Day 35

Friday August 31

8:15am - woke up, woohoo!!

9:05am - went down to breakfast. Today there were other people there thankfully, and we were all offered omelets and fresher rolls. WTF? Did I just get the shaft yesterday? LOL! Anyhoo, ate, went back upstairs to my room to use the restroom, come back down and who do I encounter? Creepy guy. I told him to leave me alone, and when I check out I am going to complain. Honestly, this hotel is too nice to have crap people like that harassing its female guests. I'm pretty sure he means no harm, but seriously.

9:45amish - catch the vaporetto 82 across the lagoon one stop to the island/church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Huge church that gets a whole island to itself! It's pretty impressive inside but not hugely ornate or anything. Catch the vaporetto back.

10:00amish - Find the San Zaccaria church just a couple blocks from my hotel. Pretty inside. Someone plopped a 50 cent coin into a little machine, and it lights up all the paintings around the perimeter, pretty neat.

Then I did a Rick Steves walking tour for like an alternative way to get from San Marco to the Rialto bridge, a little longer than the way I'd been going but you get to see some different stuff, so, cool. Took about a half hour. Saw some interesting things and this cool tower-y thing off and hidden away in a tiny little square. Made it to Rialto and took the vaporetto one stop to the S. Toma stop I missed last night.

11:30amish - walked the couple blocks from the vaporetto to the Frari church, one of the biggest in the city and it has famous art. You have to pay 2.50 to get in but it's more like a museum than most churches, so I didn't mind (of course, the biggest and best one of all, San Marco, is even free. But whatever.). The inside is huge but mostly empty (I think they even have concerts in it sometimes) but all around the edges is art. There's a wooden Donatello sculpture and some paintings. Snapped some pictures (signs were unclear as to whether you couldn't take pictures or couldn't use flash - anyway I never use flash inside the churches but some people did rudely take flash pictures and didn't get in trouble soooo)

Noonish - left the church and wandered a bit. Walked the few blocks to Campo di San Margherita, one of the biggest squares in the city, where I had wanted to have lunch. Read a lot about this one pizza place, so found it, grabbed a table outside (it was raining but warm enough and huge umbrellas completely protect you). Had a pizza and a bellini - a drink made with white peach puree and prosecco (italian champagne) - it was only 5 euros as compared to 13 euros at the place that invented it - Harry's Bar (over by San Marco). Anyway it was yummy - both the pizza and the drink. Total was 14 euros all told. Not bad for a nice lunch outside on a nice peaceful local-y square. Had a "Grrr damn Americans" moment when the people next to me sat down and one of the guys asks "what beers ya got on tap???" the patient waiter proceeded to show them on the menu where it said beers and specifically said which ones were in a bottle *rolls eyes* And people wonder why we have a bad reputation abroad.

1:30pmish - Wandered around through this area called Dorsoduro - a lot of the experts on the Venice forum of TripAdvisor say it's their favorite, so I wanted to wander a bit. At the other end of the square there was a little gelato shop, I got a lemon granita (aka slush but made with real fruit). Very tasty. Around the corner found one of the other famous mask shops, Ca'Macana. I bought myself another one LOL. It was only 15 Euros though, not so bad. And they are so pretty and unique and hand-made. Hard to pass them up.

Just kept wandering. Followed signs to the Accademia (an art museum) because I knew that’s where I could get the boat back to the hotel or wherever else I wanted to go. Definitely a cute area - a lot less touristy, cute shops, lots of families and locals, etc. Was nice to wander and by now the rain had cleared up so the weather was also vastly improving.

2:30pmish - came upon one of the very highly recommended restaurants in the whole city, Taverna San Trovaso. Looked at the menu outside, which is huge and extensive and reasonably-priced for such a well-reviewed place. Wandered in and asked if I could make a reservation for later. He looked kind of bemused and said "for 7 o'clock?" And I was all "7:30?" It was funny LOL as if he knew the american would want to eat early. Anyhoo, made my reservation and found the vaporetto stop and got on in the direction of my hotel's stop. But then I was like, what am I going to do. So I just decided to stay on the boat all the way to the Lido - Venice's beaches (well they are on a totally separate island but yeah lol). On the way there, they actually checked tickets for once. Hooray for my cheap 3-day pass. I wonder if anyone got caught.

