The next morning we left the hotel at 7:30am. At breakfast, we told Sue and Joe about our engagement. We got into Venice at 8:30 am, and didn’t have to meet up until 3pm. I was thrilled that we had so much time in Venice compared to all the other cities! It was wonderful, having so much time to explore the city. We went to the Accademia museum and spent a couple hours there. There is a painting that made my eyes water the last time I saw it, and it had the same effect on me the second time. High Renaissance Venetian painting has a lucidity that can only be experienced in person.

After the Accademia, we went into the San Marco church—I hadn’t gone last time. We happened upon it when the line was relatively short. As we walked along, I kept ducking into each little bar and restaurant to check for the sandwiches that I fell in love with last time—the trammezzini. We finally found some that looked undeniably scrumptious and had two each. They were delicious! They’re essentially a crab or shrimp or tuna salad sandwich, with slices of hardboiled egg or spinach leaves or cheese, on white bread with the crusts cut off. I don’t know why I love them so much. But at 1.50 euros each, it’s an affordable, filling lunch.

We kept wandering, looking through shops, and bought a souvenir for Marc’s parents. Marc wanted to get a cat mask—isn’t that cute? He is the silliest boy! Then as we were walking through San Marco, I saw some lovely sapphire rings in the window of a jewelry shop. There was one that was particularly beautiful and it is now on my finger! Marc has been timing the distance between each look at my left hand. It has been averaging about 30 seconds. The man in the jewelry shop was super nice. He said the ring was designed by a friend of his. The designer’s name was Maurizio Bergolo? Something like that. On the way to turn in the paper for our VAT refund, we chatted with him about what it’s like to live in Venice.

By then it was about 1:30 pm. We were hungry again, so we went trammezzini hunting. We found some in a bar, and Marc’s feet hurt and he wanted to sit down. I warned him we would pay a lot more to sit down, but I didn’t know it would be so much more! We got charged 3 euros for our sodas and 3.50 for each trammezzini which is almost twice the cost if we had got them to-go. Yikes. Then we wandered back to our meeting place.

 

We chatted with another couple who heard we had “escaped on our own” and wanted to know what we did the night before. We told them about our engagement and they congratulated us heartily and told us to tell Barry so he could announce it to everyone. And so, I told Barry on our last bathroom break before leaving Venice. He gave me a big hug and a european kiss and more hearty congratulations. Then when everyone was on the bus, he said something about how couples sometimes get engaged on these tours, and how there was one such couple who got engaged the previous night. Then he told everyone it was us and they all cheered and applauded quite exuberantly. I held up my ring for everyone to see, and for the next two days, I think everyone on the tour came up to individually congratulate us and to also hear the story of how Marc proposed.

After leaving Venice, we headed for Florence. It took forever to get there due to pouring down rain and several accidents that the rain caused. We didn’t get to Florence until after 7. That night at dinner, Barry bought us a bottle of champagne and everyone cheered and congratulated us again. He brought the champagne to our table and asked for one kiss (from me, not Marc) and then he opened the bottle for us. Everyone cheered once more as the cork flew off. Everyone was so incredibly nice. The champagne was extremely good, and even though we shared with the people at our table, we still got quite buzzed. Our dinner that night was one of the best hotel dinners we’ve had. The soup was rather blah, but we had a delicious, simple salad of radicchio and butter lettuce smothered in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. And some wonderful “fried potatoes” in olive oil, and thin slices of pork tenderloin. It was pretty good although I was still craving pasta. Tomorrow morning we spend time in the city center of Florence, and then it’s off to the Italian Lakes District.

 

Go on the next part of the journey!