Beautiful Venice

We left Milan by train to Venice, an easy 2.5 hour trip. Arriving in Venice was a bit more difficult as we squeezed our way onto a very full public-transport vaporetto boat that made every stop down the Grand Canal to St. Mark's Square. From there we caught the boat to our hotel on the Isola Delle Rose, which was beautiful and included great (if distant) views of Venice. 

The hotel also had a lovely breakfast, which we mention just so we can show the Harry Potter-themed cappuccino art from the talented barista (Accio Coffee! indeed):

Although we were a bit concerned that the 20-minute boat ride to and from the city would make our trip more difficult, we ultimately found the ride to be very relaxing, and the boat consistently ran on time. We also got great views of the city from the water.

Venice is not that big of a city, but the many canals can make getting around the city a bit difficult. Fortunately, the "blue dot" of Google Maps definitely made it easier to find our way. We crossed the Grand Canal several times by one of the four bridges over the canal:

But, when a bridge was not nearby, we tried a traghetto (Italian for ferry) -- a small boat kind of like a gondola that simply goes back and forth from one side of the Grand Canal to the other. For two Euros each, we got rowed accross with about 10 other people:

Of course we did the main tourist stuff: walked around St. Mark's Square and listened to the cafe bands play, toured the Doges' Palace and learned about the history of the Venice Republic, which lasted almost 1000 years, and visited St. Mark's Cathedral with its disparate architectual styles:

But, for us, the city itself with all its nooks and crannies was the biggest draw:

The other cultural thing we did was use our Guggenheim Bilbao membership to visit the Peggy Guggenheim Collection for free. The permanent collection there is almost entirely modern art with a good representation of surrealism. It also included this impressive collection of glass statues of various Picasso sculptures:

Notice the Grand Canal right outside the museum, which includes a fantastic terrace.

For me, the best part of our visit to the museum was a special exhibit called Surrealism and Magic, which explored the influence of magic on the thinking and art of the surrealists. As a fan of surrealism I particularly enjoyed the exhibition because it included a number of artists I had never even heard of before, many of whom were women (almost always underrepresented in all areas of art).

And, of course, the food is amazing. Shellfish is a particularly large part of the Venetian cuisine, which provided for amazing pastas (if you like that sort of thing, which I do, but Shana not so much):

We had a great time in Venice and would definitely return to the city. One of the things that really interested us was the operation of a city that is so dominated by water. And, as we were heading back to the train station, we passed a FedEx boat making its rounds (with dolly attached). Everything can be adapted to the watery world of Venice.

That is it for our adventures in France, Switzerland and Italy, but we will have more to come soon.

Ciao,

Jeff and Shana