Sat May 10 - Lucca to Venice

Left our hobbit house in Lucca early in the morning and walked to the train station to catch the train to Florence and then to Venice.

Shake Cafe - near train station

We had some time to kill when we got to Florence and it was lunchtime so we wandered around near the train station and found a surprisingly wonderful little deli/restaurant, Shake Cafe on Piazza Santa Maria Novella (Via Degli Avelli 2/R), where we had salads, sandwiches and wraps.  

Then we caught the train to Venice. Took about 2 hours.  Very comfortable.  We had gotten first class on Trenitalia so as to guarantee we would have a seat.  Worked out fine.  

View from Venice train station

Got to Venice about 4:15pm.  When you come out of the train station, you are immediately stunned by all the people and activity and the sight of the Grand Canal and the boats and the old buildings lining the canal.  Looked kinda like this photo (found online) but more people and confusion!

It took some time to get our bearings.  We had a little trouble figuring out where to buy tickets for the right "vaporetto" (a taxi that's a boat) and where to actually board but finally we did it. 

Got off at our stop, Ca' Rezzonico, and were met by our hosts Chiesi Scilla "Sheila" and hubby?  Very friendly and welcoming.  They walked us down the street to our apartment, Ca Ai Putti, Calle Lunga de San Barnaba, 2686.  Here's a map of the general location -- addresses in Venice are mysterious.

The "street" is actually a wide alley.  In Venice there are no cars or bikes - you walk everywhere.  The apartment was very nice, comfortable, very thoughtfully set up.  She even had some snacks and Prosseco waiting for us.  And a book she put together with information about Venice.

Dinner:  We walked a short ways to "our" campo (a campo is a square - same as piazza in Florence), Campo San Barnaba, to Ristoteca Oniga and sat outside watching the activity.  We all had grilled fish of several kinds - a little tricky to eat but delicious.

After dinner we walked around a bit.  Venice is made up of 7? islands and we're on the one called Dorosduro.  We intentionally got our apartment here because it's a bit away from the more touristy parts of Venice.

We noticed the Venice Jazz Club and made a note to come back another night.  We walked over to Campo Santa Margherita and, perhaps because it's Saturday night, there were lots of young people (from the nearby college?) hanging around outside the many cafes and restaurants that line the plaza, talking and drinking and having a good time.

So interesting here!  Water, canals, little bridges everywhere.  Easy to get lost as we will find out later but not tonight.