Day 5: Venice

Today we explored Venice. Our Air BnB host recommended a bakery close to the apartment. It had lots of delicious bread, especially olive bread. We popped into Doge’s Palace because there was no line and bought tickets for a Secret Itineraries Tour tomorrow morning. We passed by workers reconcreting the paving stones and dredging one of the canals. There are no cars here, so we passed several guys pulling carts and delivering packages to where they need to go.
Then, we walked through this ridiculously long maze of tourist trap shops and found our way to a traghetto stop. The traghetto is a gondola that passes from one side of the grand canal to the other. It is a ferry for locals, essentially. It is 2 euros per non-resident per ride. It is like a 1 minute gondola ride without the nice seat cushions. Still much cheaper than the official gondola rides.
We visited the Rialto fish and produce markets. We bought artichoke hearts, tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, and broccoli. After dropping the produce off at the apartment we walked back to St. Mark’s Basilica and went inside to view church. Wow! It has so much gold on the ceilings. We made the trip quick because we were so hungry. We grabbed more olive bread and some zucchini and headed back to make lunch. The fried zucchini and simmered sun dried and fresh tomatoes were so delicious on the fresh bread!
Next, we visited the Correr Museum. It had tons of art, Venetian artifacts, period furniture, and Murano glass chandeliers. Chihuly studied  glassblowing in Murano and it is super obvious where he got his ideas for his elaborate glass style. They had a great old book exhibit, too.
After the museum we took a vaporetto ride down the grand canal. The light was fading, but it was still quite a scenic trip. The old palatial houses lining the canal are really interesting. Strict building laws keep the houses in the historic style. Good for tourists, but probably quite pain for residents (whose population is dwindling).
We walked all the way back through Venice. We got pizza in the way home and gelato. Vegan food isn’t as plentiful here as in Rome and things close surprisingly early. However, the pizza and gelato places were open and had vegan items on the menus. The pizza place was Bella and Brava. It was ok. The gelato came from Gelato di Natura. The chocolate gelato I had was so good. It was just cocoa, water, and sugar. Yum!!
We made it back to the apartment and the kids made ramen we brought with us because they were still hungry. We had showers and were able to wash 2 loads of laundry. No dryer, so the clothes are draped around. Hopefully they will dry in the next 36 hours.
Everyone is exhausted again.