Venice July 11, 2009
Our second day in Venice began with breakfast at the hotel, served on the first floor, with an added nicety of individual-sized Nutella jars (who knew !) We ascended the Campanile bell tower (although we should have gotten the city audio tour sets downstairs to get a narration of the beautiful vista we were seeing). The Basilica and Palazzo lines still looked too long, although later we heard that you could get in quickly. We went to the post office instead and asked for Francobolli, to which the Universally Pissed Federal Post Office Worker snidely replied "Where to? America".
Continued walking to the tostini place Frommer's Venice Day by Day recommended as the best panini and crostini in Venice, by the Accademia museum. Walked by numerous chatchki stores and the Prada store, with a swarm of Chinese tourists inside and Africans selling fake Prada on the street. We crossed the Grand Canal at Accademia. There was a huge poster of Vladimir Klitchko representing the Ukraine pavillion at the Venice Exhibition. Accademia has a variety of art mostly rescued from church walls during Napoleon's occupation. One of the characters in a painting looked exactly like Robert Downey Jr.,
After wandering for quite a while in Ponte San Trovaso, unsure if the hole in the wall with many locals hanging out, was really our place, we walked in. Behind the vitrine were about 20 different kinds of crostini topped with cheeses, vegetables, smoked fish, meats, etc., Luckily the lady behind the counter understood the word "tuna", since I couldn't find it in my guidebook dictionary. We got some of the most delicious tuna and whitefish crostini, topped with red currant berries, as well as crostini with Caprese and a cheese and hazelnut mixture. The gentleman behind the bar spoke not a word of English, but I showed him the Frommers mention of his bar, and he got me a beer. We ate outside, by one of the canals, and it was the most pleasant experience. As we walked around the corner, we saw the first female gondolier of Venice, who we had heard about on our tour, sailing by.
Since we were already on the southern tip of Venice, we walked along Fondamenta Zattere P. Lungo, along the Canale della Giudecca, to Gellatto Nico. Nico is also mentioned in Frommer's as the best gellatto in Venice. Suddenly we realized how little time we had left before we had to be at the port for our cruise ship. We rushed back to San Marco, buying two beautiful leather note pads, inlaid with glass medallions from the nearby island of Murano. We picked up our luggage and dragged it back through dense waves of Chinese tourists. As we left San Marco for the last time, the orchestra at the cafe played "More", our wedding song.
We found the Vaporetto water taxi to Stazione Marittima. It would have been logical that tickets would be sold by the dock, but no such luck. The dock man told us that the ticket-station was closed for 5 minutes, and made gestures to the effect of the ticket attendant going to the bathroom. The pier was filled four-across with people, and everyone was going to "Marittime". Luckily the grandma in a wheelchair made it to the head of the line, and like Moses splitting the red sea, made a channel for us to drag our luggage through. The trip to Marittime took 15 minutes, and we walked 2 minutes to the Royal Caribbean line, where as Crown and Anchor elite we got champagne and a small slice of cake.
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