After a breakfast of coffee and croissants we left the hotel, boarded a city bus and rode across town to the Grand Canal. From there we boarded the city "water bus."
We took this boat all the way to the far side to San Marco. It was pretty exciting to see the sights you grew up seeing in photos of Venice. ...The gondoliers, the huge buildings of marble & stone with their lower portions flooded with water, the striped "barber poles" for parking the boats. Yes, many of these tourist boats featured men with their striped shirts and straw hats with the black ribbons streaming off the back.
It was raining and misting a bit when we started down the canal but it soon became a steady rain. The boats were parked and covered after that.
These people gave it a good try right before the bottom opened up and it began to absolutely pour! It was actually kind of nice to see it in the rain. I'm sure it will have a whole different feel when it's dry and sunny. When we got to San Marco, we looked through the stores for Murano glass. I got a beautiful red vase and some surprises for someone special at Christmas!
This is the Piazza San Marco.
Doesn't it look like an impressionistic painting in the rain? In the back is the Byzantine cathredral. I'm wondering if this is where a Christmas market would be held during Advent.
Here's a Camille Pissarro painting called The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning, 1897
It has the same feel as the piazza did that day, don't you think?
Didn't you just love Venice! The gondola ride was so much fun
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