Day 17 - Travel to Venice and Evening Concert

Today we were leaving Rome and taking the train north to Venice, the last major stop on our three week tour of Italy.On this morning we saw this sign in the rickety elevator. I guess the building manager was an Englishman. There were three sets of doors to close.

We'd been here for six days and really enjoyed the breakfasts, here's a sample of this day's fare. There was more than just the pastries, but they looked the best.

We had become quite friendly with Beverly, our hostess. I mentioned her in an earlier post. Today we had one of the other guests take a group photo with my phone.

We made our way to the train station, got tickets and started on the nearly four hour trip. The only excitement I had was seeing a Ring-necked Pheasant in a field. I managed one poor shot. In Europe, the bird is called the Common Pheasant.



This was our first look at Venice, still on the train.



Upon arrival, we had to figure out how to get from the train station to our hotel. Someone told us that the water bus system was the cheapest option. Learning the routes and where to get off took some time, but we got better at it over the three days. Also, after 17 days, not much fazed us.

Here's a view from one of the buses, with another bus off to the left.



And this is as close as we got to a Gondola ride. The price was quite high, they were asking 80 Euros for a short ride. And we just didn't have it on our bucket list of things to do.



Here's a few shots of various buildings taken from the water bus.









You get the idea...

I tried to find information on this sculpture on Google but did not succeed.



Edith had bought concert tickets for our first evening at a church on the other side of the city. At the hotel, we inquired about the best way to get there. It didn't look all that far away on the map, but they told us it was at least a two hour walk, And we'd be coming back in the dark. They gave us the water bus route and schedule, which was a good call.

The concert was starting a bit late, but we left quickly so we could see the route while it was light. We arrived at the church at least an hour early.



This was a good thing because we hadn't eaten much since breakfast and we had time to have dinner at a nearby restaurant.

The upper one was Edith's and the one below was mine.





By the time we got back to the church it was quite dark.



This was the setting for the concert:

I had not brought my camera, but took a few shots with the IPhone.



I believe there were eight musicians. There was a curtain call after they were done.



The man on the right played Cello with intensity. He appeared to be the leader.




Miraculously. we got on the right water bus and made it back to our hotel in the dark.



More on Venice in subsequent posts.