Day 2: We already made friends!
A Quick Note on Pizza
Yesterday at our first dinner in Venice, Kassidy ordered a pizza that came out un-sliced. After a bit of struggle to cut each piece with the regular dinner knife provided, the waiter happily sliced it for us. We assumed they had forgotten to slice it.
Since then, however, we've noticed everyone eating unsliced pizza, cutting each bite with fork and knife. Looks like that's the norm! We'll have to try cutting our pizza next time.
Morning Walk to Rialto Bridge
We started our morning with a short walk to Rialto Bridge and coffee nearby. The bridge has a great view!
Saint Mark's Basilica
After our morning coffee, we made our way over to St. Mark's Basilica. It always surprises us how close each landmark is. On the map, these points look far away. Walking, it's 10 minutes at the most.
What was much longer than our walk was the line to get inside! At one point, an official guided our hundreds-long line to another entrance, only to accidentally cross our line with a "Skip the Line" entrance, meaning we were turned away once we got to the front without a ticket. What a bummer! So we got lunch and ate it in line our second time around. Thankfully we had line-neighbors to share our frustration with.
The frustration was momentary, though. Inside was beautiful!
And for another 7 euros, we got to walk through a nice museum and see this great view from the top.
Gondola Ride
After our tour, we decided it was a good time for a gondola ride. From our observation so far, there's no guarantee whether a gondolier will drive your party alone, or attempt to group you with others.
Thankfully, we were lucky enough to find a driver that took just Kassidy and me on a tour!
The ride was a great way to see some behind the scenes of Venice. Our tour guide tried to tell us about apparently famous landmarks and their stories, but his English sounded mostly Italian. We nodded and smiled, but the details are lost to us.
We did appreciate the way he drove us - some alleys were congested with gondolas, waiting on each other to make a certain turn. Our driver ignored traffic and steered us right past, followed by jeers and banter from his fellow drivers.
Dinner, a Show, and New Friends!
We had reservations this evening to attend a Baroque Ensemble, so we got to the area early to find dinner and walk around. We had a great view for dinner!
We showed up to the concert early so we could get good seats. A young couple nearby was speaking Russian. We were surprised when they asked us about the concert's opening in English, without an accent! Turns out they live in Oregon and are just starting their 14-day Italy vacation, which includes Venice, Florence, and Rome. Almost the same schedule as us!
We chatted with them both before and after the concert. We agreed our trips had too much overlap to not meet up again, so we exchanged numbers. Maybe a double-date in Florence or Rome!