Happy 4th of July! Let me tell you a funny (to me) story. As we’re standing on the bow of the ship, pulling into Venice, our cruise director comes on the intercom and wishes us Americans a happy Independence Day. Now, at this moment, we are literally in a small channel, overlooking the entire city, seeing the canals and small boats of Venice, for the first time for either of us. I turn to Kurt and jokingly say, “Oh, who can think about 4th of July right now. We’re in Venice!” These high school girls next to me, who have been valley girl talking like crazy, turn to me and say, “Who cares about America?” like I’m a terrorist. I say, “Oh, I’m American, I’m just talking to my husband…you know, we’re in Venice, it’s so beautiful…” They then proceed to talk about how patriotic they are and started singing I’m Proud to be an American (which, according to them, was made after the 9/11 attacks). I know that Kurt hates when I get into altercations with people, so I just keep my mouth shut and enjoyed the sights of Venice, but I really want to slap them upside the head and tell them not to join in conversations where adults are talking.

View of Venice from the Carnival Breeze

Anyway, patriotism aside, we enter Venice (Venezia) today. We are able to get off the ship around 1:30pm, and after taking some pictures of St. Mark’s Square, we decide to walk quite a ways to across the canal where the Peggy Guggenheim museum is. St. Mark’s Square is easily the most crowded place we’ve come across on our trip; actually, Venice in general is crowded. The Guggenheim museum, since it is out of the way, is blessedly less crowded. Inside we see several Picasso’s, Miro’s, Dali’s, a Chagall, Magritte’s, Pollack’s and some other nice work of arts. There is an outside area right on the Grand Canal (granted, almost every place in Venice is along water), but it is such a beautiful spot to sit and relax. The sad thing about the canals in Venice is that they are dirty, with trash building up against the buildings in the water. Still, it’s really cool to see the boats like cars on the water, with everything from water buses, to water taxis, to private boats. In the city, there is absolutely no cars whatsoever…I didn’t even see Vespas.

St. Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco)

Symbol of St. Mark, the winged lion, which is everywhere in Piazza San Marco.

Clocktower in Piazza San Marco

Canals filled with gondolas are a common sight in Venice

Sitting along the Grand Canal, outside the Peggy Guggenheim museum

Kurt’s favorite painting: Joan Miró – Dutch Interior II (Intérieur hollandais)

After the Guggenheim, we walk to the Rialto Bridge. Kurt didn’t realize how big it is, and it actually has shops and such along it. We then make the long trek back to St. Mark’s Square, and decide to grab a bite to eat. We first sit along the Square, before realizing that they charge an extra 5.80 euro per person because of the “bands” the restaurants have playing. Nope! We quickly get up and go out of the Square and find another restaurant, Kiro. I get cheese gnocchi while Kurt gets Penne All’Arrabitia. Boy, is his spicy! Since all the water comes in bottles, we wind up spending 42 euro at this restaurant. We way exceed our budget in Venice.

Rialto Bridge

Cheese gnocchi and Penne All’Arrabitia…equally delicious!

We then try to go to the Church of St. Zachariah, which is the final resting place of St. Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, but they are closed for mass. Most things at this point are closed, as it is 6pm, so we just head back to the cruise ship. By the way, to take a water bus from the cruise ship to St. Mark’s Square is 15 euros a piece. And since we plan to going back again tomorrow, that is 60 euro we are going to spend purely on the water bus. I definitely feel a bit ripped off with that, but we just arrived too late in Venice to see everything in one day. We missed eating at Blush tonight since we are in Venice so late, so we grab a few late night snacks on the Lido deck. Let me tell you, the roast beef they have is so tender and it just falls apart. Very surprised at how good it is! Hopefully our second day in Venice is a fulfilling as the first.