Venezia, Take 2

We woke up the next day and Geoff declared that it was Kate Day. Which meant that we could do whatever I wanted to do. Which meant we were going to spend all day in Venice.

After breakfast at the hotel (you know how I love those) we headed into Venice on the train. Our plan was to take the vaporetto (water taxi) from the train station all the way to Piazza San Marco, see it, deal with the tourists for 10 minutes and then get lost in the back streets and back canals. Which is exactly what we did.

Headed into work.


I like to pretend this is our house in Venice


Turning off the Grand Canal into a side "street".


An Italian business lunch.


Venetian parking


Someone's roof balcony


One of my most favorites shots from the whole trip


We looked for this restaurant that a colleague of mine, the wonderful David Cash (who knows many things about many things), recommended - Ristorante al Covo, which was supposed to be amazing. And we finally found it - after asking an Italian brick layer for directions, which he gave us entirely in Italian (and we followed fairly well - at least the first few steps). Unfortunately, we discovered it was closed that day. Sadness.


We did find an adorable little restaurant in a mini-piazza and we had the whole place to ourselves. We enjoyed a wonderful late outdoor lunch and took our time, which was lovely, since we'd had a long morning of picture taking.


Writing in my travel journal



Our waiter was impossibly cool and Italian.


After lunch we did a lot more wandering about and taking pictures.

Actual gondolier


Actual singing gondola ride.


Some locals having a beer


A mirrored window we found


A really cool place to live


We also enjoyed some gelato. This is my favorite picture of Geoff from the whole honeymoon. I think it just says it all. He's married, he has ice cream, he's happy.


We went on a gondola ride, even though it's RIDICULOUSLY expensive and only lasts 20 minutes...how can you not? When in Venice...

View from the gondola


Going under a bridge


That's the Rialto Bridge behind us. Famous for having stores along the bridge. Pretty cool, if slightly Times Squarish.


We had a hard time finding a place we were excited about for dinner, (we wanted outdoor seating, ambiance, reasonable prices and a water view that wasn't a tourist trap. hard-ish to find. at least in the part of town we were in) but ended up at this restuarant at the base of the Rialto Bridge. We had a late dinner and watched the sun set in the distance over the grand canal. Not too shabby.