October 16

We started the day by walking to the post office, changing monies -- all the usual sort of turistico stuff. Venice is a city made for walking, with its tiny alleyways that suddenly open up to views like this one. It is extremely beautiful.
I like Venice a lot. You could spend a lot of time here exploring the many inter-connected islands that support the buildings and streets. It is super-busy though, even in the middle of October. If you're planning a trip here I recommend that you book a hotel in advance. We've lucked out and got several nights in this hotel by being on 'stand-by'. Lord Byron used to take a daily swim along the Canal Grande. I doubt that he would now. I have been tempted to jump in though myself, there again I have the same urge to throw myself under the trains on the London Underground. The city has lost some of its lustre from its days as the major trading port for the East. The distinction still remains.

We stopped by a laboratoire, which was dedicated completely to information about the city of Venice sinking into the sea. It was all in Italian, which was a slight barrier, but we mumbled thru it and found out some interesting facts. The city is sinking at about 1" every eight years. On really high tides a good portion of the city, including St Mark's Square, gets flooded. In about 100 years the first floor of most buildings in Venice will be unliveable!

The highlight for me was the Peggy Guggenheim museum. They don't allow photos in the museum, so this is the only one I could get. The entire collection is 20th century art, her personal collection that she left to the city of Venice on her death. A large section is dedicated to surrealistic painting, which (no surprise) is just right for me.

We took the Vaporetti ('water-bus') from the museum back up the Canal Grande to the Rialto. From there we walked back down South through the shopping district to our hotel. The central area of Venice is called San Marco. Saint Mark is an important dude around here. In 828 some Venetian merchants stole his body from Alexandria and brought it back to Venice, an ancient souvenir of biblical proportions. The Basilica di San Marco was built to house his remains. I went in there and saw them in the Tresor room of the church. They decided to split his bones apart and put pieces into many different kinds of religious artifacts. I suppose that was the done thing back then.

We ended the day drinking Guinness at a pub in the student section of town, and then walking home singing. Probably a little loud, based on the looks we got. Mr. Penguin is going to come clean here. We were a lot loud. It was a mini pub crawl in Venice and after we staggered back from the San Polo district across the bridge at Academia to our hotel. Venice is good for staggering, the walls on either side of the path are close so you don't have very far to fall sideways. They do have a lot of water and bridges though which could be construed as bad when you've had a litle too much to drink ;-)

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