(lots of photos in this post! ^^)
Since we couldn’t go on our gondola ride, we decided to take a walk around Piazzale Roma. Since it was raining and also probably since we weren’t carrying umbrellas, there were a lot of people trying to sell us some umbrellas or one of those plastic booties that you can pull over your shoes so you don’t step in puddles and ruin them. We didn’t buy any umbrellas or plastic booties and just walked around in our already drenched clothes.
Piazzale Roma in the rain.
We didn’t really have an idea of where to go so we just picked a direction and started walking.
Picture of the canal.
Another picture of the canal (wide shot).
Another shot of the canal. This time taken from one of the many bridges.
One more shot of the canal. Last one, I promise.
Saw this on the side of a building along the canal. Not sure what this is though.
We had been walking along the canal, but at this point, we decided to turn away from the canal and walk down one of the side roads.
The side road. More people with umbrellas… ^^
There were many shops along the road.
One of the bakery store windows.
Venice is known not only for its canals/waterways but also for its annual festival the “Carnival of Venice” where the main feature is (wearing) masks. Hence, there were a lot of shops selling carnival masks (even long after the festival was over for the year). I fell in love with a really pretty paper mache mask that was hand-made and hand-painted. The mask cost about 22 euros. Pretty pricey, I know, but I had to buy that mask. The design was just so beautiful. The store didn’t allow photos to be taken of their masks and I’m too lazy to take a photo of the one I got…
Some of the masks you can find along the streets.
*cough*condomvendingmachine*cough*
Another bakery store window display.
Macarons. Didn’t get any though…
Yummy looking pastries…
Crossing the bridge. No idea where I was…
Oops. I lied. This one is the last canal shot. For reals.
For a while, we just walked around, looking at the window displays of the different shops. We finally decided to enter one of them. No idea why we chose it. This shop looked small but there was a whole other section in the back. The front part was like a pastry shop an the back had grocery-store-like-products and a meat deli (not photographed).
The front of the shop – the pastry section.
I bought the chocolate-dipped cookie. It was yummy!
After popping into the pastry shop / grocery store / meat deli, we retraced our steps, made some final souvenir purchases and headed back to the main square – Piazzale Roma. We hung around the square, seeking shelter at the entrance to the “people mover” (a tram system), waiting for the hotel shuttle to come pick us up.
By the end of the day, I was feeling a bit sick. It didn’t really help that I had not enough sleep and was completely drenched by the rain… Was pretty glad to go back to the hotel room for a hot shower and some clean clothes (borrowed from my friend, since my luggage was still in London at the time).
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