Day 64: East Side Gallery 2 and Shopping

Optimistic

Chris is not feeling up to going into the office today. But, I had already gotten up and dressed for our walk before I found this out. Well, I'm already prepared to walk, I might as well go anyway. I decided to head for the East Side Gallery to see if I could find "The Fraternal Kiss" that I missed out on before. I leave after breakfast with the family.

As I'm running through town, I look into a store and see umbrellas at the entrance. People have left them on the welcome mat just inside the store, presumably to keep them from dripping all over the store. I think to myself, would this happen in any big city in the U.S.? I think about my own mistrust of other people and how I'm reading about car thefts in our neighbourhood (via a neighbourhood online community feed I subscribe to). I don't think I could ever leave my umbrella at the door. I'd be afraid it would get stolen. Here, they just leave them at the door.

I realise people in Berlin still lock up their bikes. But, these umbrellas on the floor seem to symbolise something else to me. The Berliner's optimism. It's not something I have discussed or read about, just something I feel while I've been here. A vibe.

All these mornings I walk through the city, I feel safe. There are plenty of worker crews I walk by. And, perhaps, if you aren't a woman you can't understand this. But if I were in the U.S. walking by a bunch of men sitting around, I'd feel "on alert". I be wary of my surroundings, other people around, and consciously thinking about what I would do if approached. Not once have I felt leered at. Not once have I heard any cat-calls. And before you think, "She's a 44 year old blah blah," (believe me, I thought that too) I have seen plenty of young-pretty women walking by on their way to work, and they too walk without being objectified. It's a freeing feeling.

I sidetracked. My point is that the feeling I get in Berlin is a feeling of optimism. Not disillusionment that the world is perfect, but that we're going to be alright. Anyway, this is what went through my head as I see people trusting that their umbrellas are going to be there when they leave the store.

Wet sidewalks (left), TV Tower (middle), River walk (right)

Well, something else I'm feeling as I jog along the streets... wet. It's raining. I'm wearing, what I thought was waterproof, but seems to only be water resistant and the rain is starting to seep through to my lower layers. My shoes allow the puddles' splashes in and my toes are slushing in my wet socks. I must avoid the larger puddles and mud.

I also pass by a few Buddy Bears. I miss my own buddies for these photos, but I take them anyway, for posterity.

Buddy Bears near the Furnsehturm (TV Tower)

Ok, back to the subject of bicycles. There are renting stations all over town. Many are for visitors and offer guided tours with them. However, there are also many self-help renting areas. You put in your money and you rent a bicycle. I haven't investigated much more than this. But these self-renting stations are readily available if you need a bicycle and don't own one.

The renting station is the red sign at the
back of the row of bicycles.

I finally make it to the East Side Gallery. There are lots of people touring about, even in the rain (although, by the time I arrive, it's not really raining anymore). I get to see the small portion of the wall we skipped the other day. I get to see "The Fraternal Kiss"! Mission complete. And bonus, I take a photo of the Japanese mural, "Detour to the Japanese Sector", I didn't capture the other day and I saw the "New York, BerlYn, TokYo" mural as well (a popular one on many postcards and t-shirts). Most of the viewers moved on and I was able to take my photos. But "The Fraternal Kiss" definitely had the most crowds and it was hard to get a photo with no one standing in front of it. EVERYONE wanted their photo in front of this one. I even took a photo of a couple for them, who then offered to take my photo (I declined). Definitely the most popular mural here.

I've been gone an hour, which I had anticipated. I brought along my Bahn ticket so I could ride home. I caught an M10 tram, which I see everyday on my morning walks, so I know it'll get me close to home... after 16 stops! It's about a 25 minute ride! But, I get to sit and look out the window, which is nice.

In the photo to the right, you can see how one sits when sharing facing seats. Curl those toes in so as not to touch toes with a stranger!

After lunch, I take Venice to the Galleria at Alexanderplatz to find socks. Now that she owns boots, she needs socks (she didn't bring but two pairs of socks since she wears flip-flops most of the time). As we came up from the Bahn station, we saw a lot of people looking up. So, of course, we look up. But we don't really see anything. Just some cranes at the top of a building that seems to be pulling an empty rig up to the top. Why is everyone looking up? Why are we looking up? And now, are others looking up because they see us looking up and it is a phenomenon that will go one forever? All of us looking up but not knowing why we're all looking up?

