Moving on from lunch, we went to the Gallerie dell Accademie, the huge art museum. We started with a whistle-stop tour of the galleries with Martin showing us some highlights (he'd been there before), then a slower journey through, discussing some of the religious paintings on view. Not that the paintings were religious, but that they showed religious things! It being a Catholic place, lots of the pictures were of the Annunciation, the Pieta and the Coronation of Mary in heaven.
After the Gallerie, we had some free time, spent back at the convent relaxing and writing up the journal, then we ventured to the Friary to sit in on a mass. It was all completely over my head, being in Italian, but it was interesting to sit and watch the priest, server and congregation. The Friary itself is a huge building and was freezing!
We then went and had drinks, then dinner (another pizza, pepperoni this time). Oh, and we were overjoyed to hear the news of Ireland's rugby win!
I then wanted to check emails, but the internet cafe we went to had closed at 2000. so we headed on to St Mark's Square, the most famous part of Venice, and the big tourist trap. there weren't too many people about, and in the night time with the lights on, it looks so good. En route, we passed two concert halls with Vivaldi concerts (then passed the church he was the musician in), as well as an opera-singing busker! She had a backing tape playing on a stereo, and sang along - a much better class of busking than you would find in Belfast or Dublin!
We brought our evening to a close with yet more coffee (or coke in my case), and some lovely gelato (ice cream), and a walk back to the convent. Tomorrow we get a bit of a lie in before heading to the English church.
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