Our Italian Adventure

Our last three lodgings had been in private roomy apartments.  Now, we were heading toward two consecutive stays where we would only have a smaller single room.  Our first of these destinations was Venice. When trying to decide which Italian destinations would be in our itinerary, I didn’t want to include Venice. Everything I was reading online talked about overcrowding, overrated, smelly water, and having local citizens protesting against tourists. Lodging was also going to be the most expensive of all of our stops in Italy. I had several other attractive options we could consider, but Venice kept calling back to me. In the end, we chose to visit Venice for our shortest stay in Italy. We would only have two nights in Venice. I might have added one more day, but lodging was too expensive for our budget.

On our Trenitalia train, we noticed that we were losing the Tuscany hills, and observed as the terrain became flatter. Off in the distance to the north, we started to make out the shapes of the Italian Alps. Our gradual traveling northbound was going to change our environment dramatically in the coming weeks.  We immediately became entranced as we crossed a very large body of water which announced our arrival into the St Lucia train station. There would be no land taxis for this stay. Instead, we walked out to the ferry docks and after some confusion, got into the right line for traveling on a water vaporetto (passenger ferry) to our pensione. People were packed into the ferry like sardines, but as we started to traverse down the Grand Canal, we became mesmerized by the sheer beauty and uniqueness of Venice. The ferry stopped at various docks.  There wasn’t much activity at these ferry docks until we arrived at the renown Ponte di Rialto dock.  Just like that, about 85% of the passengers disembarked. Suddenly, our vaporetto ride became more enjoyable. It was truly an eyeopener experience. Our expectations were low upon arriving in Venice, but we were already in awe of its uniqueness.

A Vaporetta on the Grand Canal

The busy but beautiful Grand Canal

We arrived at our stop near the Accademia Bridge and passed over cute little bridges on the way to the Accademia Villa Maraege. We learned there are over 400 bridges in this city. Our hotel was right on one of the smaller canals connected to the Grand Canal. The settings were romantic and relaxing all at once. While we missed our larger accommodations, the setting and perks of the Accademia more than made up for a smaller room. The exterior gardens were a great place to dine and relax as well.

Pensione Accademia Villa Maravege

After lunching at our hotel, we walked to St Mark’s Square. A preplanned guided tour at Doge’s Palace was on the docket.  The palace is adjacent to the enormous St Mark’s Square. On our way there, we walked across the wooden Ponte dell’ Accademia bridge which had been completed in 1933. It is one of four bridges to span the Grand Canal and offered us many fantastic photo ops during our short stay. As we wandered past piazzas and narrow cobblestone paths, we realized how refreshing it was without having to fight narrow spaces with vehicular traffic. Plus, we found Venice to be less crowded than Florence. Crossing many bridges and watching gondolas peacefully glide past us continued to reinforce our initial impressions that Venice was a magical place. In retrospect, I would have probably removed one day from another destination (probably the day trip to Milan while in Verona), and added it to our Venice stay. It helped being in Venice during the weekdays and probably the summer months get crazy, but we loved Venice!

St Mark’s Square is huge with vast structures surrounding the square.  This makes one appreciative of the engineering marvel on how this city was built on the water. How the heck did the early Venetians build this city. In the 5th century, barbarian attacks forced the people living at the edges of the lagoon to move onto the islands. Long wooden piles were driven deep into the ground past the soft silt and dirt and into the hard clay. Water resistant wood such as oak was used to prevent the wood from rotting. The piles were driven in as close to one another as possible. A layer of limestone was placed above the piles which served as a solid base for the structures above and protected the wooden piles from the erosive action of the seawater. Buildings were then constructed with bricks and to further protect the structure from the corrosive effects of salty lagoon water, the lower portions of the buildings were faced with a dense type of limestone known as Istrian stone. Finally, noble buildings were decorated with marble, especially in the upper parts of the buildings. What an engineering feat.

Sorry for the engineering lesson, but I believe every visitor to Venice has asked the same question. “How did they do this?”

St Mark’s Square

After having an expensive drink in St Mark’s Square, we met our small tour group. Doge’s Palace was built in the Venetian Gothic style. For centuries this palace served as the residence for the Doge. A Doge was a nice name for a dictator. This position had supreme authority over Venice. The Doge was built in 1340 and became a museum in 1923. The prison is in the lower levels. The Bridge of Sighs was so-called because prisoners on their way to execution would have this final view of Venice.

Amy in front of Doge’s Palace

Napoleon conquered Venice at one point. Many Venetian treasures were removed to France. Prior to Napoleon’s invasion, Vence had a clever way for citizens to report complaints against others. Whether it was unfair trade, a corrupt administrator, or a complaint about a neighbor, a Venetian could make an anonymous complaint.  They did so by slipping the complaint thru the mouth of a receptacle.  An example is pictured below.   

The secret complaint receptable

One of the last planned activity added to our trip was the Galleon Dinner Cruise.  We arrived at the Naval Museum harbor about one hour before our scheduled departure.  This gave us time to explore the neighborhood.  We discovered there are even fewer tourists in this area. However, they had fun streets with plenty of shopping and places to eat and socialize.  The area seemed very popular with locals.  I told Amy that this would be an excellent area to stay in if we ever returned to Venice.  From what we had witnessed, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to stay near the Ponte di Rialto area.  This would be especially true during the summer or on weekends.  We returned to the harbor shortly before the 8pm departure.  With about 20 guests, we cruised until about 1045pm. The dinner was not lacking in quantity or quality.  I swear they served us about 100 courses.  We also had access to multiple beverages.  The skies were clear, which provided us with a pretty sunset over Venice.  We enjoyed sailing around landmarks and several islands. Since our trip to Venice was very short, we didn’t have a chance to visit the other islands. Burano looked fascinating with all of their colorful buildings. Since it was a late hour, we hired a private boat to take us back to the hotel. We were dropped off right in front of our hotel.

Island of Burano

Our Galleon awaits!

The Menu

Our dinner cruise sunset

On Tuesday, May 27th, the sun was shining as we made our to the Byzantine St Mark’s Basilica. The exterior certainly was different from all of the other churches we had visited in Italy. The interior however was the same. Over-the-top adornments and a stunning high altar and enough space to park a few planes inside. Their top treasures is the Pala d’ Oro and four gilded bronze horses. The Pala is a Byzantine altar piece which is covered in gold and studded with almost 2000 gems. I asked, but it isn’t for sale. The horses were pilfered from Constantinople during the 4th Crusade. If you get the all-inclusive ticket, one can access the exterior terraces which gave us beautiful views of the city. I would say without a doubt that Italy has the most (in numbers) of beautiful cathedrals of all of the countries we have visited. Amy is near-perfect in my eyes, but she pulled a boner this morning.  She knew that churches require proper attire, but it slipped her mind.  She was denied entry until she went to a nearby vendor.  A large bright red scarf did the trick. 

Inside St Mark’s Basilica

Treasures from the Crusades

The view from St Mark’s Terrace

After lunch back at our hotel, afternoon options like taking a gondola ride were changed as a light rain and cooler temps made a few options not as desirable. We shopped and explored new areas of the city. Nothing took the luster off this beautiful city. It absolutely won the prize for “Our biggest positive surprise” during our Italian adventures. Like many of our other last day at a destination, we had a lovely dinner, went back to the hotel, packed and got ready for our next destination. We would be leaving one romantic city for another well-known romantic Italian city.