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Early on in our trip planning, the group had expressed an interest in seeing Venice. Only Laura and I had been there before, and we were happy to go again. By high speed train, it is about 2 hours between Florence and Venice so it is very doable to go to Venice for just the day. We chose Monday, Oct 13, (1) to avoid weekends, and (2) there were no cruise ships scheduled to dock at Venice that day. We booked high speed train tickets from Trenitalia 5 months early, first class car with reserved seats. We left at 8:20 AM, returned back to Florence at 9:40 PM, a long day.

We also booked a 3-hour tour guide thru ToursbyLocals.com that included 1 hour on a water taxi on the Grand Canal, a tour to a Murano glass factory, and additional walking tour around town.

Giuseppina (Giusy) was our guide. She and I had chatted extensively prior to the tour. She had agreed to meet us at the train station to start the tour and have the private water taxi meet us there as well. So our tour started at the station, where we boarded Francesco’s boat and proceeded down towards the Grand Canal. New rules don’t allow boats to cross under the famous Ponte di Rialto bridge until after 3PM (?), so we turned off to a side canal after approaching the bridge, went out into the Venetian Lagoon, and still ended up around the Piazza San Marco at the Bridge of Sighs.

It was probably quite a sight with 3 people standing in the rear of the boat and 5 standing at the bow, all taking pictures along the canals.

Giusy walked us around the Piazza San Marco, giving a history of the San Marco Basilica, the Diji, and the piazza itself. Unfortunately, we did not have advanced timed tickets to go inside San Marco. She did point out a side entrance where if you go up to the staff and ask to enter the side chapel to say a prayer, they will let you in. Two pairs of our group did that, each separately, and got into the side chapel from which they could look into the main sanctuary, but they weren’t allowed to take pictures, only say a prayer. Too bad, because inside it is so ornate, with everything gilded in gold.

We stopped for gelato, then walked to the opposite side of the island to catch another water taxi providing shuttle service to the Murano glass factory. We had a wonderful demonstration by the Master Glassblower and his 2 assistants working a blob of melted glass into a curled plate. From there we were escorted into their showroom to peruse 2 floors of glass art, stemware, glassware, glass jewelry, vases, and lots of other items. Laura and I purchased a glass beaded bracelet and a Christmas tree angel. Others purchased glassware and other glass jewelry. Boxes ready for shipment lined one sidewalk with addresses for all over the USA and the world, all from customers who came here. They have no web site to purchase from.

We said our farewells to Giucy after the demonstration, and we were escorted back to the water taxi to continue exploring Venice on our own. Our tour with Giucy was great and I highly recommend some introductory tour for Venice. It is so easy to get lost and miss things. Our first stop was a beer and pizza stop. Then we slowly walked Northwest back towards the train station, stopping at shops along the way. Giucy suggested we walk through the Jewish Ghetto section of Venice, so we did take a small detour along the way. I was in pursuit of the “perfect” Venice bridge over a canal photograph. Here are some of the candidates.

We got nearby the train station about an hour and a half before our train departure, so we found a good outdoor cafe to have some beer/wine and light fare. We got onboard our train without incident, and played cards during the train ride back to Florence.

It was a tiring, but quite enjoyable day.