17.10 - Day 276 - Mira incl Venice, ITA

Thursday 17th October - Mira (Venice), Italy (Day 276)

A slower start at Annahouse, not least because I don’t feel well so I sleep all morning while school work goes on in the kitchen. We have a proper meal of carbonara for lunch after only picnic sandwiches and snacking yesterday for energy before catching the train back to Venice for a second and final exploration. 

We first wander past what would I’m sure be a bustling Fish Market, had we come past a few hours earlier, but unfortunately all that is left are some very well fed seagulls loitering.

From there we walk across Rialto Bridge (which Seb remembers from the day before - hope it is not all lost on the kids) to a proposed lookout. Technically a DFO shopping centre, where Kate and the kids climb four floors to find the rooftop terrace closed due to bad weather (it’s actually fairly good today). They enjoyed the rather fancy free toilets though. 

From there we wind through the narrow alleyways to Libreria Acqua Alta, a bookshop not content just to display books on shelves but in boats, bath tubs and ends of gondolas. It’s now something between a bookshop and a tourist attraction but different nonetheless. 

Sienna proudly invests in a Murano glass pen complete with inkwell, fingers crossed the delicate and pretty object makes it back to Sydney in one piece. 

Back through to Piazza San Marco, admiring the Bridge of Sighs on the way and to Squero di San Trovaso; a gondola repair yard with one getting a final coat of glossy back paint. 

We catch a ferry back up the Grand Canal before deciding to walk because it’s too crowded. Dodging the rain, Kate collects a couple of glass earrings for herself as her memento (a downside to year long travelling is the lack of mementos we’ve been able to buy. But an upside is we’ve bought far less ‘stuff’ than if we'd just lived in Sydney for the year) before catching the train back to Mira for toasted cheese sandwiches. 

Tomorrow we head west.