Venice...

Sorry for so few posts on Venice.   Venice was exhausting.   They are having record heat (high 90's) and record crowds of tourists.   I basically collapsed every time we returned to our air conditioned, but on the 4th floor, apartment.

We toured all the main sights:  Doge's Palace, St. Marks Basilica, several other churches big and small, Murano and the glass museum, Burano and the lace museum, Various palazzi - big and small, Correr museum, etc...   We LOVED the vaporetti - when you're tired and your feet hurt, and it's 95 degrees... nothing better than getting on a bus that goes over the water - with the cool breezes that come with it.  The 60Euro/person passes were very much worth it.

Because of the heat  we tried to be thoughtful in our itineraries...  Hit the "big" tourist sights when they first open in the morning... reducing the hot/grumpy/crowd factor a bit... then go back to the apartment for a siesta in the AC... followed by another sight, dinner, and gelato.   Those mid day breaks were awesome.

In the middle of the week we took a break from touring and went to the beach on Lido.  Very nice.

Our last day in Venice we were "homeless".   We checked out of our apartment at 10am, but our train didn't leave till 9pm.   (We were allowed to keep our luggage in the locked hall upstairs that only our apartment and the sister-rental-apartment shared.)  No siesta.  We saved Murano and Burano for those days since that would involve longer vaporetto rides.

Since I'm trying to catch up - I'm just going to toss a bunch of pictures up from our Venice stay.

View from a vaporetto

Market at Rialto - seriously yummy fruit!

Lido beach from my rented chair and umbrella.  Heaven!

Cell with a view - the Bridge of Sighs taken from a prison cell at Doges Palace.

Looking towards St. Marks from San Giorgio.  San Giorgio is a challenge to get to - serviced by only 1 vaporetto line - and only in one direction... But the church was beautiful and there were some free museums as well - including one with amazing art glass.

Our first - but not last - spritz.  Yum! 

View from the Tower at St. Marks Square

A boy and his pigeons.   (No... we didn't pay for bird seed - the vendor liked Piero and offered it to him.)

Our last dinner in Venice before heading to the train station.  We'd seen 3 cruise ships go by St. Marks... but this one looked like it was going to ram Venice.