As our appointed 6:30pm meetup time approached, we headed back to St Mark's Square (arriving 10 minutes late - sorry Miriam and gang!),
We'd had a full day of exploring. Now it was time to find a decent restaurant, get some good food into us, and head back towards the train station for the beginning of our journey back to Riva.
We wanted to encounter a decent restaurant while we were heading in the general direction back towards the train station. Asmir pulled out his phone and guided us to restaurants with fairly high recommendations. The only problems? All of the restaurants we visited were either (a) too full or too small to accommodate the nine of us, or (b) were a little more expensive than we wanted to spend.
courtesy JInnes
Troll face, S. Maria Formosa
After forty or so minutes of this restaurant-hunting, our group was getting a bit testy. We decided to lower our acceptable level of recommendation and settled on a middlingly-rated restaurant called Ristorante da Bepi. It was decent enough, although let's be honest: it was no Belvedere.
courtesy JInnes
It was dark by the time we finished our meal. This meant that we'd be getting back to Riva very late - well after midnight - but it also meant that our walk back to the train station was through a bit of Venice-by-streetlight - which, quite honestly, is a very nice experience.
We arrived back at the Venice train station at about 10:30. By 11:00pm, we were back in Mestre on the coast. A short walk through the Marghera neighborhood brought us to our cars, and, after a two-hour drive back to Riva, we arrived at our apartment around 1 a.m. A long day, to be sure. Whatever we had planned for the next day, it would not be starting early!
Interactive trackmap with photo points - Day in Venice - click map to view