First Leg…Chicken Leg…(and Venice)

(First leg of the journey on Austrian Air with a stop in Vienna. Only a seven and a half hour flight, barely enough time to catch a few winks. I decided to be smart this journey and order lactose-free meals for our flights. Would have been better to get the regular meals and remove the cheese! Dinner was a frizee salad with sliced chicken breast on top. The entree, I swear, was steamed chicken breast. Later, breakfast was served. You guessed it – a chicken breast paninni (no cheese). Cluck, cluck. We’re waiting for our connecting flight to Venice….)

 

Marsha & Linda waiting for the Alilaguna Orange Line boat

But ten relatively hassle-free hours later (and about two hours sleep each we schlepped our bags from the airport terminal to the docks for the 45 minute boat ride over the lagoon highway to Venice.


The boat trip to the city on a very beautiful day…sunny and warm (in the 60s). There is a bit of smaze on the horizon.

What they say about Venice is true. Maps will get you “happily” nowhere. You get lost, but so what. It’s a small city and around ever corner something special to see. Here we discovered that we’ve been walking the wrong direction to get to our Airbnb abode. The four minute walk turns into 15. So what…

… so what – when this is what you see. And we are craving something other than airplane food!

The city of canals. Lovely, yes. But with canals come bridges….over which you must  walk…after 36 hous of sleep deprivation.  Ah well, wherever a climb, a descent.

The Grand Canal  snaking through the slowly sinking city..

A  real bonus this trip is the Venice Biennial that is still going on.  On our first walk we  come across this sign  that make us a bit curious.  We walk in and don’t see  much. Then we realize  this:


WOW!

Well, that woke us up and makes the trek to San Marco a bit easier.  (Actually that  wasn’t the actual Highway to Hell  we thought. It was up a flight,  but we think our’s was just as good) .


We  made it to San Marco.  Not as crowded  as it can be, but  still packed on a beautiful Fall Saturday. Time to contemplate  the next move.  

Found the Bellavaqua  Foundation gallery at one corner and saw some interesting work by Gardenal … mostly paint and collage on metal. Marsha finds it reminiscent of her clay monoprints with its deep layering and exposure of light and color.


Even the fire eixtinquishers are works of art here.

We wander dizzily back passing typical Ventian sights (yes, people still do go on gondola rides), following Marsha and Linda back, in the dark to our Airbnb. Exhausted find a local restaurant (pretty touristy) for an OK meal and wine, poking each other to keep from heads falling into the soup (didn’t order soup for that reason. To a lovely bed and not remembering laying down. Off again tomorrow. Perhaps boating to the Guggenheim museum.

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