And then we see it. There are people up on the ledge, well above a sign that says, "Kuck mal Alex, ich kann fliegen!" (Take a look Alex, I can fly!) They are getting hooked up to the "rig". And... they're jumping! They free fall 35 floors (about what we counted) to the roof of the shopping centre below. Incredible! I was able to capture it in a photo (see below) but I thought I was taking video. Dang it! I'm bummed. Would there be another? Could I capture it on video? We waited awhile, but no movement. From below, you can't see anything that's happening up top, so there's no way to know if someone is about to jump or if everyone went to lunch and you're just staring at a building. We decided it was too cold to continue waiting, so we went into the Galleria to hunt for socks.

Side note: I have to say, I was thrilled and appalled by the jumper. Thrilled for obvious reasons, but the visual (I think mostly because the jumper was silhouetted on what looks like an office building)... brought flashbacks of images of 9-11. I don't know what else to say here other than it was a mixture of feelings and thoughts.

Socks. We're looking for socks. We found them! Venice asked to take a photo of one wall of painted socks that reminded her of Granny (who loves to wear fun-decorated socks).

But, we can't find wool socks or winter socks. Everything seems to be cotton. Well, cotton socks will have to do and maybe we can find warmer, wool socks at a specialty store another day.

As we are heading back down, we see a Halloween section, near the toy section. We've been asked if the Germans celebrate Halloween. We still don't know the extent of the answer to that question. For the most part, there are NO signs of Halloween anywhere. This display is only the second of such displays I've seen. Like the other one I saw, it seems to be small in comparison to what we see in the U.S. And this particular set of Halloween items seems to lean heavily to the scary and gore (think Zombies or witches) and very little "cute" or "fun" items or costumes (no cute bears or kitties).

However, Christmas stuff is already showing up! Chris hears that the Christmas season is serious business here too. His coworkers talk about it being less about "lots of gifts" and more about the season (although, the department stores seem to be wanting it to be about gifts?)

One of two Halloween displays I've seen thus far (left)
Venice wonders, "Why?" at the Christmas tree (right)

Before we leave, we look for Ricola for Chris (he texted asking for some throat drops). We find a small box (so we buy two) at the checkout lines. Then, because she missed it yesterday, we stop at Venice's favourite Bubble Tea place (ComeBuy).

The family heads to Ha'an Sushi (our third time, but Chris' first time) for dinner.

It's no longer raining, but has that fresh, crisp feeling that comes after a fall rain. A nice end to the week.

Day 44: The Fortress

Today's post will be split into two to accommodate the many photos.

This morning began with mosquitoes. Poor Chris had been bitten throughout the night. The price to pay for sleeping with our windows open. Dang it. (I try not to gloat, but I guess the little buggers don't like me so much, not a single bite.)

We were late to the dining room today. Breakfast ends at 10am and we made it in with about 30 minutes to go. By the time we finished eating, we were the last ones left. I wanted to hurry. I hate being "that" customer that makes the staff stay longer just because we "can".

This morning's goal is the Fortress Hohensalzburg. To keep energy levels up, we decided to take the funicular up to the top of the mountain. If you remember, the funicular was being repaired in Prague and we took a crazy-all-over-town trip to get there. It felt like cheating. I know we're all capable of walking up. But I know it's the right thing to do since we have so much we want to do today. So, up the mountain-bahn we will go.

The fountain across the street from the back of our hotel.
Someone threw a bicycle into the fountain (middle)?
The kids decide to throw coins, instead of another bicycle, into the fountain (right).

In case you didn't know, The Sound of Music is celebrating it's 50th year at the theatre here. There are many spots around Salzburg available for touring for the avid fans. One spot is the theatre (where the 50th anniversary show is now playing), where the family sang their farewell song and I'm assuming also the song Edelweiss (which of course brings a tear to my eye because I'm a sap). Anyway, I'm not interested in taking one of the "Sound of Music" bus tours, but I am a bit geeky in feeling excited to be in some of the same spots. The theatre is shown in the next photo below.

