Thanks for reading. As for the monastery, I was eager to visit it because it holds some amazing treasures in its library and museum. It's a living connection between Venice and the Silk Road that connected the city with the riches of China. We actually hired a water taxi in the morning to take us to the island, but discovered that the inside of the monastery was only accessible by guided tour, which happened only once a day at 2 p.m. (They may have additional tours in the summer, but make sure to check their tour schedule.) So we water taxied back to Venice and then again returned at 2 p.m. The library is really astonishing, however, when we were there, I believe they were doing some technical upgrades. The manuscripts are in a wing of the monastery that has thick glass and is temperature and humidity controlled. We were able to view some of the manuscripts from a distance, but weren't able to go inside for a close-up look. Also, the monks make and sell a rose-petal jam the ingredients of which are collected from the monastery's rose garden. Good luck and enjoy.