European tour – Day 5 – Venice, Italy

We had a breakfast omelette and coffee overlooking the water before heading off to visit the local church (Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta Detta I Gesuiti). Local is one of the 150+ churches in Venice. The marble carving was beautiful, including marble carved to look like a cascading rug.

We headed over to the Doge Palace to meet our tour group. After a couple of spritz’s we met the tour for a speedy run through the palace. It turns out the palace was like the city hall for Venice and the Doge is a figurehead. It was very interesting to learn how the government was set up as a pseudo representation format. They were very careful about one person or family having too much power. The end of the tour included a tour of the prisons attached to the palace. We stopped and rested with a spritz and then Rich and I ducked back in to get some more pictures that we missed the first time around. The benefit of the tour was the skip the line part. lol. Beautified and interesting place.

Kathy wanted to visit the Peggy Guggenheim’s home and studio do we headed there. It was a very interesting collection of abstract, surrealist, and modernism art and had some Picasso and Dali among others. The gardens were beautiful and peaceful.

We headed to the Rialto bridge area and enjoyed a delicious dinner by the canal. Rich headed back home and Kathy and I found a gondola and took a quiet ride in the nighttime canals. So beautiful!

We love Venice and Italy.