Grosses In Guatemala: Venice

We said farewell to the cruise ship this morning. I feel handicapped. Who will make up my bed twice a day? Bring us fresh fruit and flowers? How will I get coffee (fresh custom-brewed) and fresh-squeezed orange juice without waving my room key at somebody? Or greet me, "Good morning, madame"? It's back to reality, well, almost, since we're still on vacation in Venice!

We checked into a hotel, Palazzo Odoni. It's a little odd... somehow we got booked into one part of the hotel, owned by one descendant of the original family, and the Richardsons got booked into the other part. But it's all the same hotel! They get breakfast, we don't. We have a full apartment overlooking the canal (living room, dining room, tiny kitchen, upstairs bedroom and bath); Richardsons have a charming rooftop room with a terrace. Our room sounded a lot more interesting than it ended up, which is rather un-cozy. It's all fine though, except for the 50 steps every time we came 'home'.

Entrance to the hotel (after these 20+ steps, it's another
18 steps to the main floor, and another 12 steps
inside our apartment to our bedroom...)

We went out walking this afternoon and ate at a trattoria and had spaghetti, fried fish, grilled vegetables.

In front of the hotel

In trattoria La Cravat

In a trattoria La Cravat

On the bridge in front of the Bridge of Sighs

The Bridge of Sighs. The building on the left
is the Doge's Palace where criminals were convicted,
then they walked across this bridge, sighed at their
last view of freedom, and proceeded to the prison on
the right where they were kept and tortured.

One of the many wells in the squares - now closed off because
they were found to be the reason that Venice was sinking!

Another well

In front of famous Rialto bridge

We took a tour of the islands of Murano (famous for fabulous handmade glasswork) and Burano (famous for lace). Murano isn't a particularly pretty place, since it's more industrial (if you can call it that when the industry is hand-created glass ovens).

Burano is much prettier and delightfully colorful. The women have made lace for generations, each specializing in one of six key stitches, and they pass individual pieces from one woman to another as the other stitch was needed (though it seems more practical to me to learn the six stitches at some point in one's life...). The men of Burano were sea-men and fishermen, and supposedly when they got home at the end of a day, they sometimes went into the wrong house (since they all look alike) with bad consequences... so now Burano houses are all required by law to be painted unique colors, making a pretty scene!