Europe 2001: Venice II

It was another scorcher of a day in Venice.  I hate the idea of leaving.  Also, we have only one week left of our vacation.  I'm going to be really tan when I get home.  When we left our hotel for the day, we saw my little receptionist friend.
        "Bonjourno, Ms. LaVictoire" he said.
        "Bonjourno," I replied.
        "How are you this morning?"
        "Fine, how are you?"
        "Very bad, thank you.”

We began the morning with the hotel's complimentary buffet breakfast and then went to Venice's Academia, which had a lot of religious paintings dating as far back as the 1100-ish A.D.  Next, we went to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum.  It is located inside a gorgeous palace on the Grande Canal, which used to be Peggy's house (and is where her grave is).  I saw some really wonderful modern and strange art.  After the Guggenheim Museum we wandered around, got lunch, and ended up in San Marco Square again, where we went to the top of the Basilica di San Marco and sat on the shaded side of the roof to cool off.  After an hour we went to get ice cream, underwear for Amber, and Venetian carnival masks for me.  Our shopping was very successful, and along the way to get ice cream we passed some street musicians who were playing didgeridoos and drums.  After we were done, we wandered back to our hotel, hot and sweaty, and ready for showers.  I was so glad to have washed some clothes the day before, so now I have CLEAN UNDERWEAR, jeans, shorts, and a CLEAN SHIRT.  Ah, little comforts.  Tomorrow, we have an 8:33 am train that will take us to Florence.