Day 48 - Venice, Italy

Today we started our morning at the Correr Museum, a lesser known museum of Venetian art and history. Learning about all those doges worked up an appetite, so to speed up the process, we decided to go back to Trattoria di Bacco, the place we ate lunch at yesterday on sandwich row. We got a new variety of filling sandwiches plus a half a liter of wine, all for ~14 euros – you can’t beat that, especially in Venice.

We wandered the back streets of Venice (with gelato in hand) before entering the Doge’s Palace. The palace houses the personal apartments of the Doge, as well as the administrative offices of the republic, all decorated by Venetian renaissance masters such as Veronese, Titian, and Tintoretto. We also got to tour the prison, linked to the palace by the famous Bridge of Sighs.

After some rest, we decided to ascend (by elevator thankfully) to the top of the Campanile, or bell tower of St. Mark’s, for some incredible views of Venice.






We tried to time our visit with the hour, so that we could see the chiming of the clock tower in St. Mark’s square. What we didn’t know was that the Campanile houses a huge bell that also rings on the hour. Boy were we in for a surprise. I think every kid under the age of 10 started crying.

Campanile, Venice from Brian Burns on Vimeo.

We worked our way across the Accademia bridge to the restaurant we had made reservations at (La Bitta) and settled in for a delicious dinner. I would rank it as my 3rd or 4th best meal in Italy so far.

Additional notes:
- (Brian) Pigeon challenge complete. Using my stealth-like hunting instincts, I successfully wrangled two pigeons today without the aid of food.