Days in the city.

We've been trekking far and wide around the city for two days, mostly to see "important" churches and outlying neighborhoods. There is a new picturesque scene in every piazza and from every small bridge; the difficulty lies in maintaining the illusion that one is having any sort of personalized experience, as the crowds of tourists are pervasive. Although we have walked miles from St. Marks Square, we have yet to have a meal without the company of fellow (non-Italian) tourists Thankfully we will not need to queue up for St. Mark's cathedral or the Doge's palace (waits of hours) as we accomplished those missions in 2001.
There is a seemingly endless display of wares near the center of the city: the normal souvenir stands with shirts, novelty hats, snow-globes, pens; shops with glittering papier-mâché masks, puppets, glassware, beads; upscale storefronts with expensive jewelry, lingerie, high-fashion clothes and shoes. In short, it is the nightmare of most heterosexual American males.
There's no denying the remarkable beauty of the city, and the accumulated works of architecture and decorative art are beyond impressive. The sheer complexity of the decorations within even the smaller churches speak of many lifetimes of work by generations of craftsmen, and it is quite humbling.
But there is a special brand of fatigue in viewing such a breath of history and art in the space of a few days (and in the company of thousands of fellow pilgrims). We have still not found it possible to get through an entire day without retreating to our hotel room at mid-afternoon, and today our "nap" extended 'til past sundown.

We splurged last in the evening a had a drink and coffee at Bar Florian in San Marco; an extravagance, but how often can we have this experience, to listen to live music and be attended (for once, promptly and with wonderful manners) by white-jacketed waiters, under a summer sky?

–Jim