An Evening in Venice

   

     We returned to our hotel around five in the evening.  As we entered our hotel we were greeted by a full lobby of patrons who were all holding their Iphones texting their friends and family back home.  The lobby was the only place to get WI-FI and it seems that everyone was engaged in making good use of this perk.  I thought about joining them, but I needed a good relaxing shower and a meal at this time.  We dressed and left the hotel to find a quiet restaurant by the canal.
     We relaxed for an hour then got dressed to find a quiet restaurant by a canal.  As we left the hotel we noticed that the streets were still swarming with people.  We walked an walked checking out all the sights since there was lots to see.  I was especially looking for a Venetian Mask that I wanted to bring home. So we did some window shopping as we walked along the labyrinth of streets.

We continued down the streets full of people, but we took our time checking things out.

We came upon several street mimics hoping for an appreciative crowd.

John loves the pretty girls!

Charlie Chaplin

Headless man

Every once in a while there were vendors that would throw a piece of putty onto a mat as hard as they could, and the puddy would go SPLAT! Then it would resume its original shape.  I guess this was a big seller because there was a Splat person on every street.  You had to make sure your feet would not get splat upon because there was no warning when they would throw the putty down!

Splat toys!

I was having a great time looking at windows and interesting items to buy.

Fancy sandals!

Now its time to start a family!

John on the other hand was getting pretty hungry and could use a drink right about now!

John asking directions in his limited Italian!

We noticed the signs showed an arrow for Per Rialto, the Realto Broidge, or San Marco.
We decided to go back to the Realto bridge and find a place to eat off the Grand Canal.

     We finally found a quaint restaurant near the Palazzo Grimani. We were lead to a lovely table near the water and ordered  due bicchiere de vino blanco.  When our glasses of wine arrived, il cameriere brought us a basket of pane which we devoured while sipping our wine.  John quickly asked for another due bicchiere de vino blanco, por favore!.  By now we were enjoying ourselves waving at the tourist going by in their fast taxi boats.  We ordered  ensalada de parma ( Arugula, cheery tomano, cherry mozzarella, avocado and parma proscuitto) and Linguini con  Broccoli e Gamberetti (Linguine with shrimp, broccoli and fresh tomatoes) This was to be shared, so they brought us an extra plate and we dug into our meal.
     As we were dining we met two laddies from Germany who were working at the Biennale International Art Festival.  They were working on the Germany's  exhibit which had just opened a week before. The festival is a most prestigious cultural fair founded in 1895.  It promotes new avarnt-garde and new trends in contemporary art from all over the world. It is held every other year and we were fortunate that this was the year for the exhibition.  Since I am most interested in dance I found that the festival has brought choreographers who work with would be dancers on a dance project for a month then display their dances throughout the Island in June 28th, 29th, and 30th.  I checked their web page and found these great samples:

Children's Dance

Christina Rizzo

Senior Ladie's Dance

Dance and architechture

     We said good bye to our German friends and headed for the hotel.  The evening was still bright and we happened to find a gelaterie and bought gelatos from desert. John bout a Frutti de Bosco, a kid of purple ice cream, and I bought a green Pistacchio.  We happily went licking our cones as we looked for some masks.

Near our hotel we spotted a consignment full of interesting masks.  So we each picked one to buy.  I chose a blue one and John chose a red one. We are now ready for Mardigras!

     We took our masks back to our hotel room and did some packing as we were leaving for your ship in the morning.  We would get to enjoy our lovely Venice room for one more night!