04./05.11. - Venice - a dream come true!

Lea was as excited yesterday morning as I have not seen her in a long time, but her dream of "Venice" had come within reach. If you want to travel here properly, of course, it can only be done by sea. Fortunately, there was a boat dock right next to our pitch - the 10:00 a.m. tour was reserved just for us. That's obviously a joke, but no one else wanted to join, so we were to be the only passengers. Like any other tourist, we had the usual destinations: the Bridge of Sighs, St. Mark's Square, and whatever else we came across. Right at the beginning, the local mail delivery impressed me a lot. Just as we have countless vans for various package services, there are boats here. A yellow DHL boat, a red DPD boat, etc. From the boat, it then goes onto a cart and then it is delivered - very impressive! The public transport here looks similar to the Elbe ferries in Hamburg. And, of course, one must not forget the city's trademark, the gondoliers. Naturally, these guys can smell tourists from 5km away and greet everyone with "Gondola, Gondola, ...". Since they stand at every possible and impossible spot along the canals, it quickly becomes exhausting. We quickly found the Bridge of Sighs. It was more difficult for us to find St. Mark's Square. We learned that there are dead ends in Venice - they usually end up at the water, and that lanes where no one is walking should be avoided - they usually lead nowhere. 😊

At some point, we did find St. Mark's Square and were mighty impressed by the buildings. We were somewhat surprised by how few people were out and about. But in the high season, one would not want to see that here. A clear indication of this was that only 10% of the gondoliers were active, and the rest of the gondolas were moored in winter sleep. Since the St. Mark's Basilica is currently closed due to construction work, I will have to postpone the visit for later. We discovered and visited a few other churches, although I am not sure if one can still call them churches given their size. The churches in Italy are like a lucky bag - one can never guess what to expect. We liked the "Accademia" district the best. There were countless galleries, handicrafts, and similar shops here. And here, Lea also discovered an exhibition that she would have been interested in. Since we were somewhat tired, we wanted to postpone the visit to today. And unfortunately, Corona has thrown a wrench into our plans. We only found out in the evening that all museums must remain closed from 05.11. Since one news report said that the rules should only apply from Friday, we went there again, but unfortunately, the doors were closed - just a shame! But this way, we could take another look at everything in peace under a blue sky and great sunshine.

We didn't really feel like driving further, but we also wanted to take a little stroll through Padua. A chic university town with an interesting mix of new and old. I particularly liked the Basilica here, where St. Anthony is buried, and a sculpture park. After about 2 hours, we needed to find a place to spend the night. Today, it is at the cemetery car park of Este. Let's see if the ghosts leave us in peace.