My feet hurt!

So let's see, it's "international talk like a pirate day" so let's get that out of the way real quick

Arrrgh.

And given Venice's history, that seems appropriate!

So yesterday was a blast. We took a tour to visit three of Palladio's most amazing villas - Foscari (aka Malcontenta), Barbaro (aka Mestre) and Emo. All of them were great, but I think my favorite was Emo. Palladio's style of Renaissance architecture works much better outside of Venice than it does in Venice. Fibonacci numbers and all that seem out of place among Venice's great Gothic style, but work very well on their own isolated spaces in the Veneto countryside.

Holy crap, I sound like John Ruskin!

So anyway, after a long day of touring all over the countryside visiting the villas, we got back to the apartment around 6:00 or so. Freshened up a bit, took naps, etc, then went to Al Covo again for dinner, which was supposed to be at 8:30, but given bad timing on our part and typical Italian time tables for public transportation, we didn't get there until about 9:00.

Had an amazing meal, and got back home from that around 12:30 AM, after literally closing the place - we were the last to leave.

So ended yesterday.

And the reason my feet hurt is that we had another tour with Venice Art Tours. We started around 9:15 and walked all over the southern part of the city, literally on our feet for over four hours. It was a fantastic, albeit very tiring tour. Highlight of the day, for me at least, was stopping in the Frari church. The Titian painting of Mary's ascension into heaven, behind the main altar, is one of the greatest works of art I've ever seen.

Eric, the tour guide, left us off in the Dosoduro area, near gelateria Nico (those of you who are friends on Facebook know we stopped there :) ). We were going to try to eat at a pizza place named Ae Oche, but for some reason we never got an order in, got fed up and walked to a decent little restaurant named Osteria 1518. Good thing we did, because we were going to try to sit outside at Ae Oche, and by the time we had our food ordered at 1518 it was pouring down rain.

We had a nice meal there, and afterwards went to Nico for dessert. Since it was rainy, we decided to forgo our plans for the rest of the day and visit Ca' D'Oro. Jan and I had been there before, but Paddy and Jeff had not. We were a bit disappointed to learn that we were unable to walk on the ground floor out to the Grand Canal now, which we did before. I assume that someone did something stupid in the last 11 years to prevent tourists from doing that today.

Anyway, we're back at the apartment after a long day of touring all over the city, and we've decided that we're too tired to go out. Jeff and I are going to head out to get carry out pizza at the good Ae Oche, near the train station, not near Nico, and bring it back for Jan and Paddy.

And with that, we're planning to have an early night.