From my daily journal: Venice, Italy Day 3 4/27/02 Saturday We had our breakfast at the hotel. A little girl blew me kisses after first being afraid of me. I took her picture and showed it to her. It's wet out, just finished raining but we don't need an umbrella. It cleared up even more as the day went on. We thought about going into St Mark's Basilica but the line was forever. We went instead to the Doge's Palace right beside it. Some very impressive rooms. At the end we found some easy chairs and sunk into them. Elaine wanted to go back to Morano and I needed to rest so she agreed to meet me at the room about 6:30. I rested another half hour, then went out to the square. Sort of wandered into St Mark's thru the exit and avoided the long line. WOW!. Gold mosaic everywhere, gold alter, bones of St Mark, original four bronze horses brought back from Constantinople from the 4th Crusade. I got some postcards in the square outside our hotel and checked email. Everything is very close and convenient. I had a lunch of a salami sandwich and lemon soda and a banana split. The post office was closed so couldn't get stamps. I got a good nap in before Elaine got back from Morano. She'd been on her feet for all but 20 minutes of 6 hours. She got a few more items- candies, birds, and a bead. She'd left her credit card at the same lunch place we'd gone to yesterday so had to return to get it. It was standing room only on the boat on the way back. After a nap again we decided to just go down another alley and pick a restaurant. Ended up at "La Gondola". I had spaghetti with meat sauce, Elaine potato dumpling with meat sauce. Next a pork cutlet Milanese-very breaded. Elaine said her veggies (onions and green beans) very good. Had ice cream for dessert. It was the Tourist Special. We're going to avoid that in the future. The gondolas had great prows. Elaine stopped for some more chocolate ginger at that chocolate shop. I got a cookie but too dry. Elaine's lemon cake not liked. Next "Sight": Venice To Ravenna