Day 2 - Venice Walking Tour

Best Western had a wonderful buffet continental breakfast included. When we went for 9:55 Doge Palace Secret Passages tour, we found our reservation had been cancelled by ticketitaly and we were rescheduled for the next morning.

Kris and I started walking toward the Galleria Accedemia. We visited the Vivaldi Violin museum, stopped for our best cappuccino on a plaza, and crossed the Pont Accedemia. The Accedemia was right in front of us but we couldn’t seem to find the entrance. We saw a sign toward the Peggy Guggenheim museum and decided to go there instead. Big Mistake! Although there was more modern art that we liked than we typically see in the Tate Modern, we still don’t appreciate modern art very much. Because we were running late to get back to the Best Western to check out by noon, we took the vaparetto to San Marco. We paid €5 for a 5-minute ride, but it would have taken us an hour to walk.

We dragged our suitcases back over to the Europa and Regina. We took a water taxi to Murano and saw a glassblowing demonstration and visited the showroom. We went to the ship via the scenic way (including the Grand Canal), but we were in the back of the boat and could not hear much of the commentary.

Approaching the Grand Princess by water made us appreciate how enormous this boat is to accommodate 2500 passengers. Check-in was quick (not so for many who checked in earlier) but our luggage did not get to our rooms until during dinner. Dinner was wonderful. We appreciated the relatively small portions, knowing we could always ask for seconds (or thirds). There were waterless cleansers everywhere in an effort to protect us from a germ epidemic.