Saturday, June 4
The bed is as hard as a sheet of plywood with
some linens over it. I was sore in places I didn’t know I could be sore. The
rest of the room is fine, but that bed! We are both covered in welts, bites
from mosquito(es) that had come into our flat through the open window in Paris.
Between the pain from the bed and the red, raised itchiness all over, I was
feeling again like I’d very much like to wake up in my own bed.
We had a nice breakfast downstairs in the
hotel and then, grabbing an umbrella from the hotel, headed out into the rain
and thunder to explore Venice.
Like the throngs of others, we navigated narrow
passages, looked in at identical tchotchke shops, and attempted to make our way
to St. Mark’s Square. We crossed the Grand Canal at the famous Rialto Bridge
(another Italian bridge covered in shops), but somehow, following the arrows
painted on the side of buildings at the entrances to various alleys, we got off
course. I used the GPS on my phone to show us that we managed to get far from
Pizza San Marco.
Course correcting, we made our way and
finally found it. The Campanile, Doge’s Palace, St. Mark’s Basilica all lay out
in front of us. It was beautiful—but it was also raining, so we didn’t stay
long. We walked back in the general direction of our hotel and along the way
stopped in a piazza for lunch.
After lunch, Laura took a nap and I worked on
posting this journal.
In the evening, we decided to go for a leisurely
stroll (we’ve clocked a minimum of six miles a day in walking since we got off
the ship a week and a half ago—one day we managed nine + miles and over 30
floors of stairs climbed) before heading back to the hotel for the “happy hour”
buffet. The weather had turned sunny and warm and we went out to the garden to
sip wine, eat various Italian deliciousness, and chat.
Eventually it started to get dark and we
decided our free “dinner” was enough food for us, so we went back to the room
to pack, since the next day was our return home and we would have to get up at
3:30 am to make our 6:30 am connecting flight to Dusseldorf. Ugh. Yuck. Reality
is setting in! Goodnight.
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