A Beautiful Day

Last Saturday, I took the train from Bologna to Venice with a Lithuanian doctoral student who was also participating in the conference.  We met up with an Italian doctoral student whom we met through the project, his wife and her cousins from New Zealand.  After waiting in line for an hour to drop off our bags at the left luggage office at the train station, we walked out into Venice in the sunshine.  Over the next five hours, I had one of the most beautiful afternoons that I have ever had.  Venice is packed with tourists and we did see the most famous sites such as San Marco Basilica and the Bridge of Sighs.  But mostly we spent our time away from the crowds, exploring the narrow streets of the city.  We walked for four hours and I don’t think that we crossed the same little bridge or walked through the same square twice.  Plus we took a gondola ride!