June 10:

Finally the rain had stopped. The day became a bright, sunny, and warm day in Venice. We had no plans. Finally, we decided to take the vaporetto over to Murano and shop.

On our walk over to the boat, we passed a "Mary House" that you see all over Italy - on the side of roads and in towns and cities. Kay Fuller came up with that name.

Murano is famous for its glass, but you knew that. We were not looking for anything in particular but, don't you know, we found some things we just had to have. I was first, buying a glass spider. Just had to have it. Later, Linda found some gifts and some earrings for herself. Lunch was on one of the canals: roast beef for me and liver and onions for Linda and some wine, of course. All of it was excellent. Good food, sunny weather, sitting beside the water with a gentle breeze. We are so lucky.







We were trying to recreate a photo with Nicholas on a bridge from the past. It wasn't quite right and later, Heidi reminded us that the Nicholas photo was taken on Burano, not Murano. Oh well - wrong island.

We don't take the most direct path back to our boat stop, so we are able to shop much more. Lots of things to look at and more buying. 



By the time we figure out where we need to go to get our boat, we need to hurry and just make it. The boat pulls out as we are just sitting down.



Linda wants to walk over to the Rialto for dinner. If you come to Venice, you must visit San Marco square and the Rialto, its just a must. Well, sad to say there was construction going on and much of the view of the bridge was obscured by canvas and advertisements. Not so good.

We walked down the Grand Canal away from the bridge to get away from some of the tourists and found a cafe where we could sit next to the water. I had a weiner schnitzel, called a Milanese cutlet and Linda had five lamb chops - much more than she could handle. 

She ate four and wrapped one up and put it into her purse. 

As we ate, we watched water taxis dock in slips next to us. On their bow they fly a small flag that says "Taxi". Now that they were docking and it was after 8:00, we were told that they put up a green flag that showed they were no longer a taxi but available for private hire.

Later, as we walked by toward the bridge, we passed a street person with his dog and she gave him the chop out of her purse for his dog. I think the guy took part of it for himself.

We wondered slowly through the narrow "alley streets" back to San Marco. That was our landmark to get back to our hotel.