Venice day 3 (10/20)

Breakfast and then various tasks including Doug’s visit to the internet access point. Today, we wanted to go back to Piazza San Marco to visit the basilica, clock tower and the Museo Correr. We also had to vacate the Hotel della Mora and move our stuff to the new hotel. Then it was off the San Marco. This time we went by boat along the Grand Canal. It gave us a different view of Venice and also was less walking. It had rained the night before and was still drizzling. The water in the canals was lapping up and sometimes over the edges. It was a trivial example of a serious problem that Venice has when the tide is high and it is raining. The land floods. In fact when we reached the piazza, the raised walkways were out. They are normally stacked around the piazza. When the piazza is under water, they lay out the wooden walkways and life goes on. Fortunately for us, the water level didn’t rise more that a couple of inches and was already receding by the time we arrived. It being noon already, we grabbed some sandwiches and ate them standing in the piazza. Then Doug, Nancy and Pascal went to the basilica. Tai was more interested in wondering around looking at the shops. The basilica was really quit spectacular. It’s a huge church and the entire interior is covered my mosaics. These mosaics seem to be the major attraction. So the basic tout of the interior is pretty much an in, walk up to the sanctuary and back out. That’s free. To see any other parts one has to pay several euros. We decided that we would only pay to go up to the upper area. That was 6 euros each. This was a museum area that included several rooms around half the upper level. There were various art work, mosaic exhibits, robes and tapestries and some paintings. One could also see from a much closer prospective the ceiling mosaics. There was also a out to the roof where you look out over Venice and the piazza. At one point we looked down and there was Tai. She took our picture.
We left the basilica and joined Tai. We then walked across the piazza to the Museo Correr. We had purchased a multi-museum pass so it was free to get in. We went up to the cafeteria and had some coffee and tea. Nancy and Pascal wanted to see this museum. Tai and Doug wanted to go to the modern art museum. So we split with a plan to meet at the Rialto bridge at 5:30.
The Museo di Arte Moderna houses a fairly large collection of art from about 1850 to late 1900’s. Upstairs was a surprising exhibit of ‘oriental art’. In the early 1880’s a Venetian prince traveled to SE Asia and sent back thousands of pieces of mostly Japanese objects. There was armor, dozens of swords and knives. Several rooms devoted to lacquerware and pottery. We were running late so we had to rush through this very surprisingly extensive exhibit.
We got to the bridge about a half hour late and Nancy and Pascal were already there. So then it was off to the restaurant we had tried to get into the previous night. This time we got there before they opened and had to way about 20 minutes. It was worth the wait and we had a meal of mostly tapas. These are various bar snacks. Then a leisurely walk back to the new hotel through a section off Venice we hadn’t yet seen. We got to the hotel after 10pm again and crashed.