Europe Trip 2003

Venice - City Sights

Piazza San Marco | City Sights

Though we spent much of our time in our hotel room recovering from illness (and it was a nice hotel room, too), we still were able to get out and enjoy the city. Close by our hotel was the beautiful La Scala del Bovolo or Staircase of the Snails. Supposedly, it was designed by Leonardo da Vinci. It once led to top floors of a palace, but now looks into a next-door neighbor's kitchen. Further from our hotel was the Peggy Guggenheim Museum containing a decent collection of modern art. Works from Picasso, Dali and Pollock offered a nice break from all the classic pieces seen during our trip, but we questioned the sanity of the modern artists. Toward the center of the city, we crossed the Rialto bridge, which like the Ponte Vecchio, was covered with shops. Jamie found a charming handmade leather journal store and had a good time chatting with the owner and buying a journal.

A trip to Venice would not be complete without a trip through the canals. Unfortunately David's practicality won over Jamie's romanticism and, thus, we traveled via vaparettos (water buses) instead of the pricey gondolas. We took a vaparetto to Murano Island and looked through many glass shops. Venice is famous for its beautiful glass. After much searching, we found a set of beautiful glass shades for our kitchen lights. The store took the shades to a back room while the shop keeper showed us the upstairs gallery. We were presented with a tightly wrapped box and for the rest of the trip we wondered if they really packed the shades in the box (they did). On our way back from Murano we took a vaparetto through the Grand Canal which is a large winding waterway that runs through Venice. During the ride we saw many beautiful Venetian buildings, boats, gondolas and sights we had visited by foot. Though David was sick for most of Venice, we still had a great time.