Various pictures of the theatre, really more of the horses and kids in front of the theatre.

Next, we stumbled across a "Gherkins" display. A what? A "Gherkins" display! Erwin Wurm, the artist, has a trademark sense of humour and irony.

"The forms are as different as gherkins and people tend to be: tall and short, thick and thin, rough and smooth, slender and stocky.... The artist leaves his work open to interpretation, hovering as it does between critical irony and playful teasing: for ultimately, don't we all feel in a bit of a pickle sometimes?"

Awesome. Just awesome.

Well, what can top a pickle? The faire? I forgot to mention, last night, instead of dessert at the mountain restaurant, we decided to look for ice cream down below. In hunting for ice cream, we found the Salzburg fair. At the time, it looked super rinky-dinky. 3-4 rides. 1-2 dessert carts. 1 beer tent. Coming from Oktoberfest where there were about 5 copies of each ride (5 bumper cars, 5 spinny rides, 1 swing rides, several large roller coasters, and more than you can count food/dessert carts), this festival seemed puny.

As we walked through the faire, again, this morning, we realised we only saw one "square" worth of the faire. Since this faire is in the middle of town, it took up several different "squares". Mind you, it was still super small compared to Oktoberfest, but now we're at least impressed with the size. And they have a Round-Up ride (the kids mark this as a "must-do" later, as they remember doing a similar type of ride at Santa Cruz a few years ago).

But, we must press on to the Fortress, so walk right through the faire people!

A view of the funicular (left), Xander riding it (middle), and an overview of the train (right).

The funicular to the top can hold up to 40 people or so. We made it on, just in time and rode to the top... in about 60 seconds. At this point, I still feel like it's cheating. So I don't make eye contact with anyone walking (panting) up the steep paths.

I'm trying to figure out why, but I like this Fortress better than the Prague Castle. Perhaps because it is smaller and I can walk around imaging life here more easily? Maybe because it's less crowded and mostly quiet people milling about. Maybe it's because most of it is super-duper ancient, over 1,000 years old (began in 150 BCE). Maybe it's the Mediterranean feel. Maybe it's the bright-matching white buildings. I don't know. It's simple and it's beautiful.

The pully system to bring supplies up the mountain (left), Building (middle-left)
The kids waving near the supply train (middle-right), Venice jumping for joy (right)

We walked all around the grounds.

A wooden-unicorn ring-toss. Fun!

We saw amazing views from all sides of the fortress, which, by the way, has never been defeated.

Perhaps the Cat's Gate (top-left)?
Walking up the stairs to the main area (bottom-right)

We decided to not do a tour and to not rent the audio tour. So, we really don't know much about the grounds, other than what we are able to read or see (one exhibit had a video). We even skipped the museum that was inside one of the buildings. There was an "art show" in one of the buildings. I'm using quotations because it was definitely questionable art. This is a time when I wish I spoke fluent German so I could ask or read and understand what the heck it is we saw (and now can't un-see). There is a sample of the "art" below. It was of just one man in many poses, I have only posted one of many tables showing this "art". From now on, if we don't understand something, I'm just explaining it as "art".

"Art" (top), Xander drumming a cannon (bottom-left)
Chapel (bottom-middle), Xander and a pigeon (bottom-right)

We decided to lunch at the terrace restaurant. I am surprised that we don't have any trouble getting a table right at the edge with a beautiful view. The food was so good. Or was it that the view made it taste better? Hmm.... It was a lovely lunch.

Sibling huddle (left), Concert, or dinner? Is that really a question? (middle).
Panoramic terrace for lunch (right)

Something difficult for my brain to wrap around were the cannons. It's so hard to imagine firing the cannons on such a beautiful city. I wonder how far could they fire the cannons? Did they harm their own citizens in the process?

Venice's tough side (left), Poised cannon (right)

Instead of taking the funicular down, we decided we could walk that (it's all downhill, after all). On the way down, we tried to see if we could find the "Cat's Gate" or bridge, or something or other... supposedly on the last night of the faire (tomorrow night), fireworks will be set off from here... but we only seem to find limited information on this. We'll keep trying.

The end of our time at the Fortress.
The walk up would have been steep and tough, see the wooden-platform-steps (middle-right)?
I'm glad we took the funicular up!

