Venice

Had a great couple days in Venice.  With all the flight delays we arrived at around 7:00 PM, rather than 1:00 as planned.  We biked from the airport to the hotel - always feels great to bike away from an airport!  By the time we got settled we decided to just stick around Mestre for the night instead of go into Venice for a couples hours, which would feel forced and put as at risk of crashing (tiredness, not biking) too soon.  So, we went out for pizza (what else?) and had an early night.

Yesterday was beautiful and sunny and we spent the whole day walking all over the city.  We saw all the big sites (Rialto, San Marco, etc), saw a few museums and generally wandered around the canals.  We started to fade around dinner (jet lag) so we headed home, where I immediately fell asleep, until waking up at 11 and struggling to fall asleep again (jet lag).

Today it was cold and pouring and thunderstorms all day.  It was torrential rain as we waited for the bus, but that eventually cleared and I hoped it was done for the day.  We got a couple hours of dryness before it started again, and continued for most of the day.  But it wasn't so bad!  After walking all day yesterday we devoted today to traveling on water.  We got an all-day Vaporetto pass (the public water bus) and rode that everywhere.  It has a roof and a cabin so we could stay dry.  We went to other, smaller islands and rode it up the Grand Canal - like a big, shared gondola ride, but without a surly gondolier smoking and checking his phone the whole time.  We ended up damp but not soaked, which counts as a victory.

We looked at possible routes and lodging for tomorrow, and if you're following along, here's the plan.  We will bike from Mestre to Treviso, then turn east to San Dona di Piave.  Where we go from there depends on an email we sent to potential WarmShowers hosts (see: warmshowers.com).  If we have a host, we will head towards Portogruaro for the night.  If not, we turn towards the coast and follow it to Bibione (disclaimer: I've never heard of these places aside from seeing them on a map today, but they do sound extremely Italian).  There is lots of camping along the coast and none in Portogruaro.  So that's that.  Everything is susceptible to change if it's a rainy mess tomorrow and we decide to find a room somewhere, or wait out a storm and don't make it to Portogruaro.  All those fun aspects of making the best of bad weather!