Day 8 - Venice

After a good night's sleep, we woke up in Italy. We got off of the train and headed out of the station. We caught a water bus and got off at the Rialto Bridge. It was very crowded and Mark pushed his way on like he was catching the tram at Snowbird on a powder day. I didn't like the tightness. We had our luggage and up and down we went over bridges and down cobblestone passages. We got quite lost which I think is a national pastime here. There are hundreds of little walkways with bridges and alleyways that lead to numerous places with absolutely no pattern or reason. Just when I thought we had our bearings, we would be totally lost and so were the people around us. We finally found our cute hotel and got situated.
We had lunch at a cafe right next to the Theatro de Fenise where we go $10 tickets to see Don Giovanni. Mark bought a small oil painting and we walked all around the thousands of little shops and designer stores. It was crazy how much stuff there is to buy and I could not purchase anything. I mean it kind of made me sick so I didn't want anything. We took an 80 euro gondola ride that was so relaxing Mark fell asleep! A very expensive nap, but I enjoyed it. We ate a quick dinner and found our seats on the very top box the third one from the end or in other words, they were listening seats unless you leaned over to watch the stage. The music was wonderful. The opera was quite graphic in parts which surprised me. Mark was such a good sport about the three hour ordeal for him. When we were engaged, I took him to a marginal opera and he has never been to another one until now. I am not sure he will go again though. I felt like we just needed to put on our white powdered wigs and finery to fit right in to the building.

Mark thinks Venice is one big deferred maintenance nightmare. It has more shopping than anywhere I have ever been and more designer and expensive knick knacks than I have ever seen. It looks better in paintings and photos than it does in real life. I still like it but not sure I ever need to come here again.

Breakfast - On the train
Lunch - caprese salad and a large thin pizza with a little cheese and canned mushrooms (ugh)
Dinner - we grabbed a baguette with
cheese and salami on the way to the opera
Snacks - gelato, lemon, vanilla and pistachio, not as good as Paris though