As we wander, we take in the beautiful grounds. So quiet. So lush. So pretty. We ended up walking to a spot right above our hotel before switchbacking back to the faire. That was cool, to be "on top" of our hotel. This part of town is so small, you can't get lost, and you can always keep the Fortress in sight to know which way is which.

Day 37: WTF March

PG-13 Warning for today's post (some PG-13 content included)

Chris went to a conference today. Xander's cold has gotten worse... what to do with the day?

Ever since I've "translated" the WTF (here is a video) posters we've seen around town, I've been thinking... what if we went to just watch? However, everything is in German (duh), so I don't quite understand all that is going to happen.

From my search online and from my experience at the march, this is what I came up with:

• A fundamentalist Christian group was scheduled for a demonstration today (seems to occur annually)
• Either a March for Life (pro-life) or 1,000 Crosses March (in memoriam to the aborted children and the families affected by the loss) - I think both
• Opposition groups (including One Solution, Revolution) wanted to sabotage this Pro-Life demonstration
• In addition, there is legislature (either trying to be passed, or is already passed, or...) 218 that is against the LGBTQ community (and women's fertility rights and...?) that the groups are protesting
• And, let's throw in some empathy for the refugees while we're all here 

The facade of the old Anhalter Bahnhof (left) and a football game in  play (right)

We joined the crowds at the Anhalter Bahnhof, a historic site from Nazi Germany. This Banhof was grown to be the main station in Berlin. During WWII, almost 10,000 Jews were deported through this Banhof "to Theresienstadt, in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, and from there to concentration camps." Nearing the end of 1943 and early 1944, bombing raids rendered many tracks unusable and destroyed most of the station. Now, just the facade, along with a placard in memorial to the deported Jews, is still standing.

So, while we were waiting (and we waited for almost an hour for "things to happen") we read up on our history and watched a soccer (um, football) game begin. We wandered, we sat, we waited.

The announcer from the "red card" mostly spoke in German. Out of all her speeches that day, I think only 2 times did I heard English. So, we were cloaked in mystery much of the time. What we could NEVER figure out, throughout our day, is what the "end-goal" was. It seemed to be to thwart (that word was even on one of the German signs) the fundamentalist Christian's demonstration. But how? We walked throughout the streets for hours. We stopped traffic. We chanted, "My body, my choice. Raise your voice!" And then, we got closer to, what I think was, the other demonstration. But the police line wouldn't let us near (at least, that's what seemed to be happening). We assumed the police were trying to keep the peace by keeping the two groups apart.

We saw some marchers with maps, and when I could glimpse one, I still couldn't tell if it was a map for "our" march, or a map for "their" march.

More Buddy Bears!

So, around noon, the crowds started to enter the streets. We decided to walk near the end of the large group, for the most options (to bail?) if needed. The crowd was very big, we were guessing 1,000 people or more? I feel super bad for the regular travelers of the day (on buses, in cars, etc.) as we walked through as one big, never-ending line.  They probably had to sit through 5 lights until we were all through... at least.

As we were walking, it almost felt like a walking tour of Berlin. We got to see some fun sights. Cool buildings, old buildings, more Buddy Bears. Pretty soon, I realised we were about to walk through Check Point Charlie! Sorry tourists, you'll just have to wait 20 minutes while we walk through! And at one point, we walked by the Nespresso store and Ritter Sport (we were tempted to skip out and get a free espresso and some chocolate!)

The crowds at the beginning (top)
Bottom: Approaching (left), crossing (middle), through (right) Check Point Charlie.

Gendarmenmarkt square that includes the New German church (not pictured), the
concert hall (bottom-left) and the French church (bottom-middle)

Somewhere "in the middle" of all this, we stopped at Gendarmenmarkt, a square the includes the New German church, the concert hall and the French church. People sat on the steps of the concert hall for a break, others dispersed for the bathroom line at the public WC, still others (like us) looked for food. I thought it would be a demonstration where we met, I didn't realise it was a long walk, so we had no water and no snacks on us! Bad planning!

There seemed to be more police here, so I thought something would happen here (like the "other" march would arrive here?) But no, after a long while, the group started marching again, so we joined, once again.

