28/10 Still in Venice

Friday 28 October

Woke early and drifted up to breakfast. Salmon again! Gotta love this boat. Full brekky selection including English and American sausage and bacon (what’s the difference?).

J wandered ashore to suck the last drops out of her museum pass. Today’s excursion is to the National History Museum which I had seen directional signs to yesterday so found it very quickly, just the walk from the ship took longer.  Began by looking at fossilised dinosaur poo and ended with a whale skeleton.  Was very nicely set out and held a large variety of items including a mummy in a case with a mummified crocodile.  All signage in Italian, luckily the language has a few similarities to English.  I was the only person in there so had no trouble seeing the exhibits. 

The Ca’Pesaro; international gallery of modern art & oriental museum was close by but I had to ask locals the way as there was no signage and it was well hidden.  I found it amusing that this ‘modern’ art museum was all pre 1920’s with most of it 1800’s.  Some very nice works, including Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ (again? We saw this in Paris, which one is the copy?).  Again this collection is set in a very large building fronting the Grande Canal with some rooms having decorated ceilings. 

Made my way to St Marks Square hoping that it was flooded, but it had mostly receded, see, you should never leave home without your camera!  Ducked briefly into 2 more churches today.   Back to ship by 2pm.

 C up to the pub just in time for “Quizzical Corner” and won single handed! Another Gold Voucher. Not exactly sure what the game entailed because nobody else turned up. Ditto morning quiz. Quite prepared to sit here all day accumulating vouchers by default.

Discovered that there are 2 self service, soft serve ice cream machines next to the tea/coffee machines.  Gotta love the Queen Vic.

Set sail at 4.30pm tracking along the South of the main islands getting a bird’s eye view of the main city area as we cruised by St Mark’s square and close to ‘the Lido’ island. C went to the gym and was present to claim J’s $50 spa voucher. Finally made it into the dining room.  Met 2 pairs of Poms and now know all we need about servicing antique Daimlers and crime in Jamaica.

Evening quiz with a very nice English couple, came equal 1^st with 3 other teams, then ended up 3^rd because we didn’t know the weight of the spare anchor on this tub.  None of us were anywhere near the weight.

Watched a very good magician from our private box overlooking the stage.