Venice: Part II

We stayed at Residenza degli Angeli, a small B&B two bridges from the Grand Canal. I wonder if Venetians think in terms of bridges to cross instead of distance between places. After carrying luggage between our Vaporetto stop and the B&B, that certainly is the way I would think, especially as we would be carrying groceries and other things from the store to our home. It’s hard to get most anywhere without crossing at least a couple of bridges.

Fortunately for us, Mario, our innkeeper, greeted us at the Vaporetto stop and helped us with our luggage. He also helped when we left. He said he wanted to be the complete innkeeper. He also got on the Vaporetto with us. I thought that was really nice, but he was just riding two stops to the fish market to get something for dinner and to have coffee with whatever friends he found there. The B&B was perfect. Mario gave us a hand-drawn map with directions to the B&B and major landmarks and, most importantly, to four recommended restaurants. The one we chose, Muro, was two bridges away. We ate outside where we could people watch while we ate the wonderful meal. We would definitely stay there again and will probably have another meal at that restaurant when we return for our week in Venice.

One of the dinosaurs

We also had a bit of a problem upon our arrival because of phones. We expected to be able to purchase a sim card for our phones there and make the necessary call to Mario so he could meet us. Unfortunately, unlike other airports, there are no sim cards available at the airport. They did have pay phones which I tried to use, but got no answer and then I had no idea what the recorded message said to do. It was, not surprisingly, in Italian. We decided to worry about that when we got to our Vaporetto stop.  Once there we simply asked someone for help and they called Mario who came a few minutes later to help. Stupid tourists can always get help if you just are not afraid to ask.

Some say that the only way to properly enter Venice is by boat. We got a good sense of how that is  when we left on our cruise. Cruises ships enter and leave port passing by the main part of the city providing fabulous views. We left at sunset so the views were even more spectacular.