Highlights-Venice Day 2
The sore throat remained (expected). Unexpected was that I couldn’t buy lozenges at a convenience store. Nope. Farmacia only. In the lobby, I asked the concierge to send someone to my room to teach me how to make warm air come out of wall mounted climate control unit. Not possible. It is _supposed_ to produce cold air only. It’s the law that no one can have heat Apr-Oct. This appears to be the standard answer to many questions in Italy. He offered to have a portable unit delivered to my room, which was good enough. I attended Mass at Santa Alvise church. Samantha kindly compiled a list of the services at churches near the hotel. This was my first Mass in Italian so I had no idea what was going on until the donations basket came out and the Eucharist (the wafers are dead giveaway). You don’t have to be Italian or a religious scholar to figure those out. We took a water taxi from the hotel (north end of the island) to St Mark’s Square (southeast side). We used the same demolition derby pier as the Viking tour, but there was less jockeying for position. Before we boarded the boat, I overheard one woman from our group tell Samantha that she couldn’t find one of the wireless audio devices the couple had been issued (due to be turned in at the end of the tour). “It’s somewhere in the room, we just don’t know where.” At the Doge’s (“doh-zhay”) palace to the jail cells via the Bridge of Sighs. Just what I’m looking for on every place tour, “Where are the dungeons?” Lord Byron gets credited by guides for naming the bridge, but no one knows who first called it that so guides can say anything. I was too focused on not tripping on the stairs or running into the person ahead of me to sigh. The guide announced more than once that “we are going to the Bridge of Sighs” because some people finish the tour and say, “Why didn’t we go on the Bridge of Sighs?” That will generate a negative Travelocity review every time. In the tour “on your own” time, I used a free ticket to visit the Museo de Correr at the opposite end of St Mark’s Square from the Basilica. Besides art, it also houses an archeological museum (statues, statues without heads or limbs, heads without statues, pedestals that used to have statues, and some big toes that were the size of my head). But wait. There was more! There were decorated bowls, Roman metal things, and books. Eventually, I gave up and just speed walked through the rooms and didn’t even read the signs. I can appreciate only so many old bowls. The post tour group supper was pleasant, particularly because I didn’t have to pay for tasteless bread (this may also be an Italian law). At the hotel, there was a sign in the lobby informing us of a public transportation worker strike 2100 17 May for 48 hours. How would that affect my train to Florence on Tuesday? “We don’t know. Just go to the train station and hope for the best.” My room had the space heater (worked great) and something that looked like a napkin on the carpeted floor next to the bed. I asked at reception what it was for. So your feet don’t get cold getting out of bed at night or in the morning. On a carpeted floor? Don’t ask.