Day 92
Saturday. December 5, 2009.
We started off the day with breakfast at the hotel, where we saw the gelato boys again, only this time they actually looked like they knew what was going on. After breakfast we headed down the street, looking for a legal entrance to the beach. There were entrances all over the place, but a lot of them had warning signs on them with stuff written in Italian, so we didn’t want to risk any sort of illegal action. We finally found a main entrance near where we would turn to go up the main street of the island. It was so nice to be on a beach again. A beach is definitely one of my favorite places to be in the world. It wasn’t cold at all of being December, so I took my shoes off, rolled up my jeans, and walked right in. So calming. It was wonderful. I didn’t even mind how much the sand stuck to my feet when I was trying to wipe it off later. The beach was full of fresh, beautiful shells too, so Taryn and I picked up some free souvenirs. =)
After the beach, we headed into the main island of Venice. We stopped at San Marco, or St. Mark’s Square, a popular destination for tourists. All around Venice was not badly crowded though due to the time of the year. It was nice to be able to enjoy the scenery without the chaos of all the tourists. The reports of flooding we made real when we walked into the square though. It wasn’t horrible, just not something you’d want to walk through. So the the city had set up platforms for people to use to get from place to place. However, when we returned at the end of the day, all the flooding had disappeared from San Marco. We walked around the area for a while. It was cool to see every designer name you could possibly think of, just as if it were any other store. Taryn and I stopped to eat at Hard Rock Cafe. It was interesting to see an Italian take on Americanism. They got it pretty spot on, but I’d imagine that they’re quite used to American tourists coming in.
After lunch Taryn and I walked around, not really caring where we were going. We got lost on purpose. We got completely away from the crowds and got to see the areas that usually only the locals take the time to wander into. It was all very beautiful. I’m so happy we got lost on purpose. It wasn’t difficult, though. Venice has many paved areas that lead you to dead ends of the canal. It was like being in a giant maze. I can imagine it would get frustrating if I really was trying to get somewhere though and the road just ended.
Next we wandered over to the Pantheon and another grand building that caught our attention. That building happened to be an art museum, go figure. If any place should have great architecture, it should be an art-oriented building. It was cool to see though because their current exhibit they were setting up was the pop art exhibit we had seen in London some time ago. The world is so incredibly connected!
After all of that, we were pretty tired, so we headed back to Lido as the sun was setting. It made for some really nice photo opportunities. Once we got back to Lido, we stopped in to the grocery store and also a little shop that sold postcards of Venice, though Taryn made the generous comment that my pictures were better than any of their postcards.
We ended the day in a classic fashion- gelato of course! =)
