Venezia Part 2

I finally have a good internet connection and some free time, so I'm going to play catchup since I'm four posts behind. I'm using an Italian keyboard, so please forgive any grevious typos, because this thing is unbelievably confusing. I was in Venice for two and half days, so I was able to see pretty much everything there. Here are a few of the highlights. We visited Harry's Bar, a pub that was frequented by Hemmingway during his time in Venice. They are famous for making the city's best Bellini, Venice's signature drink. It was a bit coincidentally awesome since I'm currently rereading The Sun Also Rises. We also visited several art museums, including one devoted entirely to glass. This glass art was all very abstract. My favorite was a a huge mirror laning against a wall. This piece was titled "A Mirror Leaning Against a Wall." Very creative... However, the glass museum did have one particularly creepy piece of art, made by a South Korean artist whose name I can't recall. It was a video made on a computer that depicted a Chinese dragon, a woman, and several pink bunnies all running through a forest of giant glass dildos. So yeah...fun stuff. My favorite art exhibit, however, was the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Ms. Guggenheim was the daughter of the famous billionaire who died on the sinking Titanic. She inherited his fortune and moved to Venice, where she vowed to buy a new piece of art each day. In order to expand her collection, Ms. Guggenheim had a habit of sleeping with young, rising artists. She even married several of them. Naturally, I'm a fan of this woman. The art she collected was mostly very Post-modernist. Mr. Eikner would have been very proud. Perhaps the most impressive place we toured was the Palace of the Doges. The Doges were the royal family of Venice (think like Czars in Russia). Along with several councils of elected officials, the Doges governed the Republic of Venice and all her territories. The biggest highlight of the expansive palace was the Bridge of Sighs. This bridge, which spans the Grande Canal, connects the palace with the dungeon, and appropriately receives its name from the despair of the condemned who were forced to cross it and never return. By far, the most disturbing artifact left in the palace was an actual Chastity Belt. It had enough spikes on it to give me nightmares for the next four years. Finally, we took one of the famous Gobndola rides on the last night. It was remarkable how the Gondolieri navigates the canals without running into other craft or whacking his head on one of the many low-hanging bridges. The ride itself was fantastic, as we got to see most of the city and even voyage through the heavily traveled Grand Canal. We ended the night by dining at a restaurant called Europa, which overlooked the Grand Canal. The food (mostly fish such as turbot)was excellent, as expected.