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Brie & Trent's Travels
Hey look! Trent wrote in the journal! Well yes, but that is only because we are taking it easy for a while at our hostel after a long day walking around Venice. We started by eating our free breakfast at the hostel and then taking the short bus ride into town. Then we hopped on the water bus which tours down the Grand Canal, the main waterway here. We got off at the Accademia, the biggest museum in the city, which houses a bunch of 14th and 15th century art. After all the hype in our guide books, the museum turned out to be a lot smaller than I expected (it only took us about 30 minutes to walk through), and not to mention it was hot inside. Plus, the most famous piece in the collection, The Tempest by Raphael, wasn't even on display.
After the Accademia, we crossed the Grand Canal by way of one of the huge vaulted walkways that arch over it. After a little walking through the little streets (which seem to be labeled very poorly by all three maps we have) we came upon the expansive plaza, or campo, where St. Mark's church and the Doge's Palace are. There were a ton of pigeons in the plaza, which we found out was encouraged by several vendors selling corn kernels for one euro a bag. It made for a very picturesque scene, in any case. The Doge's Palace is where the Venetian rulers (called a doge) used to live back when Venice was its own kingdom. It was pretty impressive looking, but we decided to skip the interior tours because there were very long lines to get in and I wasn't feeling that well from the day before. St. Mark's was very cool too. One thing that we found interesting was that apparently the square that the two buildings are built next to floods from time to time. All part of the sinking of Venice I guess - most of the doors on the buildings that line the Grand Canal already have water splashing in them.
We crossed back over for lunch at our favorite pizza place. This time we got a great four cheese pizza which we ate in the plaza nearby on a bench under a big tree. The scenery here is so great - classic vision of Italy - that it's enough to just sit and hang out in the midst of it all. Briana was trying to rest a little bit in the shade, but a bird didn't appreciate her laziness and pooped right on her neck. No signs of avian flu yet.
We got gelato for dessert and then went over to the Peggy Guugenheim museum of modern art. Briana liked this one a lot better and there were cool paintings there by Picasso, Braque, Dali, and Pollock. Apparently the museum represents her private collection, which is cool. Since then we have just been hanging out before heading back to the city for dinner. Will we get the same pizza again? Probably. But the next few days should make for a delicious feast of Italian variety, so I'm not worried. Ciao everyone.
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