To start off, everything in Venice is a boat. It shouldn't have surprised me as much - Venice is intrinsically connected with gondolas and canals in my mind - but I never thought out the reasonable conclusion: all transportation is by boats. No land vehicles are allowed into Venice past Piazzale Roma, near the train station.
Other than the bus-boats, gondolas (essentially limo-boats) and taxi-boats ferrying tourists, they had refrigerated delivery-boats, garbage-boats, construction-boats; and of course ambulance-, fire- and police-boats. One particularly amusing moment was seeing a policeman holding a radar gun just behind a corner and a police-boat waiting to turn on it's siren and pull over the offending boat. (Of course there would be speed limits. My logic just apparently fails when it encounters boats.)
My first sight of Venice in the daylight were was from an outdoor seat on the bow of a rather bumpy bus. I don't generally have issues with moving vehicles, but I was about ready to throw up after the first boat ride. The beautiful views of Venice was of some consolation, but it took another two trips on a boat for me to gain my "sea legs".
First stop was Piazza San Marco. The sky had annoying decided to be bereft of clouds in the space directly behind the angle I was shooting from. We went up the Campanile first. There was no climbing involved as the bell tower had been outfitted with an elevator during it's almost complete reconstruction in the early 1900's after it collapsed.
As with any tower, the top of the Campanile offered wonderful views of Venice from above, the red roofing vibrant in the sunlight.
St. Mark's Basilica had a really long wait and required you to check any large backpacks or other large bags. The cathedral is wonderfully Byzantine and famous for its mosaic lunettes depicting, among others, the story of how the corpse of St. Mark was stolen from Alexandria.
There were no photos allowed inside the church. You can also take the climb to see the four bronze horses.
Next stop was the Venetian Arsenal, and lunch!
Lunch started with a wonderful seafood appetizer with octopus, marinated fish, squid eggs and a delicious fish paste/mousse with milk. Then it was squid ink pasta and vongole.
After that it was back to the boats and off to Burano, or the "colourful island". There were wooden piles sticking a few meters above the water surface that marked out a sort of highway for the boats as we moved out to the open waters.
I found some more wisteria on the way to the famous island of colourful houses. The colours here were vibrant to the point of cacophony.
All that walking eventually made me hungry, so I bought some spumigile (meringue) from a rather adorable little bake shop run by a friendly old man. (I've since come to the conclusion that all the best sweet shops are run by old Italian men.)
It was slightly early by Italian standards for dinner yet, so I was temporarily sated with some fried seafood before stepping back onto the boat.
After some more wandering, the skies clouded over and the wind began to pick up. The night was spend in the hotel room with some prosecco from a corner store and take out seafood risotto from a restaurant nearby, listening to the howling of the wind and the rain pounding against the solid wood shutters.
