We had stayed up all night before his flight Tuesday because the taxi was going to get us at 4:30am, and I headed straight to the train station after I saw him off post checking in for his flight. The way down was half train half bus, but wasn't all too bad and a scenic route; some of the landscape in southern Austria/northern Italy looks a little similar to Colorado. Unfortunately I missed the 6:29 train by five minutes (to be honest I wasn't expecting to make it at all, though I was disappointed to see I had been so close) so I had to wait until 8:29 for the next train; I think that was the hardest part.
When I got there I made my way to St. Lucia Station, oddly not where we were let off the bus, to go rendezvous with Dylan. Background: Dylan was in my German and bridge (the game, not the structures that span the canals in Venice) classes this spring and we happened to be bridge partners one day when both of ours were MIA. I learned that he had a grant to study Palladian architecture for two months in a town about an hour from Venice, so we had decided to keep in touch and try and do some travelling together. We navigated through the narrow streets and found our room, then decided to head over to Casa Artom. I had been in touch with the house director to attempt to stay there, but he said they weren't allowing guests. I asked if we could come by and see it, and luckily he was going to be in town the day we got in and said we could drop by. The house is phenomenal! It's spacious, well appointed, and right on the Grand Canal. It was still about half an hour until 7:00 and Dylan informed me that most restaurants don't open before then, so we decided to kill a little time by checking out the view from Punta della Dogana, a museum with a point that juts out at the end of the Grand Canal which offers a picturesque (though what isn't picturesque in Venice?) panorama that includes San Marco Square and San Giorgio Maggiore across the water. We wandered back along the canal to a little restaurant that had been recommended to us, had some good Italian food, then continued to roam at random. We came across a particularly narrow alley that looked a little questionable, it being dusk and all, but I had an urge to go down it anyway.
It lead us to a little antique-looking hole-in-the-wall type store that was filled with fountain pens, quills, stationary, notebooks, wax seals, and other writing paraphernalia.
poor picture (it looked better on the camera), but at least it gives an idea of the shop
It was closed for the evening, but we both really wanted to return the next day, so I figured out where we were on the map and marked it off. We also checked out San Marco Square which I thought was surprisingly crowded (more so than the pictures let on) for dusk on a Tuesday night. It was pleasant walking through as the square was lined with restaurants, most of which had a live musician or small ensemble.
We started to make our way back to the room after that, but we were accosted along the way by a woman speaking rapid Italian who blocked our path. We backed away alarmed, but she switched to English and asked us why we weren't inside the Accademia Gallery. We realized then that we were next to the fine art museum and it just so happened that it was open late that night with free entrance. Seeing as we had planned on going in anyway this seemed like an opportunity not to pass up. It was mostly Italian Renaissance works including some from Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini. Ring a bell? Fellow North Carolinians, if you have ever visited the Biltmore, you've seen Pellegrini's work. George Vanderbilt bought the his ceiling fresco, The Chariot of Aurora, from Venice's Pisani Palace. We saw about 90% of the museum before they closed for the evening. All and all not a bad end to our first day, though I was definitely exhausted by that point and ready for a good night's sleep.
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