Day 42 (Saturday) Venice

The weather forecast was only half right - we woke to cloudy skies and light rain but by 10  the rain had stopped and it was just cloudy and cool for the rest of the day.

By the way, this blog will probably be late in being posted as was yesterday's - the hotel wi-fi and my tablet just won't talk to each other for some reason - yesterday's was eventually uploaded at a wifi cafe where we had lunch. Apologies.

We had planned a "museum" day in anticipation of bad weather so basically did that but took a lovely walk through the non-touristy back blocks of Venice which was very interesting.  We went to the natural History Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the Archeological Museum - each housed in magnificent old villas that were worth visits in themselves.

The Archeological Museum is housed in the buildings around St Mark's square so we also joined the queu to see the Basillica which dates from circa 400B.C. when St Mark's remains were apparenty brought to Venice. The interior is quite dark and uninspiring but the exterior is quite beautiful but you can't come to Venice and not see inside St Mark's really. The Museum itself was very interesting - a section of it was the former Royal Palace - The Empress Elizabeth from the Hapsburg dynasty visited here a couple of times (it was then part of their empire) - the famous "Sissi" from our visit to the Schonnberg Palace in Vienna and it was fascinating to see the similarities in the way the rooms were decorated - all to her preferred style, and she only visited here twice!! Fascinating displays of ancient books (1400's), coins (1300's) the venetian navy as well as the usual array of beautiful marble and stone statues. The armoury with its amazing displays of the development of firearms was also fascinating.

The backstreets of Venice are really worth a look - for a start you are away from the thousands of tourists but you also get a view of everyday life in Venice with the delivery boats, the rubbish removal boats, the ambulance boats - for every vehicle we see on our roads, Venice has an equivalent boat - even saw a fire-boat!

The museum of Modern Art was "interesting" - just as well the building it is housed in was interesting in its own right!

Obvious problem with the tides - some canal steps and doorways were partly under water as we went around this morning and St Mark's Square was partly flooded - there are walkways stacked everywhere for when the square really floods. Cheers all - we'll see what tomorrow - our final day in Venice - brings!

Trivia: Saw Rodin's "Thinker" in the art museum today - there are two versions - the one we saw today and a bronze one in Paris!

Pictures:
* fruit&vege delivery Venice style -
*backstreets - the date on the building on the right was 1345!
*we've seen some narrow streets, but this one has got to be the narrowest - hardly space for two people to pass!