We headed out, thinking we'd wander down through the Santa Croce area, heading towards the Campo di San Polo vicinity (I'd read a great review of a cafe/bar with a great gluten free menu in that area). It should have taken maybe half an hour, but we got lost on the way, as you do in Venice. It took two hours, but it was a very pleasant walk that took us past the Rialto Bridge (frantically busy with tourists) and the Rialto fish and produce markets (fascinating).
I saw a nice black mask in a shop along the way, and purchased that to share with Michelle. We did find the Risto Bar and stopped for lunch. David had a pizza, and I had cannelloni (I suspect a frozen mass-produced product and not nearly as good as what I can get at the Portstone Garden Cafe at home). But I did try the profiteroles with chocolate sauce, and they were a nice change. We found the house wine (white) to be particularly nice, and cheap as well. It was enjoyable just sitting, relaxing, and people-watching.
After that nice interlude, we continued in the direction of the Accademia, but I got side-tracked by a leather handbag shop, and ended up spending some money in there, too. After that, we decided we needed to get a vaporetto to take our purchases back to the hotel. We purchased a 36 hour pass, and squeezed onto a very crowded boat.
After dropping off the goods, we headed back out and caught another, equally crowded vaporetto, this time to Piazza San Marco, where we joined a queue to go up the Campanile for the views over Venice. The queue took about half an hour, and then we took the one minute ride up in the lift. I found it interesting that the first tower (originally a lighthouse) had collapsed in 1902 when it was 1000 years old. They're trying to prop up this tower too!
The views from the top were absolutely stunning. It was well worth the queuing and the 8 Euros each. We had to join the queue to get back down again, and while we were waiting ran into another Kiwi, a girl from Christchurch! She was equally pleased to hear another Kiwi accent!
We decided to splash out (in monetary terms, not with gumboots, luckily) in the Piazza, and had a one-off experience of sitting in one of the cafes which are ridiculously expensive. David had a beer, and I ordered a coffee with cherry brandy and whipped cream. We also got hit by the 6 Euros each cover charge because there was a music group playing. The receipt shows the story! But we did enjoy sitting there and people-watching!
By now people were starting to leave at the end of the day, and we decided to walk back to the hotel, following a route we hadn't taken in 2009. It took us along a main route back towards the station, lined with lots of shops. Everyone seemed to be heading in the same direction. It was a very interesting walk, and David bought a yummy looking "rolled pizza" (we actually thought it was a wrap, until it was heated up...). David was happy to find and pop into a supermarket along the way (I forgot to mention that he'd had a look in a small one in Sorrento, too). These are totally different to anything in New Zealand, and are very cluttered with all sorts of goods. It was flat out.
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