Vet Judy

Here goes Venice and the train trip there. Once again through Milan train station, I am getting familiar with the set up in this train station.

I arrived early evening into Venice and caught the traditional boat bus from the train station to the pensione I was staying at. The name of the place was Wildner, and it was pretty close to the Piazza San Marco ( the main tourist attraction). It was by far the nicest place I stayed at for 80 Euro a night since I left home. They had a nice restaurant attached also for breakfast and if you had enough Euro, they had a very nice dinner menu.

I spent the late afternoon walking along the Grand Canal and into a park used by locals walking and playing with their dogs. It was very beautiful and the fall leaves were at their peak.

The following day I had a few hours to use in the middle of the afternoon and I spent time looking in the glass blowing furnaces and shops. I am not sure why, but there were a few shops where I must have looked worthy of their time, because they took me in the so called back rooms or 3^rd floors where the “real collector” pieces were kept. I saw a turtle worth 10,000 Euro there, and many items that were in the same price range. It is hard to imagine the degree of talent and expertise that goes into a piece of that magnitude. After I spent some time in the back room, I could walk through a lot of the stores on the main street and spot lesser quality stuff. I am not so sure that helped me, because now I have to save my money and go back to get a magnificent piece of artwork instead of just settling for a glass souvenir.

While boating down the canal it was interesting to see how life is adapted to having to do everything via the water. There were police boats, postal boats, ambulance boats, garbage boats etc. The grocery and wine delivery was most interesting. There must be thousands of boats in the morning taking small boxes to shops all over the place.