Venice, Italy - Day 3

So after some of the comments/IMs/emails I got yesterday, I realized that the end of my last post was a bit misleading. Technically, we were on the cruise - but the ship was actually in port overnight at Venice, so we still had one more day in the city. Again, we got up really in the morning and had a few more things we wanted to do before taking off for real.

We started at the Accademia, at Bo's request. There were some really gorgeous paintings, but I wouldn't necessarily say this gallery is a must-see. We were expecting another long line to get in, but we were literally the only people in line. Thankfully we only got there 10 minutes early. And when it opened, we had the entire place to ourselves for a solid half an hour. After all the jam-packed sights we had been to over the past two days, the gallery was a refreshing and peaceful break from the other tourists.

From there, we walked down to the tip of that end of the island, to the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute. This church was the last thing on our sightseeing list, so afterward we hung out on the (shaded!) steps out front for about an hour, just watching all the people walking around and boats going by. We were glad to have seen everything we wanted to with plenty of time to spare.

 

San Marco from across the water

Since we had some time to kill, and our feet were getting tired, we rode the vaporetto along the entire length of the Grand Canal back to the port.

We went underneath all four bridges that cross the Grand Canal - some of these are verrry similar to pictures from the previous days, but I just love bridges and water. Must be the Floridian in me.

Accademia Bridge

 

Accademia Bridge

We also saw all kinds of interesting boats - ambulance boats and police boats...thankfully did not need either one of those...

...and even UPS and DHL boats. I hate to think how much shipping costs are in Venice!!

 

Bridge #2 - The Rialto

Church of San Geremia and Chapel of Saint Lucy

Bridge #3 - The Scalzi

The Church of the Scalzi

Final Bridge - The Calatrava

We got off the vaporetto and caught the People Mover to the port. At first, we thought this was some kind of rough translation for a shuttle bus or tram. Turns out, it actually is a tram, and actually is called the People Mover. Ha!

And with that, we were back on the ship! Although this time we were actually leaving port :)

Cheers!

Farewell, Venice...