Day 3, Naval Museum, Tour of the Clock Tower in San Marco, Ducal Palace

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Amazing Day!
We walked to the Arsenale and the naval museum. I have to say, I found the naval museum kinda boring, but all the boys loved it! I spent most of my time there thinking about how much my brothers or Chris Cusson would enjoy it. I took lots of pictures to share with them. I also spent a majority of the time imitating statues and portraits, taking pictures as we went. So though I behaved like a child, I had a GREAT time.

We went to the Museo Correr and Marciana, which is basically a big museum of artifacts and statues from Venice. Every opportunity i got, I sat down somewhere.

My FAVORITE part of the day, and probably this trip, was our visit to San Marco. Already I am getting comfortable in the city, even in some regions I have never seen before! I am learning how to navigate! We had some free time, so we did a lot of browsing and alittle shopping. We met at clock tower for our Torre dell'Orologio (the tour of the clock tower). At first I was hesitant, because the stair case was narrow and steep, and the ceilings were very low. Our tour guide was Elena, and she quickly made everything very comfortable. We went through every floor as she described all the ways the clock tower has evolved over the years. On the top floor, she invited us up a windy, even more narrow staircase, leading to the roof! it was SO EXCITING! the roof was slanted and it was trippy to look onto the city. I got comfortable after a few minutes up there, as we all took pictures with the bell ringers, but my feet were trembling for nearly an HOUR after the descent.

After that, we were all exhausted! but there was more to our day! We had a tour of the secret itinerary of the Ducal Palace! It was so cool! We saw a whole wing of the Ducal Palace that the general population of renaissance venice was unaware of!
Unfortunately, I was falling asleep on my feet. The tour guide was very engaging, and an excellent story teller, but I was happy to head home.

Still, there was one more event for the day. We saw the evening performance of Verdi's La Traviata at Scuole Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. Again, I was so tired once I sat down that I could barely keep my eyes open. Interestingly, I always got drowsy when the primma donna sang, but I was perfectly alert when the men sang. Strange.

That's all for day three!

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