The Last Day - September 24, Venice

It was hard to believe that we were already on the last full day of our Italian adventure.

We began the day with the hotel’s breakfast, which was probably the best continental breakfast of the trip. The restaurant also had fake owls to keep away the pesky pigeons—which was fine by me as I was still scarred by my almost-bird-bomb experience outside Rome’s Santa Maggiore.

We walked to Doge’s Palace, which has been Venice’s home to offices of state for almost a thousand years. Located in St. Mark’s Square, it was thankfully an easy walk from the hotel. We arrived a while before our scheduled tour, so we killed time in the Palace’s café that also had a front seat view to a canal. 

In front of St. Mark's, or "Europe's Drawing Room", dubbed by Napoleon. Doge's Palace is to the right of the basilica.

I had to try a “real” Italian coffee before we left the country, also known as a shot of espresso. Never mind that I watered that puppy down with caramel and whipped cream to balance the bitterness. 

View from the cafe and my "real" Italian coffee.

The tour was more of a story telling session about the middle class’ role in medevial Venetian politics. Our guide was very animated and the highlight was seeing the dungeons (on the top floor- not basement!) that Casanova famously escaped from. We also saw the world’s largest oil painting and followed the slow moving line of tourists to pass over the Bridge of Sighs. 

View from inside the Bridge of Sighs. The blue paper on either side is covering the construction/restorative work happening, but you still got the idea. :)

Sigh.

View from the Bridge of Sighs.

Legend has it that prisoners passed over this bridge on their way to the Doge's Palace prison and sighed as they took one last look at the beauty of Venice. Visitors can follow their footprints through the Doge’s Palace. 

The blue paper is covering the restoration work underway. Future generations, you're welcome.

For lunch, we learned our lesson from last night’s hotel recommended drinking game, and opted to follow a co-worker’s suggestion for a Venetian ristorante. Ae Sconte was located in a quiet square with a Venetian well, and we both took advantage of the complimentary champagne to begin and lemoncello to end. It was a wonderful last Italian lunch.

We were nothing less than lucky with the sunny weather throughout our time in Italy. Brendan completely jinxed future vacations by saying he was disappointed that he wouldn’t get to see the “real” rainy and gloomy Venice. So we’re probably due a natural disaster next time we travel.

After resting off lunch at the hotel, we attempted to find more unbeaten paths. We started walking toward the train station, stopping at a gelateria on the way and finishing our snack in a piazza near a 9th century church. As we wandered shops and squares further and further away from St. Mark’s Square, we felt like we were finally starting to see more of the “real” residential Venice. It was fun watching Italian children chase after each other in squares near canals full of parked motorboats. 

Nothing special, just a 1,000+ year old church.

Not a bad place to enjoy gelato.

We bought one-way tickets on the local vaporetto and let Rick Steves explain the Grand Canal sights to us as we rode all the way to the last San Marco stop. 

View from the vaporetto.

For a final attraction, we took the elevator to the top of San Marco’s cathedral—probably one of the newest structures we explored in Italy! The original burned and was replaced by the current tower in the early 20th century. 

St. Mark's Square from the air.

Looking over Venice from her campanile.

We hurried out of the campanile a few minutes before 6 p.m., worried that we would get stuck at the top when the bells rang and return to the states with hearing loss.

We relaxed at the hotel a bit more and then returned to St Mark’s to see the square at twilight one last time. We browsed the area’s restaurants and decided to end the trip the way we started it:

With pizza. 

We sat in a pizzeria’s back room and chatted about the trip. There was a random basketball in a glass case at the host’s station, and we couldn’t resist asking our server about it: apparently Kobe Bryant had signed it when he dined at the same restaurant last year! Random but fun way to end the trip.

From my trip’s journal:
“It hurts to leave, but still looking forward to getting back in the normal groove, blogging and pulling together the trip album.”

It was time to pack. 

At least we still had one small adventure left... (more in the next post!)