Day 15
WEDNESDAY, MAY 21st
VENICE
We started our day with an Italian breakfast…
coffee and brioch…which is a coisssant con marmelleta…good apricot jam.
Then because it was raining we took the vaporetto to the St. Mark’s
stop to go the Doges Palace for the “ Secret Itineraries’ tour.
We struggled getting the ticket even though we had made reservations on
the internet weeks before hand. The
guy at the desk wouldn’t stop talking to a female employee.
Finally a colleague called him to help us. 
So we got our stickers and “whispers” (earphones connected to a
transmitter for the guide's narrated tour). We
saw the watergate for the palace, then the tour assembled.
The tour was in English and contained a lot of history and explanations
as we walked from room to room. Then
we walked up and up to small rooms done in wood whe
re
the work of the city was done. There
was a lot about Casanova and his jail cell.
We saw the ceiling where he had escaped.
It was a fun tour.
After the tour, w
emade the decision to go to the
islands, hoping that we weouldn’t get caught in the rain. We
struggled to find a boat to Burano so we would not have to go all the way back
from San Marco to Fondamente Nuova. We
found it and went on the boat to the Lido. We
stopped at an island we didn’t know…like a holiday island.
Next we came to Burano.
We remembered the colored houses from our last trip.
We had lunch, we think, in the same restaurant where we ate on our 2004
trip. We had wanted to eat quickly
so we could get on the boat to Torcello. 
We had an ok lunch. I had
menu #1 so I could get octopus. My
wife had spaghetti and clams which she loved.
We talked to a mother and son from Houston who were in Europe for 40
days.
We got the boat to Torcelllo.
The land was very flat and the churches on Torcello were visible from
Burano. While waiting for the boat
we met a lady from Louisville and her friend from near Philadelphia.
The sky was beautiful, and I got great cloud pictures.
We landed on Torcello and had to walk some distance on a sturdy brick walk
next to the canal. 
We bought a
combination ticket to the museum and the basilica. The museum contained a lot of
artifacts brought by the original settlers.
The basilica
was awesome. It
was built in 1008 but had a number of restorations. The church had very old
mosaics. 
The entire west wall was
covered with a mosaic depicting the life of Christ. They didn’t allow any
pictures. Next door was St. Fosca
which was built in the 12th century in a Byzantine design.
Outside we sat on the throne of Attila the Hun.
We walked back to the dock and took the boat back to Burano where we
caught the vaporetto that went by Murano.
We
had visited Murano on our first trip and had bought some Murano wine glasses and
a vase. T
his vaporetto landed at
Fondamente Nuova which was a 15 walk from our apartment.
We went to the apartment and had some wine and changed our clothes.
We left the apartment at 7:35 and walked to
Fiaschetteria Toscana for dinner. It
is located across the street from
San Giovanni Crisostomo (see "G" on the
map ). It is a
very popular, and rather expensive restaurant, so we had made reservations weeks
in advance. We had a nice corner
table. Our waiter was very friendly
and could speak Italian, English and French fluently.
I had three oysters to start, tortellini with
scallops and veggies. My wife had
pasta with duck. We shared a grilled
bass. The waiter brought the whole
fish for our inspection before cooking it. They
did fillet it. For dessert I had a
crème brulee and my wife had a
raspberry lemon tart.
There
was couple next to us who spoke English. My
wife drank the oyster juice which started the conversation.
He was raised in Arlington, Virginia but now spends his summers in
Jackson Hole, Wyoming and winters in Atlanta.
We had a lot of good conversation.
The couple, sitting on the other side of us, were from Paris.
They didn’t speak much English but my wife did a good job talking to
them in French. Another couple
came in and sat next to the first couple.
They were from Philadelphia and had a friend in common.
Small world!! It was
interesting to hear the French couple’s comments on the American election and
the new French president. We
didn’t finish our dinner until about 10:30.
We walked back to our apartment.
