Ciao

Today’s our last day in Venice, so it’s now or never for going to see Saint Marks. We woke up at 8, and were out the door by 8:45 and in the cathedral by 9:50 (they open at 9:45). What was originally imagined as a quick jaunt around the church, ended up as a couple hour exploration of museum, cathedral, golden altar and treasure room. It was quite amazing, as the previous times I was in Venice, restoration prevented visiting these areas.

We ended up missing the fast train to Verona, and decided that the 3 ½ hour ride there and back didn’t make much sense, so we had a quick cheap delicious meal at my favorite international fast food place – Brek (I mean seriously they have wine on tap and make your pastas and meats to order…), and then decided to head out to Murano.

I’m thinking that if you have a fear of glass, Murano is not the place for you. It is all about looking at glass, watching glass blowing demonstrations, and shopping for glass. It was cool, but I’ve had my fill of glass for quite some time.

We were waiting for the direct Murano boat back to the main island, when what should arrive, but the most dreaded plague of locals and tourists alike? The Italian School Group – on a field trip no less. This particular group was no less frightening than those previously encountered by Ulises and I in Spain, despite the fact that it consisted of only elementary school students, the were of that mean 6th grade age where merely breathing is reason for being picked on. So, Diego (headphones ever at the ready), Ulises (petulantly looking at his watch every 2 minutes), and myself (feeling kind of queasy) are shoved into the Vapporetto stop (essentially a floating bus stop made of metal) with 40 of our favorite Italian school kids, speaking and jostling and being overwhelmingly obnoxious, with the sing song teasing of their voices reverberating inside of the too small bus stop – when the obnoxiousness peaked in a spectacular bout of projectile vomiting by one poor unfortunate kid – it was awful, and when the boat finally arrived, we watched all those school kids get on and decided it was prudent to wait indefinitely for the next boat.

Thankful to finally be back to the main island, I proceeded to indulge in some Gelato eating, and we then caught the bus to our next hotel (closer to the airport for our 7am flight to Athens).

We checked in, had an iffy meal at Crazy Pizza (not that we were expecting fine cuisine from the strip pizza joint down the road from the hotel) and set the wakeup call for 4AM.

Yawn…till tomorrow.