Venice wrap-up

Wow. Venice was pretty much everything people made it out to be (if
not a bit more). In between the church at Piazza San Marco and Doge's
Palace, we spent the entire day orienting ourselves within the puzzled
streets. By mid day we were pretty good at navigating and managed to
find a small chinese place off the beaten tourist path we had seen
earlier that morning. From there it was more window shopping and a
small trip out to Murano where we walked by the glass factory (it had
already closed) and made a trip up and down what I'm guessing was
their main street/canal of shops. The day was mostly foggy so it was
difficult to see much beyond where the boat was taking us, but still
offered plenty to see in such a short range. When it was time for
dinner we finally made our way over the Rialto bridge on foot, rather
than under it on a boat, to find a small street with more shops and
an Italian restaurant right along the grand canal. Even if the prices
hadn't been reasonable, we probably would have eaten there anyways for
the view.

We woke up a little on the early side this morning to find some
postcards for Liz to send home and have breakfast before we made our
way to the train station. We stopped at a small cafe we had found the
day before to have coffee and pastries. While sampling another
establishment might have been fun, we were getting a little tired of
the hole-in-the-wall places that charged €6 for a cup of hot
chocolate (that's $9.00 by todays exchange rate) and this place sat at
a much more affordable rate of €3.50 for a very well made cappucino
(plus the friendly staff). After checkout at the hotel and a slightly
early arrival to the train station we had found that the times to Rome
had changed and we could opt in for an earlier arrival if we (quite
literally) ran to catch a departure. Luckily the Paris metro and train
system had trained us for such an event and we made it with time to
spare. Total travel time today is upwards of five hours, but I'm
looking forward to enjoying the sights by day as we move on to our
final stay.