The best advice you can give about touring Venice is, "Get lost."  Reminiscent of a deserted corner in some Great Underground Empire, Venice is a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.  You just never know what you might see next.

We started our wanderings in Piazza San Marco.

In the shadow of the great Campanile just across from the Basilica di San Marco and the Doge's Palace.

Looking out from Piazza San Marco toward the Grand Canal.  Criminals used to be executed between the two posts.

Patty and Cindy and the Basilica.  It was a beautiful day.  Cold, but beautiful.

This is the Torre dell'Orologio, a beautiful enameled clock that is 500 years old.

On the left is a pier behind the hotel where Bill stayed the last time he was in Venice.

Patty carried her gypsy-proof bag all over Italy.  Bill was happy to let her carry his Fodor's in it.

Patty enjoys strolling in Venice.

The Rialto Bridge.  This time we found ourselves walking over it instead of vapparettoing under it.

Bill the tourist is getting ready to snap a picture of the Rialto.   Those chairs look mighty inviting, though.

More alleys, more chairs.

Guests at this hotel must be careful when walking out of the lobby not to take a wrong turn and end up in the water.

More palazzos on the Grand Canal.

More twisty passages all alike.

Oh look, a shop!

Cindy and Patty and shopping bags.

You know why we're all smiling in these pictures?  This was just a super day, a gorgeous day, a fun day ...

... a beautiful day for walking and even, dare I say it?   Shopping.  But the wind picked up and it got a little chilly.  So Bill decided to take advantage of a special feature of his NASA jacket -- the collar hides a hood!

Patty thought he looked funny.  She called it his "short bus" jacket.  Whatever could she have been talking about?

But finally Bill got pooped and the sight of that vaporetto stop looked awfully tempting.  So he bid the shopping ladies farewell and vapped back to the hotel.  They said they'd join him "shortly."

Only he got on a vaporetto going the wrong way and after about 30 minutes of enjoying the scenery he noticed the Santa Lucia train station going by.  Oops.  So off that vaporetto he came and he boarded one going in the right direction and in about 45 minutes he was back at Piazza San Marco and soon after that he was trudging up flight after flight after flight of hotel stairs, expecting to find the ladies all worried about him.  But no ... they hadn't returned.  Hmmm.  So now he was worried about them.  Silly Bill. 

They were still shopping.

Soon everybody reconvened in the hotel and Bill breathed a sigh of relief.  He had escaped being found out; nobody would ever know he'd been lost on a Grand Canal cruise for the past hour and a half.  So  he lay back on his bed and stuck his black Italian Foot Locker sneakers up in front of the camera and snapped a picture as he smugly stated, "I'm never telling what I did after I left you."  Patty took one look at him and grinned and said, "YOU WENT THE WRONG WAY ON THE vaporetto, DIDN'T YOU!" 

Hmph.