"Translations"
Top-left: March for life? WTF!
Top-Right: Heteronomy my ass! Thwart 1,000 Crosses March
Middle-left: For the freedom of women and their sexual self-determination
Middle-right: Away with 218. Tackling child poverty
Lower-left: Queers also want abortion
Lower-right: Ovaries before Rosaries

I thought everyone came with us, but we seemed to have lost a few at the square, or they went another route? In any case, we walked farther, clapping alongside with the protesters. As we were walking, we slowly crept up closer to the "red van", that is, the front of the marching group. Maybe when we were about 10 rows back from the front, I could see police running and people running at the front. There were no sounds of yelling, whistle blowing... or if there was, I didn't hear it. It just seemed like a sudden wave of quick movements. As we neared the commotion, you could see a row of police standing guard of a street that was mostly empty, save for the few protesters that seemed to have gotten behind them and were running... where we don't know. I could see a motorcycle with flashing lights blocking the next street, as if it were part of a motorcade or parade-guide. I could see other people, but I couldn't see beyond that. For the time being, there was now an empty block between us, the police blockade and the next street (where I'm going to presume the "other" march was happening).

Approaching the police barricade (top-left), After a few protesters "got through" (top-right)
Turning to try another way (bottom)

Our group stopped here. The "red van" announcer said something and people cheered. I'd like to think that she was saying two things. One, that a few got through the blockade (cheers!) and second, later, that we want to keep peaceful, so let's move on (cheers!) So we turned and walked a different way. Note, several police came with us and they "leap-frogged" with us at every street, some here, some back, but always a barricade to every street turn on our right.

The group went farther and then stopped at another police blockade. This one had police vehicles in addition to a line of police preventing anyone in the group from going farther. The group didn't move for minutes. At this time, Venice and I were starving, so we ducked into the market that was right there. I knew we were taking a chance, but I couldn't let us starve! And yes, when we came back out (dang we were behind some slow customers) the "red van" was gone. But there were lots of groups hanging out. Some were sitting with their signs, others were trying to cross the police barricade and were peacefully being turned back.

Just as we were deciding if we were going to hang out, look for the "red van", or go home, we saw several police vehicles packing up and leaving. Things here seemed to be dying down. Having had our "experience" and wanting to get back to Xander, we decided to head home, the U-Bahn station was right there (we were now near the Jewish memorial and the Brandenburger Tor at this point) and we were able to hop right on and get home safely.

From this news post, I think we missed the most exciting moments of it all (which is probably a good thing). Our time in the march was mostly uneventful and us being confused much of the time. But, I felt safe the entire time and it was fun to participate. From some of those we were walking with, it seemed like a walking "coffee date". People catching up, chatting, smoking a cigarette, hanging out with friends. If you were closer to the front, it was more chanting, clapping, and higher energy, but near the back, it was casual-chatting.

All in all, Venice and I were gone from about 10:30am-4:30pm (that includes train times, but it was a lot of walking, for sure!)

And the day wasn't over yet. I made a late lunch for the kids and then went to the market (and uh, oh... my throat is starting to hurt... ack!)

I reserved a table at a Dim Sum place down the street. You send a reservation for a table online, get a number and then wait for the restaurant to confirm... but of course, they never confirmed. We went anyway, just in case it was ok, and yay! Our table was waiting for us, right there!

The food was SO GOOD. I think everyone would be happy to go back there.

At the end of our meal, the waitress asked if we'd mind sharing our table. We said no problem (although a certain youngest-family member isn't keen on sitting next to strangers) and scooted over. We only had to share for about 5 minutes while we finished drinks and paid the bill. Easy.

Now for some good rest for us all.

Day 37: LGBTQ Protest! (Venice)

Mom and I had first seen the posters in the streets. They all said “What The Fuck?” on them. We, of course, found this hilarious, so we decided to translate it to see what they meant. When we did we found an entire backstory! It turns out that every year, a certain group of Christians protest against LGBTQ, the right to choosing abortion, and other opinions. So the year everyone who didn’t agree was fed up with having to see it every year. (Side note: the Christian fundamentalist march is called the 1000 crosses march) So they told us to meet up at an S-bahn station and we were going to march against them.

