Venezia

Early Saturday morning we boarded the EuroStar bound for Venice. We planned our trip there around an















Italian festival--Festa del Redentore--to honor the end of the plague in Venice (July 3, 1577). A pontoon bridge is erected over the Giudecca canal to allow people to cross the canal on foot to attend services and festivities at Il Redentore (the Redeemer) church designed by Palladio.

We visited San Marco, rode the vaporetto from island to island, and crowned our evening with the fabled fireworks beginning at 11:30. As we traveled the canals, we saw barges set up with fireworks, even a display spelling out "Venezia." The crowds filled the San Marco area and lined the canals to ooh and ahh over the
spectacular display.







Sunday we rode the vaporetto again and this time we went under the pontoon foot bridge created the day before. We rode over to Lido and down through the Grand Canal.





We stopped at the church used in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" as a library. The tiny walkways wind round and round, up and over bridges of all sizes and shapes.


As a contrast to the Byzantine structure of San Marco and the masses of Italian art, Jen and I decided to visit the Peggy Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art. What a lovely, restful place! We enjoyed seeing art by Picasso, Ernst, Klee, Miro, and Calder. I know Jen marveled at the silver headboard made by Alexander Calder for Peggy's bedroom--it was astounding in design and craft.