Day 12. October 30, 2000. Venice, Florence. Markets of Venice & Florence. After breakfast and checkout we went out exploring. We changed some more travelers' checks at Banco San Marco by the train station. There was a brief but familiar wait while their computers were down. We window shopped on the train station side of the canal, then wandered towards the bus parking area. Because it was extremely cold and wet, Jane bought gloves and a scarf from a sidewalk vendor. Jane's knee was hurting, so we ordered beer and pizza at tables on the grand canal. After our respite we continued to the bus and left Venice. Ron & Dom's advice was to look for cappicola spicy salami and use semolina wheat and more oil to replicate the Italian pizzas at home. We made an afternoon autogrill stop, then continued on to Florence. Jane did some more mending for Allan and then Allan collected our bags from the heap where the porters were working on it. At 17:15 we headed out to the Ponte Veccio. It was further than we expected, possibly because we were walking on empty stomachs. We window shopped on the Ponte Veccio for about half an hour before finding dinner in a cafeteria down an alley on the far side of the bridge. After dinner we strolled back and window shopped in the hotel shops for a leather jacket for Jane (didn't get one though). Back in our room we sorted laundry for the hotel to wash (an extravagance!) and Jane pressed some other laundry. We made it to bed early.

by Allan West and Jane Dominguez web.cookie.org