Photographing bottle caps (left) and viewing the surrounding areas (right)

They told us to meet at 11am. But what we didn’t know was that we were going to end up waiting almost an hour before starting the march. People went into the street and there were cops, sorry, polizei, everywhere! It was definitely a giant organised event. I think there were almost 1000 people there! We marched for a while, making our way up to the red car at the front that was playing music and giving announcements. It turns out, it is too dangerous to drive it in a group to people, so they had people pushing it instead.

The many polizei.

At the square.

At some point, we stopped in a giant square. There was a wedding going on at one of the buildings! We were not moving, so mom and I bought a coke because we had been out for 3 hours so far! All of a sudden people started moving again. We noticed a lot of people stayed behind though, so now the crowd maybe had 500 people now?

We kept marching until all of a sudden people started running. Mom and I almost panicked, but we both knew not to run into something we had no idea about. It turns out that the polizei would not let us cross a certain border. A couple of people, maybe 10-20 made it through the polizei line. The rest of us turned to the left and kept going.

At the square.

I noticed at one point, when we going past Checkpoint Charlie, a lot of tourists were staring at us, because you don't see a giant parade of people go by every day. I was kind of excited and felt kind of weird because most of the time people don't openly stare at you (since it's impolite). But it didn't feel impolite when they stared, as that would be what I'd do, too.

I also felt weird because I couldn't understand what they were always saying. But I am glad I was there.

We kept going until we hit a dead end. there was no other way to go. Mom and I could not tell if it was over or not, so we decided to get a snack inside a store nearby. When we came out everyone was leaving and no red van was in sight. The polizei were still at the end of the road, but the polizei at the side exits were packing into their vans and leaving. So mom and i went into the nearest S-bahn station, and rode home. the end to a very weird 5 and a half hour excursion…..

The big crowd at the beginning.

Day 7: The Basilica and Views

Pigeons!

The new room is louder. Lots of banging throughout the night. I picture the locals opening and closing their shutters all night long, yelling to their partner through their house. In the morning, it sounded like people were dumping metal pipes onto boats (I think it was the metal doors sliding open of the shops as they opened). AND, the new rooms do NOT have an espresso maker (the old one did). BUT, with two bathrooms, we have twice the toilette paper! Not that we ran out before, but it was close, even with the bidet :)

All our shoes were dry, no more squishing around!

After breakfast we headed to Piazza San Marco with breadsticks in our pockets, ready for the birds. If you are a pigeon advocate, please skip this part (as we are feeding them non-bird food and exploiting them for photos). The birds are crazy. They do tend to be able to smell who has food and who doesn't. If you don't, they mostly fly by, but if you do, they land on your arm, your shoulder, your head. I really wanted one on my head, but they wouldn't land there. They did tend to favour hats over plain heads. Their claws were mostly gentle. But, after a few minutes, our arms were a little irritated and we were out of food, so, perfect timing. It was also time for our tour at the Basilica di San Marco.

Alessandro had encouraged us to buy tickets online. This means you skip the line (which is an average of 45 minutes) and walk right into the Basilica. It cost a little more, but it came with a 60 minute tour. Not too long, for those of us disliking these kinds of tours. What was great about it was all the history our guide shared with us (I never would have read as much as she told us, so it was great to hear it all). The tour also allowed us to go into a side room that only tours are allowed to go into. There are absolutely no photos, videos, selfies (yes, it says this), or camera usage within the Basilica. But, in this side room, they close the doors, turn on the lights and we are allowed to take photos.

Outside wall of the Basilica (left).
BabyKiller in the side room (middle).
Our selfie, in an permitted area, over the tile floor (right).

There is a wall in this side room, where they took away the marble wall to see what was beneath it. But they took it off to roughy and took of half of a mosaic wall that was hidden under the marble. They have tried to restore it, but with the salty air, it is futile. Within just the last 7 years, more of the remaining mosaic has disappeared due to salt. So they have closed this room off and only open it a few times a day for the tours.

In this room, there are several items, including three burials and two baptising "baths". One, big tub, is to baptise adults, and the other (seen in the middle photo) is to baptise babies. However, the artist made the "lid" out of very heavy metal and the four doors (so you can baptise four babies at a time) are too heavy, so VERY unsafe to put a baby in there (so we nicknamed it the BabyKiller, not that any babies died in there, but in our warped need to entertain ourselves, this is what we called it).

