Venice: Italian for "shop. eat."

Great fun.

Today's steps:  14,412
Total:                78,340

I'm beat and have to pack.  Tomorrow:  Rome! 

To be continued........

And so we did go to Venice for a few hours.  A delightful city.  But the journey there was as much fun.  Friday, March 20 was a solar eclipse day -- total in Norway, but decent enough in Italy to send the astronomy-loving Gene to distraction.  We were on a high-speed train, but Gene took a page from one of the on-train magazines, put a small hole in it and went out on the enclosed platform, where he lined up the page so the sun passed through the hole and projected the eclipse onto the floor:

So this was what was projected onto the platform floor.  Once he saw the results, Gene then told anyone around our seats what he was doing and volunteered to show them his results.  Several of them took him up on his offer -- including the train conductor who took a break from checking tickets -- and by the time he was done, he had a little procession of astronomy lovers checking out the eclipse. 

One woman wanted to thank us by telling us the history of Venice and sketching it on the paper, so we could enjoy it more fully.  Another one sat and listened and asked Gene for his email, so she could write him.  And so Gene was able to break through the language barrier and interact with the locals and demonstrate that not all Americans are "ugly".  Some are quite knowledgeable and quite cool.

And speaking of cool, there is Venice.  Extremely charming:

 

 

We walked, ate along the canal and shopped in our short time there.  Didn't see any plaque commemorating where Clooney got married, though.  But I think I ate lunch close to the bridge he passed under. 

 

We came back to the apartment for another "home-cooked" meal from our friendly local pasta maker.  This time it was tortelloni (like tortellini, but about 5 times the size) stuffed with a combination of cheese, pear (yes, pear the fruit) & ricotta.  Oh momma, it was good.  Didn't matter if you used the meat sauce or the pesto.  Good is good is good.  Happy tummies on our last night in Florence.