The Market and Basilica

After my first night in the cupboard the three of us got ready for the day and headed out to the famous Café Florian. I is in the shadow of the famous Basilica in Venice, but when we walked in I weren’t thrilled to find a 45 euro each price for a skimpy breakfast. We decided to duck out and looked at many restaurants in the nearby area, which was packed with tourists. We weren’t able to find a viable restaurant and decided to walk back toward our apartment, where my mom spotted a cafe. Turns out she has a really good eye because it was delicious. We sat at a quite table next to a canal and were able to see gondola drivers sunscreen as an occasional jelly fish wafter through the water. The scene was mixed with a bright, shady umbrella, a flaky croissant, and an omelet with a garden of vegetables mixed in.

Well fed, we marched back tourist central to catch a public boat down the canal a ways toward the Venice farmers market. The ride went down the grand canal and was quite the site. Both the monk sitting next to me and I were snapping away at our cameras the entire ride. Eventually we reached the market and it was so so many times better than what I expected. There was stand upon stand upon stand of fragrant apricots, ripe cherries, and hanging bananas. There were also stands drowning in carrot tops, fresh tomatoes, and all the yummy vegetables you can think of. There were stands selling the day’s catch of fish and stands selling occasionally scandalous noodles. My dad got a bag of cherries that may or may not give him traveler’s diarrhea, we shall see. I stayed on the safer side with some dried apricots that I ate way too may of, but couldn’t resist.

We then wandered the streets of the area, stumbling upon a modern art museum that we decide to enter. Inside we found some amazing sculpture, one of the many The Thinkers, and some art that did’t really make sense. One piece was just a stack of wood that I was about to sit on as a bench, but noticed it was “art” just in time. After getting some water, we headed back outside and walked back through the streets, and by then we started to realize how disgusting they are. Since there is no grass the smell of dog pee is quite strong. Also, the city sewage can wash into the canals and this water is absorbed into the bricks like a sponge, so you are literally surrounded by waste. However, the wandering was still fun, though also sweltering, and it eventually landed us on a boat ride to lunch at a vegan restaurant. It was a super cute place where you did’t order. The owner just fixed up a plate with a balanced meal and you ate lunch with her over the store’s one big table. The food was delicious and when she offered up fresh apricot muffins we couldn’t resist. It feels good knowing I got a full plate of food with a balanced meal.

After lunch my dad went back to our apartment to get on a phone call and my mom and I visited the Basilica de San Marco on a tour. We got to see inside of the beautiful basilica, where there was 800 or something meters of mosaic, 80% in gold tiles. The mosaics depicted the entire old testament and more. We also got to see an area for baptisms, San Marco’s remains, and a gorgeous gold panel that is a paper mosaic of many biblical characters and surrounded by over 200 enormous precious gems. It was one of the most dazzling things I’ve ever seen. Our tour wrapped up as the church was closing so there weren’t any tourists outside of ourselves anymore. The light was also getting low enough to hit the alter, making the basilica even more beautiful. Outside of the basilica we walked back to our apartment, around to be able to find it, and relaxed for a bit before dinner. Dad skipped this dinner and stayed on the phone, but my mom and I went to a quaint seafood restaurant with 22 seats. The food was delicious. I got the only vegetarian menu item, the mixed vegetarian dish, and had no idea what it was. It ended up being a plate full of cook vegetables and it was delicious. My mom got clam spaghetti, which she said was really good and got some as take out for my dad. On the way back to our apartment we stopped for some yummy sorbet. The evening felt pretty perfect with our gelato and a nice temperature finally. We moved back through the maze of Venice and got to my dad to drop off his dinner.

Feeling adventurous, my mom and I decided to try to find the navy’s arsenal, which looked very close to our apartment. It took us quite a few wrong turn before finally finding it. It belonged to the military so it was obviously blocked off, but it certainly looked pretty from where we could see it. We kept walking toward the grand canal as it got darker to marvel at the pretty lights along the edge. We were unsure of how to get back because we wanted to go a different way than we came. Our map was pretty useless and it was all we had other than my camera. We walked down a few misleading alleys before my mom started to get a bit nervous. It was getting dark and the alleys are pretty secluded and easy to get totally lost in. Luckily we found a familiar alley just as the fear set in. We sidetracked a bit because we headed some loud music and it urned out there was a Rock and Rails style concert in one of the plazas. It looked hopping, but we were ready to get back to our apartment. After a bit more walking we started running into familiar markers that eventually led up back to our apartment. I was quite proud that we got back to our apartment without help from a map, phone, or anyone but ourselves. When we finally did get back the exhaustion set in a we settled down for the night.