May 18 and 19 May 20 May 21 May 22 May 23 May 24 May 25 May 26 May 27 May 28 May 29 May 30 May 31 June 1 June 2 June 3	Sunday 6/2/02 I woke up about 5 and gave up and got up about 5:30. There’s no shooting planned for this morning, so no reason to be up this early. We’re all getting very tired. Shirley has the alarm set for 7, so I got dressed as quietly as possible and grabbed my book and my point and shoot and went for a walk. Finally wound up reading in the main lobby until they opened the doors for breakfast. Most of the rest of the group came in shortly after I did. Shirley says she got up shortly after I left and started packing for home... There was another strike today. The gondoliers are working again (the photo at left shows a gondola traffic jam - lots of tourists!), but the sidewalk cafes are closed until noon, again protesting the unlicensed street vendors. As part of the protest, they draped a large cloth across the bridges and along the street for a couple of blocks - this was about 10 feet wide and quite long (see the photo on the right), stretching from near San Marco past the bridge on the other side of our hotel - a good four blocks. We caught the 8:45 water bus to Lido, where we met Laura. She showed us the view from there. Yes, you can see all of Venice from there, but there’s no way to capture it on film. It’s just too far away. So we were off again. This time taking the water bus to Isola de San Pietro, another section of Venice we hadn’t been to before. This is a more residential area. We ambled back towards the Arsenale, stopping occasionally to shoot something interesting. The four photos above show some of the sights we spotted this morning. The photo on the left shows a quiet harbor. The next photo shows some of the many laundry lines we saw. The next photo is a grilled window with a basket of petunias. The photo on the right shows some of the foliage planted near this building. There was a photo exhibit at the Arsenale that was quite interesting. This photographer did some interesting things with small children and elephants, small children and owls or falcons or something like that, and a man with some whales. Very unusual. I didn’t understand some of his photos. They were supposed to represent biodiversity and were meant to be both timeless and no particular location. Then we walked back to the hotel, arriving back about 12:30. I had a light lunch with Judy and Shirley, back at Roberto’s again. I had tenette with pesto sauce. It was greasy, but tasty. Bill saw us sitting there and stopped to talk for a while. Nothing is planned for the rest of the afternoon. We walked back to the hotel and I pulled everything out of my suitcase. Then attempted to get everything settled for the flight home in the morning. I think it’s packed well enough. Nothing wound up broken. What puzzles me is that I have more room in both the suitcase and the camera bag than I had when I came to Italy, yet I’ve added more stuff. How was that possible? I read for a while, nearly nodding off, when I decided that it was stupid to spend my last four hours in Venice sitting in my room reading! So I grabbed my point and shoot and left the room about 3:30. I walked around the immediate area again and wound up in front of San Marco. The line to get in was moving steadily (and would only be open another half hour), so I got in line. The people in front of me were stopped from going in until the women donned jackets. They were wearing sleeveless shirts. No bare shoulders and no shorts allowed. This is normal for European churches. San Marco is gorgeous inside. It’s full of mosaics instead of paintings. And most of the mosaics involve gold tiles. The interior looked like it had been washed down in gold. And it has intricate mosaic floors. Some were covered by industrial strength coverings to protect them, but the rest was quite lovely. The mismatched columns from outside were continued inside. And, over the main aisle was a large cross made up of red votive holders. Each had a candle burning in it. Very strange. The photo at right is of St. Nicholas. This mosaic is outside of the basilica, but it gives you an idea what the interior mosaics were like (no photos allowed inside). Whatever surface wasn’t involved in a picture was covered with the golden tiles. It really glittered! After leaving the interior, I got back in line and went up the very steep stairs to the Loggia de Cavelli - the horse balcony. From there, you could see back into the closed church (it had closed in the meantime), then step out onto the balcony, which was covered in very smooth marble. It was sloped slightly, which made footing tricky. This allowed one to actually touch the replica horses. The photos in the center and to the right above shows how close one gets to the horses. And there was a decent view back into the square below - the photo on the left. Something special was going on later in the day, as there was a red draped platform set up in front of the basilica. I leaned over the railing to snap a picture of the arches and stonework just below the balcony and wound up taking the picture twice - the one on the left has a pigeon flying up to the balcony and the one on the right shows the same scene after the pigeon has passed by... Then I popped back inside and found the room where the original horses are. They’re huge! Oh, and all four horses are stallions..... Then I wandered back to the hotel. The three photos above were taken on this little walk. The one on the left shows some more gondola traffic. The center photo shows some rooftop dining on roof visible from our room. The photo on the right is a statue located near our hotel. Also on the way back to the hotel, I saw this gondolier playing the accordion. He was playing a Russian folk song! Then back to the hotel to find Judy sitting on the patio our annex has. She was getting her notes caught up and making sure she had caught everything on her checklist of things not to miss in Venice. I think we caught them all! We talked for a while, then I went in to shower for our farewell dinner. We gathered downstairs in the main lobby about 7, where Laura joined us. We walked a couple blocks to the Black Olive Inn (well, that’s what it translates to - I forgot to write down the Italian name). We had an excellent dinner there. The antipasto included a large shrimp apiece, stuffed zucchini flowers (yum), something with octopus and potatoes, something with sardines and sweet, sweet onions. There were different main courses. Mine was gnoccetti with a seafood sauce (red). Gnocci are small potato dumplings. These were smaller, hence the "etti" at the end. I recognized shrimp in the sauce and something rubbery. Very tasty. Dessert was luscious - a white mousse/vanilla ice cream concoction with a topping of chocolate and a dusting of almonds. Heavenly! And a Sauvignon Blanc accompanied the meal. A very nice ending to a nice stay. We walked back to the hotel and said our farewells to Laura and each other, then back to the room to crash. In addition to setting Shirley’s alarm (mine had decided to die), we left a wake up call for 4 am. Shirley called it in and I heard her assuring the person at the other in that, yes, she did mean 4:00 in the morning.... We both were catching the 7:15 flight to Paris.... Next...