Walking our feet off…. Day 2

That’s what city breaks are for surely ???

Over 21k steps walked !

We started off with our first breakfast in the Guest House then our second breakfast in a little Cafe near where we are staying that we had vouchers for from the hosts to have a coffee, croissant and glass of fresh orange juice. The pastries were amazing, seemingly from a recipe passed down from Grandma. It was right next to a lovely quiet canal and we sat down outside in the sunshine at a table with a man who had flown over from Prague for the day. He worked for Czech Airways and got free flights so decided to have an ultimate day trip which may last till the next day. He was shifting jobs so was using up his free flights before then. He was talking about how touristy Prague has got these past years but yes, Venice is touristy but you can find lots of areas where the tourists don’t go that are beautiful . I agreed with him. We had a good chat then we were on our merry way to start the day exploring. Andreas had given us lots of good tips of where to explore and walks to do which were spot on. We had a walk round our area making our way to a Vaporetto stop to take us to the Guideca Island. It was nice, stopping g at picturesque areas with little canals, tiny little bridges over them, old, old houses of varying colours and chatting as we walked.

We got off at the first stop at Guideca near the Stucky building which is now a Hilton Hotel. The island has a fab view over the canal to Venice.

We passed by a bakery/Cafe and the cakes in the window looked amazing so of course we had to go in and sample them along with a coffee. This was more a place for locals I think more Venetian people live here than in Venice itself . The cakes were superb and we also took two for later…

We walked quite a way up G Island and then jumped on the Vaporetto again to the next island up, San Giorgio Maggiore, where from the top of the bell tower of the church of the same name, you get the best view of Venice! This is it in the background of this pic. It wasn’t busy at all, there was an exhibition taking place in the area downstairs as the Bi-Ennial was taking place (all over Venice.).

We had a walk around the marina afterwards and ate our cakes sitting on the quayside as we waited for the Vaporetto to take us back over to the mainland, well back into Venice.

Andreas had told us of the best places to have a sandwich lunch that wasn’t typical tourist traps and we made our way to one of them and ate a panini.

We wandered our way through little streets and Piazza’s ending up at the north of the Island near the Jewish quarter. We saw that by now it was 1:45 and I had booked us tickets for the Campanile tower at St Marks at 2:15. We were going to get a vaporetto but it was quicker walking although it was chocca round the Rialto area!

We made our way to the line of people waiting to get in which was huge queue and we were the only ones with tickets already purchased . Not sure why you just wouldn’t buy a ticket instead of waiting in a giant queue.

A lift to the top only allowed 8 in it and had another marvellous view of the rooftop domes of St Marks and over to the Islands we had just been on. Marvellous.

We had another wander around and Ben loved all the sights, I really enjoyed showing him all the unique place of Venice.

We jumped on a very crowded Vaporetto to take us back to San Croce. It got quieter the closer we got to our stop. Passed by the Rialto bridge which is always busy.

We had a chill out for a while at the guest house. And out around 7 to a local restaurant as recommended by Andreas. A typical Venetian one which was busy but we got a table (just). We had a good chat with a young couple from Calgary who were on a ten day holiday visiting Rome, Venice, Florence and Naples. They were amazed that we were only here for three nights but I said it’s only 2 hours in a flight we have the ease of just booking a plane not that far in advance and hopping over.

The food was delicious and also shared a pudding.

The restaurant was only five mins from our guest house so we decided we would not use google maps to get back and see what happened. Yes, we went round in a circle! So funny. All these little alleyways and corners is just so easy to get lost. How did folks manage without google maps??? Yes a paper map but not as easy!

Home (eventually) and ready for bed and exhausted (me) not Ben.