Friday, 13 June 2008
Happy Friday the 13th! Last night the LB got to take her boat ride. Yes, it is an extravagance, but when you consider how much it has cost to get here and how long it has taken to make the trip, and how grumpy(oops), I mean how terribly, terribly disappointed the LB would be if she didn’t get her romantic gondola ride, it is well worth the cost. Just before dusk, we tracked down a gondolier (they’re everywhere) and set forth for a quiet tour of the area we have been living in for the past week. We have spent a lot of time standing on bridges, gazing at the canals flowing underneath, but from water level all looks different. By the time our ride began, the delivery traffic had stopped, so we encountered very few motorized boats, mostly just other gondolas. Quiet, smooth waters, with the occasional tourists watching from bridges as we glide past. I often wonder how many photo albums the LB & I will appear in around the world, because it seems as though someone is taking our picture every time we turn around. After our ride, we strolled until my knee got tired, and then repaired to our favorite pizza parlor in Campo SS Apostoli. It is the magnet to which we are drawn whenever we get lost. Don’t know how, but we’ll be stumbling along lost, wondering where in the blazes we are, and then suddenly pop out into the campo. Plus they have the best pizza we’ve had in Venice.
Today is our last day in Venezia. It will be a day of washing, packing and checking details for the next part of our trip, which will see us in Tuscany. We’ll get this posted today, but we don’t know what the state of the internet will be in the small town of Chiusdino, which is where we will be staying for the next week. We’ll have a car, so we should be able to get out and about a little more, and see some of the countryside. Tomorrow we’ll hop on the train for Florence and then LB gets to navigate us through the hills of Tuscany, while I mix it up with the Italians on the autostrada!
Ciao!