The Hochmuth Adventures 2019 - Discovering New Places, Rediscovering Old Ones: Trip to Italy - Sunday, January 20, 2019 - Day 8

Our meeting spot today was just across the Grand Canal on the steps in front of the train station, where we came in yesterday. Our guide Vanessa outlined our morning which began with a boat ride to the island of Murano for a glassblowing demonstration and some time to shop. On the 40 minute ride over there she gave an informative talk about Venice and it’s history. The master glass blower was fantastic. Of course he was 80 years old and had started learning his art at the age of 10. Child labor laws now would prohibit that. We didn’t do any shopping and actually are probably still suffering from sticker shock. The items are gorgeous but pricey. There were some people in our group though that made purchases. From Murano we took the boat to Piazza San Marcos. There our local guide Manuela, wound us through the streets of Venice explaining things like why there were so many churches and how the water system worked. She really brought the history of Venice alive. We finally ended up back at St. Marks Square admiring the beautiful edifice of the Cathedral, the bell tower and the Doges. After the tour Ron and I stopped to split a pizza and some wine. Then we went to see the interior of the Cathedral. From there we walked around the promenade which follows the Grand Canal. Ron bought me a purse along the way and we made some other purchases later in the day. It was nice to walk through other parts of Venice beside the busy square and Rialto Bridge. We got back to the hotel and again rested as it was too early to go to dinner. At 7:30 we went out and found a cute little trattoria and had linguine alla pescatara - seafood linguine- yum yum! It has been a wonderful week in Italy tomorrow we fly out. We really saw lots of the tree cities. We averaged 8.5 miles of walking each day and that’s with having a couple of half days of travel. On to the next adventure!