Venice day 4...no pictures..too long to load

This is late, but I had no internet till Tuscany and it is very slow here. This wouldn't work last night, so no pictures..sorry!!!


We are getting up later and later each day!!! Do you think we are tired……yes!!! I wish I had brought one of those meters that keeps track of how far you walk!! My feet are tired!

We decided to do some exploring today. We walked farther past our hotel than we have been and found a bridge that crossed over the grand canal. Most of the area looked to be residential and was so interesting. We finally came to the domed church we had seen on the gondola ride. It is the church that was built to honor Venice making it through the black plague. It was absolutely gorgeous inside!!! The work that was done on these churches is just incredible. We enjoyed walking through it.

We had lunch at a small café/bar that served paninis on our way to find the Frari church. We had an idea where it was, but the map we had was not very detailed. We walked over the Rialto bridge to the other side and found the markets. Beautiful fish, vegetable and spice markets along with all the trinket venders. They and these bouquets of small bright red peppers with a garlic bulb in the middle and herbs on the out side……gorgeous!!! I would have loved to have brought one home, but I am already thinking I am going to have trouble getting everything home…..and we are not even half way through our trip!!!

After a lot of walking we finally found the Frari church. It is supposed to have the best collection of paintings outside of a museum. I wish we could have taken pictures because it was breath taking!!! They were preparing for a wedding and a soloist was practicing her solo. The acoustics were fantastic!!! Her voice just rang throughout the whole church. The paintings were just beautiful. They had one room with lots of artifacts like the priests robes, etc and there was one old bottle with someone’s hand in it…..no kidding…….yuck!!!! It was in Italian so I have no idea whose hand it was.

Walking back we found a quaint little café and took a break with a glass of wine. There was a guy there serenading us with his guitar. The perfect picture of Italy!!!!

I have had so much fun going through the streets of Venice. It’s like a big maze and sometimes a bit closed in. I think we are looking forward to being out on a farm for the next week!!!

We stopped by a market to get some cheese and bread for our train ride tomorrow. We will be having dinner at our favorite restaurant tonight and then packing up to leave for Florence. We are leaving here about 8:30. The desk clerk keeps telling us we are leaving way too early for our 10:30 train, but we don’t want to take any chances. I would rather be early and sit there than have to rush with all our luggage!!!

So, tomorrow we say goodbye to Venice and hello to Florence and our cooking school!!! I have no idea what my internet possibilities will be. They said there is internet there, but I also thought I would have it here…..we shall see!!!!