Our Big Adventure

VENICE

Venice is a hauntingly beautiful place, a surreal city in which everyday life seems somewhat more dramatic than elsewhere. Even Venetian traffic jams are impressive, gondolas, vaporetti (water taxies), and delivery barges all massed on the Grand Canal. We see everything from the mail, to beer and wine delivered by barge along the canal. And it’s not even high tourist season here, we can’t imagine what it must be like in August! It was an especially high tide while we were in Venice, so until early afternoon the alleyways and paths were flooded, even the famous Piazza San Marco. Special elevated walkways are erected when this happens, and police wearing hip waders direct you along these passable routes. We ride the vaporetto along the Grand Canal, which is lined with Gothic, Moorish and Renaissance palaces, to the Piazza San Marco to see the Basillica di San Marco (St Marks Basillica). Originally built to house the remains of St Mark, it’s a impressive mix of Byzantine domes, mosaics and marble, much of which had been looted from the east. The bronze horses (replicas now) above the entrance where ‘liberated’ from Constantinople in 1204, and are now in the museum. The Palazzo Ducale (Doges’ Palace) is next to the Basillica and built from beautiful pink marble, and even on the dull day we visited it, it was spectacular. Connected to the palace by the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ named after the sighs the prisioners emitted en route, are the old city dungeons. A famous inmate of the dungeon was Cassanova. The Rialto is the shopping area where you can find everything from your fresh fruit and veges to designer clothes from Gucci, Cavalli, Missoni and Armani. We even saw a pair of ladies shoes, made from snakeskins, that had the snakes head still attached on the tip of each toe, and for only €1000, a bargin! Unable to visit the Murano area because of the high tides, we do get to see many beautiful examples of this famous glass in vases, platters and ornaments in the Rialto showrooms. We wandered the back alley’s away from the main tourist areas and found a pizza shop where you could see the dough being stretched to pizza sized shapes in seconds, then lightly baked until it was needed. We had traditional slices, a tomato base with basil and garlic, topped with cheese, delicious! We now have a slight Italian vocabulary, helped by a good phrase book, and can order meals etc., and make ourselves understood, most of the time anyway. I’m sure there were places in Venice we missed, it has a wealth of churches, museums and art galleries, but our time here in this beautiful city was truly memorable.

posted by Brian and Julie @ 12:08:00 AM