Europe 2011 - Day 13

Main Street

Well we awoke still in Venice and it is neat to be in a place like this for the second day. Yesterday we concentrated on finding the lights and today was a play day.

After breakfast, the first thing that we did was go to the big market. What fun it is riding the boats – their transportation system is really, really good and easy to use.

After spending time in the market we spent about an hour walking from the market across town to get to a boat stop that we wanted to use. In Venice, you cannot walk anywhere in a straight line and it is very easy to get turned around.

Low Bridge on a side street

We were interested in taking a boat to the island of Burano, which is the home of some good restaurants and lace makers. We met two guys on the boat who were cooks from San Francisco and told us about a restaurant on an island farther away and that is where we decided to go.

It took about an hour by boat before we finally arrived at the island of Torcello. The island of Torcello was the first island in this area to be settled; however, it only has 100 people living on it now.

We walked into town, about 15 minutes away, and came to the restaurant Locanda Cipriana. It was first built in 1935 as a wine and oil shop and then a restaurant was added. It was made famous by Earnest Hemmingway and then visited by Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana, Elton John, the President of Italy and a whole host of other famous people. The restaurant has a Michelin star and apparently very famous.

A dump truck

The appetizer was puchitto (sp) and melon and then the main course was s simple homemade pasta with wide noodles and a meat sauce, but there was nothing simple about the meal.

Desert was a cream filled crepe flamed with Contreau.

There is no question that this was the most expensive lunch we have ever had, but it was well worth it as Barb had wanted to go to a really good Italian restaurant and we found it.

After lunch, we took the boat back to Venice, transferred via two other boats and finish shopping for some items we wanted. Then it was back to the ship.

We left just as the sun was setting and the trip out of the harbor of Venice is beautiful and it takes about 45 minutes to get to open water.

Public Transportation

Dinner with our group was enjoyable. The show was just ok and then we went to the casino where Ed had a great streak and Barb broke even.



All in all a great ending to our two days in Venice. While we took a lot of boats, we also walked 8 miles each day!

Tomorrow is a day at sea.

Night for now


Bus Stop





Lunch