Italy 2012

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Thursday June 21 -
Friday June 22, 2012
Flying to Venice

Saturday June 23, 2012
Venice - San Marco

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Sunday June 24, 2012
Venice - San Giorgio, Grand Canal, and Frari Church

The bridge of Sighs - this is the only family picture I've got for this day, all the other pictures below is pictures of thing and places.

Breakfast was croissant, yogurt, cereal, rolls – typical light Italian hotel breakfast, as far as we were concerned. The croissants were fantastic.

Waited in line for San Marco Basilica – line was very long, but at least in the shade and moved quickly, taking no more than 15 minutes. I was the only one who had seen the Treasury before. Everyone was taking pictures despite the signs, no one cared. I wished I had brought my camera in instead of checking it so I could have done the same. I took pictures on my iPhone of the four bronze horses and a few other sites on the 1st floor (2nd floor for Americans)

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CJ and I bought tickets for the Doge’s Palace at Correr Museum, skipping this long line, and winning accolades from the family. Even better, the combo ticket has a family discount – buy one ticket for full price (now 16 euros instead of 14), get the rest for half off. Senior citizens get half off as well, so this was much cheaper than expected.

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Had take out slices of pizza for lunch at a place near the hotel and brought it back to the room.

Everyone took a siesta to escape the heat and try to recover from the jetlag. After a while I rode the waterbus up and down the canal to try to take pictures.

2012-06-23 19:25

2012-06-23 19:25
Rialto Bridge, tagged...

Saturday night we searched for the Al Giardinetto da Deverino, the restaurant we ate at in 2005. We asked a few locals for directions, and even they couldn’t find it on the map easily, which made me feel better. By the time a local guided us to it, it turns out we had walked right past it, and I had even looked at it but still didn’t recognize it. Soccer was on TV. Had a wonderful dinner – Kathy and Robby got gnocchi, Bob split gnocchi and spaghetti . Karin and I split noodles and mushrooms and a sea bass, which was pretty small but good. The noodles were in a brown sauce and tasted like beef stroghanov.

CJ then led us to San Marco. Robby and I were sure he was taking us in the wrong direction, and we were both shocked when he was right. Worse, when I realized where we were, we had just walked through the square outside the Locando de Leon Hotel we had stayed at in 2005 and I hadn’t recognized it at all. We saw a pair of nuns watching the canal, looking toward the Bridge of Sighs. After a few minutes two large boats came by, and a priest, who was accompanied by police or military in uniform, got off the second boat.

In San Marco, beggers where selling helicopters with blue LEDs on slingshots that you would launch into the air. I thought they were cool at first, but then got annoyed when I couldn’t take a picture without getting a blue dot in it because they were so many of them.

A band was playing “I left my heart in San Francicso”. Another band was better, but was playing more traditional (read, less recognizable) music. I spent quite a while taking pictures. Everyone found Harry’s Bar, but by the time I got there shortly after 11 it was closed.

2012-06-23 23:13

2012-06-23 23:20

San Giorgio was not lit up at night – I assume to save money - making it impossible to try to recreate my 2005 picture. It also wasn’t that dark yet.