Italy - Day 8 (Venice)

Our first night in Venice was miserable. I woke up with 3 mosquito bites, and this was after we closed the windows to our 80-degree room in order to keep out the mosquitoes. Why didn't anyone warn us about the mosquitoes? They were everywhere in Venice, Florence, and Pisa.

Our tour began with a 2-hour walk through Venice, while receiving a history lesson the entire time. We walked to the Rialto Bridge, the large post office (formerly the German merchant headquarters), and Campo Santa Maria Formosa.

View from the Rialto....The post office....
After the walk, we had the option to watch a free glass-blowing demonstration at the Galleria San Marco. It was obvious the shop did a lot of these demos: the salesman directed our group into one of several demo rooms, the craftsman was immediately ready to go, making a vase and a horse within a couple of minutes, then the salesman ushered us to the showroom. The demo was so amazing, it was definitely worth putting up with the 10-minute long sales pitch....

We had a couple of hours before our next group activity, so we decided to take the vaporetto ride that we skipped on the first day. We caught the "slow" vaporetto, which stopped at every station through the Grand Canal. We started at San Zaccaria station (near San Marco) , going past the Rialto, and exited at the Mercato Rialto Station.
Here are some photos from the ride....
At 2 pm, we met back up with the group for a tour of St. Mark's Basilica and Doge's Palace, including a walk across the Bridge of Sighs. If you like Byzantine architecture and mosaics (which Brooke does), then you'll definitely like St. Mark's. No photos were allowed inside, so here are just some exterior shots...The Bridge of Sighs was clad with billboards. Lancia Auto must have been sponsoring the restoration project....
A 40-minute gondola ride costs about 100 Euros, musicians cost extra. If you're willing to sacrifice some of the romance, the gondola can be shared by up to 6 people. A bunch of us from the tour group decided to share, so our tour guide organized for us to get 4 gondolas plus 2 musicians for a total cost of 22 Euros each. Here are some photos from our sunset gondola ride...

After the gondola ride, 7 of us followed the Rick Steves guidebook for a pub crawl, eating and drinking our way through the city. Prices in Venice were generally higher than they were in the prior cities, but these pubs were a real bargain. At the first place, we got 2 glasses of wine and an appetizer sampler plate (including some batter-fried fish) for 11 Euros. The second and third place offered similar deals. We tried for a fourth, but they were offering full dinners only, no drinks at the bar. Oh well, three pubs is a respectable number, right? The only mistake we made was starting a little bit too late. We figured a pub crawl is something meant to be done late at night, but they run out of appetizers early and they don't make any more after they are out. To get the best selection, you shouldn't start much later than 6pm.