have another special dinner booked - at a restaurant with its own gallery and wine cellar. Highly recommended. And, drinks at Harry's Bar!

More to come. Hope that everyone is doing well out there!

posted by Mitch @ 6:26 AM