Venice, Italy – August 8

Overcast and almost cool when we woke up – ha…that lasted about half a second. At some times today it was very hot and humid with very little breeze

or air movement.

gondola

As we are in Venice, we boarded a water taxi first thing this morning to begin our tour. With 7 other people and a guide, we tour the Grand Canal, checking out views of palaces, other boats, churches and basically all of the goings on through the canals. The water taxi had room for about 10-12 people. The taxi ‘driver’ and our guide did a good job of showing and explaining the sights. Our destination was The Peggy Guggenheim museum housed in the Palazzo

Banksy

Venier dei Leoni which was her home for 30 years. Learning this was a very interesting start to the tour.

We hooked up with a guide specifically from the museum who could not have been more enthusiastic – he was awesome. He had just graduated from NYU in art history and our guide from the morning basically had to drag us

Art guide

away from him when we had to move on – Chris and I figured we could have stayed longer. The museum is in a very interesting building with surrounding beautiful, small gardens. We were here for about 90 minutes and saw and learned about some pretty significant modern artists.

The last part of the tour had us wandering around the labyrinth like streets of Venice, finally ending at St. Mark Square and then free time. WOW was it hot! At some points there seemed to be no air movement at all and we were drenched in sweat – love that! We did a little shopping, decided against the 13 € beer and wandered a bit more.

church

We joined the group again and took a water taxi back with our guide. This time we didn’t take the scenic route and got back to the ship in about 25 minutes rather than the 45 we took to get there. We saw what is apparently the 13^th biggest yacht in the world, owned by a German woman.

water taxi

One of the most interesting and exciting things of the day, was seeing a Banksy mural on a wall in one of the canals. When I saw it and took a picture of it, it looked like it might be a Banksy – later my mom confirmed that they learned on one of their tours that it in fact was. The subject of the art (the refugee migrant crisis) brings a reality check to our vacation.

canal

We were back on board for lunch, meeting up with the parents as they were on a different tour this morning. The rest of the day as spent lazing around, and packing. We were on a waiting list for a tour in the evening that my parents had tickets for. As it turned out we could easily have gone

don't know what this is

as all but 4 people (including my parents) were no shows. That is more than a bit annoying!

Today is the end of our time with the parents. It’s been pretty incredible, as my dad said: “did you ever think you’d be in Rome with your parents?” Nope…nor did I think I’d be

St. Mark's Square

anywhere like this with them. It’s been an incredible time with them – we’ve experienced heat, humidity, new foods, languages, places and things.

canal