Burano, Art, and the Grand Canal

On our way to the vaporetto stop, we walked past one of the 139 churches in Venice, and decided to poke our heads in to see if the inside was as gorgeous as the outside. It was: this is Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta detta I Gesuiti:

~~~~~

Every day, before I set out sightseeing, I check the local weather forecast to figure out what to bring with me. So far I have been wrong every time with regards to my raincoat. It was raining when I arrived in Verona, and it was too much work to dig it out of my backpack. Yesterday I carried it around all day, because of a 20% chance of afternoon drizzle, and it stayed sunny and clear. Today's forecast said cloudy skies but no rain, so I opted for sandals and no raincoat. Naturally, we had a lengthy thunderstorm while we were in Burano, and spent much of the morning sprinting from lace shop to lace shop, occasionally ducking under an awning.

(Our first clue that the forecast was inaccurate)

Burano was lovely, even in the rain:

(Burano has its own leaning tower)

~~~~~

After returning from Burano, we set out for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Along the way, we stopped at the Grenada pavilion for the Venice Biennale, and after the Guggenheim we saw part of the Ukraine pavilion. Here are a couple of photos of the Guggenheim:

Peggy Guggenheim is buried in the sculpture garden with her dogs

Pablo Picasso, On the Beach

Salvador Dali, Birth of Liquid Desires

~~~~~

For dinner, we ended up retracing much of our route from yesterday's tour. We started with a box of fried seafood from Acqua e Mais, pasta at Antica Ostaria Ruga Rialto (I was too full to eat any!), picked up pastries for tomorrow's train trip at Mauro El Forner de Canton (by the way, those pastries are called sfogliotini), and ended the night at Gelateria Gallonetto, where I had strawberry and mango.

~~~~~

Before the gelato stop, we splurged on a gondola ride along the canal and learned that gondolas are assymmetric. They all lean to the right to balance the gondolier's single oar.

Venetian dogs travel in style!

Arrivederci Venezia!