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:

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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)

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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

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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.

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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!

Murano and a Two-Gelato Day

First a couple of photos from last night that didn't make it into yesterday's post.

We passed all kinds of interesting shops on the way to dinner, including this spice shop:

and this rubber ducky shop:

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For dinner we ate at Osteria Anice Stellato, which was recommended by a friend of Susan's. The pasta we shared in lieu of an appetizer was amazing (pappardelle ragu alla napoletana):

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We started off today just outside our hotel at the Rialto Market, where I picked up some tasty apricots.

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Next stop was Murano, where we visited countless little shops in search of exactly the right glass things. I found a necklace I liked, and also picked up several pairs of earrings in various price ranges. A lot of the shops had these cool little mosaics on the outside walls. I meant to take a few more photos but got distracted shopping, so here are the three I found in my camera roll:

 

For lunch we stopped at a random restaurant, and I had a very tasty seafood appetizer plate.

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After Murano, we wandered through the city on our way to St. Marks Square.

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Saint Mark's Basilica is just as amazing as the last time I saw it.

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On the way to St. Mark's and afterward, going back to the hotel, we tried the old-fashioned way of navigating around Venice. It's a really different experience with Google Maps in our hands, and it was fun to just try and figure out where to go using the signs and arrows painted on buildings.

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Here's the first gelato of the day. One scoop each of strawberry and passion fruit, in an edible cup. Even the search for gelato is different now than it was fourteen years ago: instead of just happening upon a gelato store around a corner, now I look on Google Maps and find the highest rated one nearby.

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For dinner tonight, we took an Eat Like a Local tour. Our tour guide Sara was fabulous, and all the food was amazing. We started with a little antipasti (the prosciutto and cheeses with baslamic condiment were good, but everyone was raving about the salami). Subsequent courses (each at a different restaurant) included deep-fried mozzarella with ham or fish, deep-fried meat-stuffed olive, fried seafood, pasta, polenta/meatball/roasted potato skewer, coffee (I had a decaf macchiato), an amazing pastry which I've forgotten the name of (sfoglio-something?), capped off with gelato #2 of the day.

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Good night Venezia!

Verona to Venice

I slept in this morning, then spent a couple of hours wandering around Verona. Breakfast was a very tasty peach that I bought at a produce market last night, along with a pastry I picked up at a bakery this morning. First stop of the day was the Roman arena. I waited in a long line for a little while, decided it wasn't moving, and went to buy a "Verona card" instead from the tourist office: I didn't plan to visit enough places today to justify the cost, but the ability to skip the line at the arena made it worthwhile.

The arena is used for concerts now

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One of the most popular stops for Verona visitors is "Juliet's balcony," even though it's just something dreamed up by a marketer. I wasn't willing to wait in line to get into the courtyard (and certainly not to make a reservation to stand on the balcony); this is as close as I got.

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The Palazzo della Ragione has this Renaissance stairway in the courtyard:

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The Basilica di Sant'Anastasia

Nave

 

Hunchback holy water stoup 

 

Floor detail

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And the Duomo:

Nave

 

Titian's Assumption of the Virgin

Side of nave

 

Organ

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After my tour of Verona, I took the train to Venice, where I met up with my friend Susan. Of course I had to introduce her to my vacation tradition of afternoon gelato:

Venice was one of my two favorite cities from the first trip I blogged (Paris being the other), and I'm excited to be back!

Munich to Verona

Today I said goodbye to Beth and took a train to Verona. The Dolomites are very scenic; here are some random photos taken from the train window.

(Google says this is Castello di Avio

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It was drizzling when I arrived in Verona, so I opted to take the bus to my hotel rather than walking.

The first thing I bought in Italy was a cup of gelato. Priorities!

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More sightseeing photos tomorrow, but here's a view down Corso di Porta Borsari

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An unexpected benefit of travelling alone: *both* of the chocolates on the pillows are mine :-D

The Big Adventure Commences

Time to dust off the travel gear! In addition to a new theme for the blog, I'm trying out a new way to post for this trip. No more schlepping my laptop from city to city; I'm typing this on a folding keyboard linked to my phone. If you can see this then it's working!

(Photo by Beth)

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Last night I took a red eye from Boston, after a couple of days spent visiting friends and taking care of some business. Since the trip from California to Europe is so long, I've taken Ralph's excellent suggestion for both this trip and the previous one, and stopped on the East Coast first. I'm still jet-lagged, but not as badly as I otherwise would be. (Mostly I'm just tired; my Fitbit says I got 4 hours 6 minutes of sleep on the plane.)
Tonight I'm hanging out at Beth's, doing laundry and charging every electronic thing I brought with me. The four USB ports in the hub I carry with me are no longer enough to charge everything at the same time, so a little planning is required.

We made a trip to the grocery store before dinner. I love the meat cases in German groceries: so many different kinds of ham and sausage to choose from!

Beth prefers the produce section :-D