In Venezia XIII

Big plans for the day--Let's take the boat to Isola San Servolo where we've seen they have an interesting new museum about the hospital for the insane that was there for a couple centuries. Then we can hang out around the Venice International University (also on San Servolo), have a picnic lunch, some coffee, and kill a couple hours before the Gregorian Chant Vespers at 5:25 PM.

On our way to the Vaporetto ticket stand, we came across a picket line of pigeon feed vendors with signs protesting that apparently, the Mayor had banned them from St. Mark's as of today. We haven't translated all the signs yet, but the emotions ran from "You are taking away our jobs" to "The children will be disappointed" to "The pigeons will starve". Found some more details.



We bought our 72 hour Vaporetto tickets--our last three days here will be spent using the water buses to explore and observe, culminating with our departure just before they expire on Saturday.Then we hopped on the #20 to San Servolo. It's one of the smaller lagoon boats as opposed to the big mega-tubs that haul hundreds of people up and down the Canal Grande and over to Lido.


Disembarking at San Servolo, we encountered a more-or-less deserted island. It was lunch time so the university offices were closed, but there were no students in sight. We found the entrance to the museum and spent a good 5 minutes reading the 4 displays. It turns out you have to arrange a tour of the museum and it's just being developed so maybe there isn't so much to see anyway.


I was able to add to my "Floors of Venezia" series (although not technically Venezia) and also start a new series, "Blue Glass Bamboo of the Venetian Lagoon..."

We ate our sandwich and then decided to continue on to Lido and see what was cracking over there. However, the boat from San Servolo to Lido only goes at midnight, so it was back to Venezia, then board a #1 and head across the lagoon. Shortly, we arrived in Lido. We walked around there for a time, looked at some beaches and the Adriatic. The beach was pretty junky and it turns out all beaches are private except for the tiny over-used chunk we were on.



Back on the #1 to Venezia. Plans for vespers put to sleep and replaced with a plan to take an aperitif at our local campo and then, after we dine, a trip down the Canal Grande with our newly acquired keys to the waterways and a book showing the palazzi of the canale. Likely more to be added later...