I had worked out an itinerary for our trip and we stuck to it quite well. I marked out a whole day for going to the Gallery dell’Accademia, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
The Gallery del’Accademia was a wonderful gallery of full of pre-19th-century religious paintings spanning centuries. By contrast, the Peggy Guggenheim collection is specifically modern art.
I was happy to see a Calder hung prominently in the main entrance way, and also found new discoveries to be wondrous!
At some point anyone who finds out that you’ve been to Venice asks if you had a gondola ride. We looked at them, and thought about it, and then decided that there were better things to be doing with our money. BUT! We went on many “vaporetto” (ferry/bus) up and down the Grand Canal, and even on one wonderful day we got on to a “traghetto”, which is like a larger gondola, worked by two men, and instead of going up and down the Canal, just crosses it. So think … moving bridge.
Let no one say we don’t know how to live life on the edge! On the other side of the Grand Canal we managed to find one of our Happy Places. Yes, we were in a food and fish market. I know you’ve seen many photos I’ve taken of these places, so here, have one of a nearby shop window instead.
The food shopping in Venice reminded me quite forcefully of shopping Leichhardt, and I wished I could have brought more of it home with us!
We finally got away from the food (we did buy some spices to bring home though!) and on into the shopping district around the Rialto Bridge.
Some stores were there for tourists, others for locals! The Gondolieri do all wear this uniform. I’m sure It’s prescribed in the strict licence rules. As an aside, to get a licence, you not only have to pass lots of tests, but the fee is €700,000 and are hence often kept in the family, father to son.
Shopping on the Rialto Bridge was wonderful! They had some many shiny things to catch your eye! We fell for a silk shop and a pen shop, and there may have been some Giftmas shopping done in one of the mask shops!
But my research had lead me to a small shop just hanging off the bridge to one side.
The lace shop.
This shop was everything I had been looking for and more. It was full of the most beautiful lace, all hand made with time and care. What it didn’t have was pushy sales staff! I was very happy in this shop to stand and chat and admire, and discuss our mutual love of hand-made lace with the nice lady who pulled out folders for me to see, full of pieces I don’t think regular shoppers even know exist.
I loved going to Burano to see where the lace was made, and look at the remarkable coloured houses. But if you’re in the area, I highly recommend buying your lace from this store, which hangs off the West side of the Ponte di Rialto.
ghoti industries 
The lace shop sounds like an amazing find and a much more enjoyable shopping and browsing experience than one might have elsewhere in Venice. .)
While it sounds like the market was on par with those you’ve been to in Amsterdam in terms of size, how did they compare in scope? Was it like being home again or was it drastically different?
The lace shop was amazing and I’m glad I knew to look for it!
Mostly similar in scope. I don’t specifically remember any big differences, though there must have been in terms of the fresh fruit and vegetables, because of the climate. The selection just in regular supermarkets was certainly more diverse than Amsterdam, but about on par with Sydney.