3:00pmish - boat arrives at lido and I am like, it's different here. Then I figured out why. There are ROADS. Meaning cars, bikes, buses, etc. I hated it. LOL!! Had to figure out when to cross the street again, had to be careful of bikers and crazy cabbies again. Lido may be nice and fancy (currently the ultra posh Venice Film Festival is going on, but I didn't see anyone famous :() and it may have the beaches, but it has NONE of the charm. Anyway I walked the app. 10 minutes to the other side of the island to the beach. It was really windy and quiet. Pretty beach though I suppose. Sat for a while til the wind was getting so annoying I was like getting sand inside my socks just sitting there, so I left and walked back up. On the way I stopped at a Billa supermarket and bought a 3-pack of little bottles of premade bellinis - for 4.15. I'm sure it won't be as good as the fresh one but hey 3 bottles for less than the price of one in the restaurant sooo.

4:02pm - got on the Line N vaporetto - a much bigger fancier nicer 2-level boat but still part of the public transport system, and it took about 15 min to get from Lido to the Zaccaria stop.

4:30pm - back in the hotel relaxing and doing some laundry before getting the vaporetto for dinner.

6:30pm - leave for dinner, catch the 6:32pm 82 vaporetto and hop on instead of waiting another 20 minutes. 2 stops and about 10 min later I am at the Accademia stop. It's really not too far a walk, but if you saw the Accademia bridge that I'd have to cross to get there… no way.

6:50pm - walk the 2-3 minutes down a couple alley/streets to the restaurant, it isn't even open yet. I sit down nearby on some steps down to the canal and just enjoy the scene, people-watch, rest the feet (though they're not feeling too terrible happily), just live in the moment… for about 15 min, then my impatience took over ;) Walked around a bit, found the Tavernas sister restaurant down the street and around the corner, I assumed it would be more expensive but not really. Some differences in the menu but the items that were the same had the same price.

7:15pm - getting impatient and hungry so I just went in. It was pretty empty, and I was surprised since I was expecting it to be like lining up out the door. I knew the place was going to be reasonable as soon as I saw the drinks and a bottle of water was only 1.50 - less than half of some other places! Anyway, I decided to order the "Touristic menu" for 20 euros - 3 courses. Spaghetti, steak and fries, and dessert. Plus the 2 euro cover charge included. Hey, a girl can splurge sometimes :) I've had a lot of pizza already so I had to take a bit of a break, even though this place's pizza is supposed to be good and was also reasonably priced. Anyway So if I were to order all that stuff separately off the menu it'd be about 30 euros.

Anyway, the plate of spaghetti was ginormous and that and the bread would probably have been enough. The steak was okay, meat is not Venice's specialty and I knew that - it was a little thin and thus a little overcooked, but still a welcome departure from the pizza/pasta I'd had since I arrived! I was pretty much stuffed but was not going to skip dessert that I was paying for anyway, so they give me a dessert menu and usually with these menus you get the dessert of the day or whatever, but no, here you get to choose from the whole (extensive) dessert menu. Anyway I asked the waiter what he recommended and he was like "I like it all" but said he especially liked the tiramisu and a couple other things. I just went for the tiramisu in Amanda's honor (': It was unbelievable. The menu called it a "venetian" dessert but I don't know if that's actually true or not. Anyhoo, total was 21.50 and since the menu said service wasn't included (weird) I left 3.50 on the table because the service was excellent. In fact when I was ordering, I ordered the water and by the time I placed my food order, someone else had brought me the bottle of water LOL. So it was worth it. Very good restaurant and very reasonably priced for the overall quality, especially for this expensive city. Something that was interesting is that they brought me the check without me asking - surprising after all I had heard about how hard it can be in Italy sometimes to get the check lol. Not that it was a problem, I wanted it, but it surprised me.

8:30pm - caught the 82 vaporetto the 2 stops back to Zaccaria and took a few pictures here and there and made it back to the hotel to just relax for the night, catch up on some blogging and watch some tennis!