Also inside the Basilica, our tour allowed us to go into areas that usually cost a small fee (so we paid for it via our tickets). We got to see the sarcophagus of San Marco, himself, if you believe it. Our guide mentioned that it had the Pope's seal on it, and anything with the Pope's seal is above scrutiny (no scientific tests can be performed). And we saw an amazing gold altar piece, the Pala d'Oro. It was truly amazing with the amount of gold and jewels and attention to details. We enjoyed the story of how the Venetians thwarted Napoleon's attempt to steal it by painting a ulgy-false front that he deemed unworthy of taking, so he left it.

After our tour, we were left within the Basilica to roam around at our leisure. We decided to pay a few extra Euros to see the upper level, which included a wrap-around balcony with amazing views of the Piazza.

As is our pattern, after the Basilica, we headed back to the hotel to rest before lunch. Also, backpacks are forbidden in the Basilica, so we needed to go back to pick that up and fill it with water and other items. Chris wondered if we needed to bring rain jackets again, I said no, I thought the weather was going to be ok the rest of the day (foreshadow alert!)

The Rialto (notice the giant building on the right covered
so you can't see the construction going on below it. the
building on the left is also having this done, but it's a little
harder to see in this photo)

After lunch, we headed to Peggy Guggenheim Collection. On our way, we were able to cross the Ponte dell'Accademia, the southern most bridge to cross the Grand Canal. Wonderful vistas and great photo opportunities. A great way to make up for the Rialto being closed. Side note: You can still cross the Rialto, but all the sides are blocked off, so there is no view off of the bridge, and coming in via water, you only see blocked out shops on the water side. Shops in the middle are open for business, and on one side, there is a 10x30 sqft. area where you can take photos off the bridge, but your view is of construction, not waterside restaurants with colourful awnings as it was in the past.

The Guggenheim Collection was more interested to me than the Biennale. I'm reinforcing that I definitely like old art better than a lot of the more modern art. I'm sure there are more artsy defining words to describe what I do like and don't like, but anyway. I did like seeing actual Picasso and Dali pieces. The visiting collection of the Pollock brothers (mostly Charles was represented, but there were a few pieces from Jackson) was cool to see. My favourite ended up being pieces by Vasily Kandinsky, while Xander enjoyed this piece by Picasso.


After the museum (yay, we made it through two museums and a tour on our trip!), we headed for some gelato (of course!) and then to the part of the island that would give us a panoramic view of Venice, from the Piazza all the way to the end where the Biennale is located. More walking, more gelato. More heat. More photos.

On our way to dinner, we figured we'd cut our walking by half if we could take two traghettos. Yay! But when we got to the first traghetto, it closed at 6pm, it was after 6. Boo!

So, more walking it is. Side note: yesterday was about 7.22 miles, and today is about 7 miles. We are deserving of that gelato!

We enjoyed a very lovely dinner. It was a most relaxed dinner, knowing we had seen so much of what we had wanted to do. Xander was feeling much better. The food was good. The atmosphere (a quiet square) was good.

In the last five minutes of our dining experience, a panicked waiter came running from table to table. He got to ours and talked super fast Italian. We looked at him with blank stares. He paused, realising we didn't understand a word he just said, "The rain! It's coming!" He was handing out table numbers on pieces of paper, asking people to bring all their stuff inside, to transfer themselves inside to finish out their meals. We had already finished, so we just asked, "Il conto per favore!"

Meanwhile, we looked to the skies, and yes, they were dark and foreboding. And yes, lightning started (foreshadow "cashing in").

Xander, not a fan of the lightning or thunder, wanted to race home. So we ran through the streets towards our hotel. Just about the time we got cramps from eating and running, the drops started to fall. We were almost home, but then... we passed a self-serve frozen yogurt shop... remember, moral imperative... doesn't matter that it's yogurt and not gelato... must. stop. to. get. frozen. yogurt.

So we stopped to fill cups of yumminess and that's when it really started to rain. We tried walking under as much cover as possible, but... it was wet and our shoes were squishy again.