We rose at a not too early hour due to the construction of a house next to us and discovered that Italy has mosquito's in October. I guess we should not of been surprised but it did not make me happy since we had just spent the last 2 weeks before our trip getting bit up by mosquito's while we slept, so I was kinda looking forward to not being some insects meals for a while. But no such luck, since everywhere we stayed had no screens on the windows. As I write this, over a month since we returned, I still have some scars from the Roman mosquito's, thanks for the memories.
Anyway we woke up, bitten and tired and ready to face the day. At day 3 we had realize that we indeed should of packed my husbands travel french press. While packing for the trip we had a moment of insanity and decided not to pack the french press. Of course Italy has coffee but it is the quantity he is after. So this day at breakfast I forsaken my morning tea to get a coffee to give to my husband so he can have two. Aren't I a good wife? He did give me his awesome chocolate croissant from the homemade breadbasket so totally worth it.
On this day we headed north again, to a church that was by the scene of the crime (literally, read previous post about youth not paying for their pizza). As we headed to the Fondamenta Nuove to catch a vaporetto to cemetery island we saw the Gesuiti Church was open. Pretty nice looking church, we were glad we got to see it.
We then slunk pass the restaurant where we got yelled at and bought our vaporetto tickets to Isola di San Michele aka Cemetery Island. It was only a short 10 minute ride. Cemetery Island is the stop right before Murano. I was pretty excited to be on a boat since we hadn't been on one since we arrived the first night. The island was pretty big and filled with graves from all different time periods. We saw a sign pointing to "Memorial for the Civil War." That is when you know you are in a different country, when it isn't your civil war. It was at that point in the trip I wish I read more Italian history.
Nice photo eh? I would like to note that if you see a really nice photo in my flickr page, most likely my husband took it. I did have some good ones but he's the one with the artistic eye.
The island is worth a visit since it isn't very crowded, very quiet and chill. We somehow missed the graves of Igor Stravinsky and Ezra Pound. They were in the non Catholic part of the cemetery that was pretty neglected.
After staring at the vending machine on this island and deciding that I didn't want to gamble a 5 euro bill since I had no change we though we should leave and go in search of food.
The husband and I had a mis-communication about where we were going to get off the vaporetto and got off at the stop we had left from. Food options were kinda of slim so we had sandwiches from Bar Cupido. They were pretty good, though all I remember is we had a tuna one. I would like to mention this will probably be the only blog post without photos of food. You can take that as a comment on the food in Venice.
We then bought 24 hour vaporetto passes since we were leaving the next day. We got our moneys worth and I think took it like 7 times in 24 hours.
We took the long way down to St. Marks Square and went around the eastern part of the island which was interesting. Our first stop was the Palazzo Ducale also known as Doge's Palace. It was huge and beautiful, inside and out. Sadly, no photos allowed inside except you could take photos from the window.
View from Doge
After you visit Doge you can walk over the insides of the Bridge of Sighs to the prison. A bit of a mind bender to go from total opulence to a concrete prison.
Our tickets were also good for the Museo Correr which was just ok. Our tickets were also suppose to be good for the Archeology museum but we couldn't find it and the museum staff was pretty unhelpful. Though after a few hours of museum going we were ready for un caffe and I really wanted to go to the Guggenheim Museum.
We headed over to that part of the island and made it to the Museum by 5:07pm, they close at 6pm. I loved this museum. It use to be Peggy Guggenheims house which just makes it more neat. Plus I really like European art from 1930's-1960's so this was pretty much ground zero.
We saw the whole museum, gardens and gift shop in an hour. It was then dinner time so we went in search of food. Near the museum nothing was what we wanted so then we decided to take a long vaporetto ride (and rest our feet) to the Rialto Bridge which we had not seen yet. This was fun and relaxing. And the closest we came to riding on the Grand Canal.
View from our boat.
We got to the Rialto bridge and the area was just crawling with people. We were suddenly super tired and starving. We then picked poorly for dinner. We ate at Bar Novo and for some reason were sucked in by a pushy waitress. The food was fine, I had pesto gnocchi, my husband had a pizza. Not terrible just fine.
Once fueled up and rested we slowly wandered back to our place and I stand corrected, this is the night we got gelato from Grom. We 2 flavors, extra dark chocolate and persimmon. It was soo good, especially the chocolate one. This was our last night in Venice and it ended well.
Photos from this day are here.
