Today was a pretty laid back day! After seeing several sights yesterday, we took today to wander the city. We started the morning by making our way to the Rialto Bridge, a bridge built in the 1500s that crosses the Grand Canal. We passed under this bridge on our ride yesterday, which was definitely better than seeing it along with hundreds of our nearest and dearest (slightly sweaty) friends. One of the best parts of Venice is the fact that every corner you turn takes you into another beautiful street or canal, so getting to the big sights is often as beautiful than the landmarks. We continued to shop and meander through the streets. Today's major event involved Jon counting my sneezes! I woke up congested today and sneezing like crazy! I was diagnosed by a mask artist with allergies :-) She says that spring came so late this year, that allergy season has just now arrived. Guess I'll believe her! We ended the day with over twenty! Hopefully there won't be any allergens at sea !

We grabbed lunch from a pizza window and had lunch in Giardino Papodopoli (decided we HAD to visit after seeing the name on the map). We had some interesting people-watching time there...whether actually interesting or not, the Italian language and animated mannerisms that go with it make every conversation we hear seem very dramatic!

After lunch, we scouted out our port for tomorrow's cruise departure! There is no way we are missing that boat! Hopefully, tomorrow will be free of issues. Unfortunately, today was a day with an interesting travel hiccup that we were fortunate not to be affected by. The Venetian public transport system went on strike for a day. We are still investigating the "why," but several cruise passengers in town for the day were a bit dismayed to find out that there was no vaporetto service today, meaning that they had to...gasp...walk! Some looked at us like we were crazy when we said that it was only a 30 minute walk. We are learning over time that everything feels like a luxury after traveling as frugally as we did during student teaching...even a taxi or vaporetto.

After our daily dose of gelato, we rested for a while and researched more of our cruise destinations before heading out for the evening. We stopped through San Marco square to say goodbye to the thousands of pigeons there. Then we took on the task of hunting down a particular restaurant, Cavatappis, which was recommended in our guidebook. We felt pretty successful to have found it :-) We found out pretty quickly that it is a place locals frequent as half a dozen gondoliers went in and out as we sat. Our dinner was a bit longer than planned due to an absent minded waiter who did well with drinks but then forgot nearly every other part of our dinner...including our change. He had a good heart (it seemed) and we enjoyed our risotto with shrimp and gnocchi. Fortunately, during our wait, we were entertained by a man enjoying his wine from Cavatappis outside on the street, having a conversation with himself in English (he appeared to be/sounded Italian). His conversation began on glass one and was continuing into glass four as we left. After a walk down to the tip of Dosoduro, the neighborhood of our hotel, we checked in for the night and packed up to depart on our cruise tomorrow! Here's hoping we don't have a Titanic experience! The book I lost back in Germany was all about the Titanic (in retrospect an awful choice), so maybe it was a blessing in disguise to have lost it...that is a blessing until the librarian at Lee's summit's library tears into me about losing a book!

Off to sea tomorrow! Can't wait for the next phase of our journey!