The early morning was sunny but we could hear thunder and soon it started to rain. The forecast was for rain all day but we decided to head out and hope for the best. We started by going to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art but the queue for tickets was really long and we would be waiting in the rain. We moved on to check the Accademia, the museum featuring Venetian grand masters, mainly 16 & 17th century. But the queue for it was long as well going around the corner and for a further 50 feet or more:
So we crossed the Grand Canal over the Accademia Bridge. How far do you think the woman in the orange wedges is going?:
We walked to Piazza San Marco, or St Mark Square:
At times the rain was really coming down, then would ease up for a while.
After circling the square, we moved on to find Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo to see the staircase on the building. What should have been a less than 10 minute walk took us 30 minutes as we kept going down the wrong streets. We finally found the Scala Bovolo. Bovolo is snail in Italian to describe the shape of the staircase:
We waited out a huge downpour in the doorways and heard some incredible close thunder:
We moved on to look at the Rialto Bridge:
We finally took brief refuge in an enoteca, a wine bar. They have a photo of Ernest Hemmingway, who apparently was there:
Then we took 20 minutes to go what Google maps said would take 7 to get to I Gesuiti church:
I wanted to see Titian’s Martyrdom of St Lawrence. St Lawrence was killed by roasting on a grill. Titian seemed to think St Lawrence was pretty strong as he lifted himself off the grill to look to the heavens while his backside was roasting over the flames:
It started really pouring again and we were quite far from our flat. We decided to take the vaporetto which was a fairly long trip as it took us to the island of Lido. It was hard to take photos and hang onto the railing of the boat:
We had to change to another line to get to our stop. We travelled past San Giorgio Maggiore along the way:
We had to find some vino before heading home:
Now, we all have really wet shoes.
LHWatson's Travel Blog 