Sadly, although the railway strike happened as scheduled, our train was one of the 50% that went on schedule. A shame, as we were rather looking forward to being stranded in Venice. On the other hand, our hotel was fully booked for Sunday night, and we would have had to find someplace else to stay.

And it was a wonderful hotel, the Savoia and Jocanda, right on the Riva degli Schiavoni, near the Danieli. Which also would have been nice, although not the deal the S&J was. I still want to get a look at the 6,000 per night "Royal Suite", though. Our room, in any case, was fab. On the top floor, we figured that we'd been shoved in the attic again. The room did have sloping ceilings, with heavy wooden beams. (I only hit my head once, though, a feat of which I am inordinately proud.) It also had a large round bed, mirrors on the walls on two sides of the bed, and a jacuzzi tub. It was like the Poconos in there.

The jacuzzi was especially nice (although the round bed certainly had its advantages). Now that we live in shower-land, I haven't had a bath in ages. I found out why when I fired that baby up for the first time. In retrospect, using the whole bottle of bath foam was a bad idea, no matter how petite and cute the bottle looked. And it's always I good idea, I've found, to figure out how to turn the damn thing off before that knowledge becomes truly vital. Instead, I ended up with suds in my ears, and the overflow soaked my cigarettes, plus my copy of Venice by Jan Morris. It also made my prosecco taste funny-- although, being a rather cheap prosecco, it didn't taste all that stunning to start with. By Sunday morning, though, I had that whole jacuzzi thing down pat.

We also, miracle of miracles, managed to eat pretty well. Da Remigio was fantastic, as was Martini's (albeit scandalously overpriced). Stumbled on a nice little place Sunday noon as well-- 4 tables, no kitchen. (I think Mama cooked it herself at home and trucked on down each day for nuking.) Alla Rivetta was great as well: homey, with great food and a bunch of comic men running the place. The fagioli e pasta gave me gas, though what did I expect, really?

Went to the Accademia and saw the Vitruvian Man, which was interesting not in itself, but in people's reactions to it. I mean, we've all seen reproductions of it, and it's even on the back of Italy's one Euro coin. It is exactly what it is: a page out of Da Vinci's notebook. In other words, no, mr. fat-ignorant-idiot-who-smelled, it's not supposed to be bigger. On the other hand, a group of Italian teenagers gathered around it with interest, almost reverence, for all their baggy pants and odd and painful looking piercings. I fled before any Americans could join the British Mr. FIIWS and his wife who was stuffed into her coat like a sausage and wore far too much makeup.

The Vitruvian man was in a glass case with a guard on top of a dias. At the bottom of the steps were two gleaming, high tech copiers or computer printers. A sign above them informed us that the search for knowlege and perfection was the mark of genius in the human race or similar overblown rot, and that Hewlitt-Packard has always joined Da Vinci in striving for perfection. As a memorial of this special event, we were encouraged to take home our very own copy of Mr. VM. This would have been far more impressive, as well as better advertising, if both machines hadn't been broken.

We also took a gondola ride, with the world's only reticent gondolier. Excuse me, he would say, Cassanova lived here. Big playboy. Then he'd lapse into sulky silence for the next five minutes. It was worth it, though, for the up-close and personal view of a gondola race on the grand canal, and the costumes of the people racing. And also for the only minute of true comedy: our gondola passed another, and apparently their and our gondolier were friends. "How much are you getting out of them?" asked their gondolier, which led into an animated discussion of who had bagged the stupidest tourists. Which made me laugh. Hard. What made me laugh harder, and almost fall out of the boat, was the look on his face when he realized that one of his silly tourists speaks Italian. Oops! Priceless, as they say. Bet next time they'll use dialect.

Went through the Doges' Palace, which was very interesting, although I failed to muster the same enthusiasm of Byron et al while crossing the bridge of sighs. I dare say that when they went through, the one-way traffic partition system had yet to be instituted, which may have help. Also, I doubt that any of them had lost their husband and friends while checking out the Bosch and were struggling to keep up.

The rest of our time was spent shopping, wandering and being fairly serenissima, aside from one late night fight between W and myself. (Standard Issue.)