On Sunday October 9, our last full day of vacation, we had most of the day to ourselves. Michael rose early again to venture out for photo ops before the city awoke. On his return we caught the local church procession down the street before we saw Derek & Marketa off with coffee and croissants. We passed on the sit down coffee shop and visited our local standup bar where we got fantastic coffee and pastry at a fraction of the price, and we were able to enjoy quickly as D&M had a long day of driving ahead of them. By 10 am it was just Michael & I for the first time on the entire vacation. As a note to ourselves, on future trips we should plan for a couple of ‘down days’ on our own between transitions. The 3 back to back sets of travel was a bit overwhelming without a break between.
Our first matter of business was to purchase our ferry ticket to get to the airport the next morning. The ferry went from right near our BnB at the Rialto Bridge into the airport; so convenient, and at 15 Euro each a real deal. Then on to more exploring. We walked to the Ponte dell’Accademia (Accadamie Bridge) and then on to Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute at the tip of the island. There was a higher end artists neighbourhood surrounding the chapel.
We came across an incredible art exhibit by a Korean paper artist. He makes 3D sculptures and wall pieces using pages from old (~100year) notebooks. He disassembles them and then folds and ties them into small triangular packages which he then builds into art. Fantastic, and soooo time consuming. We also checked out a wonderful exhibit of glass pieces of art – the butterfly one in the photos was exquisite. From the end of the peninsula we took the 2E gondola ferry back to the main square.
Around 2pm we headed for lunch. It was a very nice meal despite my having to send my first dish back due to a silverfish on the plate! I had shrimp stuffed seabass in veg. broth and Michael had anchovy pasta. Both were excellent. We had a very nice bottle of Valpolicella – properly priced this time. Then off to find a gondolier – you cannot visit Venice and not take a gondolier ride! We decided to walk away from the main / busy waterways and headed to the Jewish sector, but we ended up half way back before finding one on the quieter canals. But not before catching the classic Venetian sight of fashion photography! We ended up with a wonderful 62 year old who had 3 daughters aged 31, 28, and 7 (surprise!). He once played for the Venice football club as goalkeeper. His English was very good – as were his Brazilian Portuguese (wife is 1/2 Brazilian), French, and Spanish in addition to his Italian. His 3 years of school then 4 years of training before getting his gondolier designation did not include language training – that was all hobby!
Having had our main meal mid day, we picked up a chicken, salad and beer at the grocery store for our last dinner. We had lots of packing to do, so no cicchetti that night!
