Venice: Day 3
Caroline:
Hi again! I'm here to show you my third day of Italian explorations in Venice! Our guide ,Elisabetta, took us straight down to the Accademia, at about 8:45 in the morning. We were one of the first groups of the day! Honestly, I didn't find it all that interesting especially after the 16th portrait of Mary and Jesus, but there was still very beautiful art that was well worth the morning. While we were there Elisabetta spotted an unlicensed guide. She explained proudly that's she was licensed and the other guide was not. She purposefully pulled her license out of her handbag, and put it on to show it off. After our taste of art we were allowed to have the afternoon to ourselves. Now I have to explain something so you understand our afternoon. Before our trip had begun we were looking through our Rick Steves guidebook when I spotted a strange flavor of gelato. It was risso, which means rice in Italian. My sister, Mary Beth, was on a rice kick back then, a kick she is still on today(maybe our next trip should be to China) so anyway, I decided that I would look for it and get it in honor of her. It proved to be harder than said. The past two days we had looked in every gelato shop we had seen and still we had not found it. So that afternoon my mom looked up gelaterias in Venice. She found one called Alaska, which, apparently, had rather exotic flavors. So we decided to look for it. Again, easier said than done. We spent hours looking for this shop which was stuck deep within the local part of the city. This was way off the track of the tourists who follow the guides with Elmos on Sticks. Eventually we did find Alaska. Although they did not have risso, they did have some flavors I wouldn't have tried otherwise( Ginger and kiwi,yum!)and they gave us an experience few travelers get. So after a dinner of pasta we headed down to meet Martin and the group so we could take a romantic gondola ride down the Grand Canal. It was one couples anniversary so Martin arranged for music to be played on their gondola. We paddled down the gondola and it really was like a dream come true. I couldn't stop smiling. Italian songs floated through the air and my mother and I sat together as we floated past beautiful churches and houses as our last evening in Venice slowly drifted away.....
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