You may have realized by now that when Grandma and GP come to visit, we think it's important for them to have as much time with the grandkids as they can, especially time without Mom and Dad under foot. The Grands last visit was this past October, and D and I, to better facilitate cross-generational bonding, took one for team and cleared out for a few days. We headed to Venice.
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| the famous Rialto Bridge |
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| the Academia bridge on the Grand Canal |
We tremendously enjoyed Venice and learned a lot about its history and the important role it once played in global politics and trade. (Well, global from the 13th century perspective). The city is as gorgeous, stunning, and picturesque as you've heard, but in a movie-set, don't look too closely or you'll see the man behind the curtain, kind of way. Because the city is actually a small island, it's far more self-contained than other popular European travel destinations. It doesn't have a historic district-- the entire island is historic, and it's hard to shake the feeling that your hotel room reservation is the admission ticket to a living breathing theme park. I don't even feel like I can now say we've been to Italy. We've been to Venice, and as fabulous as it was, it feels a bit like a larger scale exhibit in Epcot's Global Showcase.
The water is steadily closing-in on Venice and the city is all too quickly sinking into the sea. Case in point: When the tides are right, St. Marks's square is under water. Street vendors blocks and blocks away sell colorful plastic bags with shoe clips to keep your footwear dry and the city places catwalks all over the square to elevate tourists above the water. The catwalks are placed end to end and are about 4 feet wide, so you get in line, and shuffle along across the square.
I'm glad we went without the kids. It's not that Venice isn't kid friendly, more that it isn't stroller friendly -- at all. There's no way you could navigate a stroller along the catwalks in the flooded sections of the city, but even worse, EVERY street in Venice is a canal side street, and EVERY street has small bridges crossing those canals. Unlike Amsterdam, where the bridges over the canals are smooth ramps, the bridges in Venice are composed entirely of steps. I can't imagine bumping the stroller up and down all those steps all day every day.
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| A St.Mark's Orchestra |
We did all of the touristy things you're supposed to do and see while in Venice. We toured the St. Mark's Cathedral (which btw is far more Byzantine than anything else we've seen in Europe) and sipped coffee listening to the orchestras in St. Mark's square. I made D twirl me around a time or two just so I could say I've "waltzed" there. We ducked into several other
smaller churches, walked the
Doge's Palace, crossed the Bridge of Sighs into the Prison, shopped on the Rialto bridge, and snapped pictures at the crazy, smelly fish market. At close to 100 Euro, we did NOT go for the Gondola ride but instead opted for the minute long, 50 cent
traghetto ride across the Grand Canal [Really there are only so many bridges over the canal, so in between the bridges are strategically placed traghetto stops. Traghetto's are small gondola's with striped-shirt wearing pilots, just no serenading.] We discovered while in Venice that Rick Steves' website has free downloadable audio guides, so we downloaded those and listened to him guide us through Venice. We bought unlimited three day passes for the Vaporettos (public boat buses) and circled the grand canal several times, listening to Steves point out the interesting sights along the way.
We slept at a Steves' recommended spot, catching our zzzzzzs at the
Don Orione Cultural Center . The hotel is a converted Monastery and prides itself on it's peaceful and relaxed atmosphere. The rooms are minimalist, but spacious, and the breakfast is generic but adequate. The daily rate at Don Orione is about 1/3 of the other hotels on the same square and the location (half way between St Mark's Square and The Rialto Bridge) is excellent, and despite the fact that the building has been modernized you can still catch glimpses of the old architecture and facade and imagine what it would have been like 100 years ago.
We spent two days exploring Venice proper and while we bought a map (the buildings in Venice are sooooo close together the GPS could never get a lock), we only used it to get from the bus station to our hotel. The greatest fun in Venice is wandering and watching. As long as you can keep yourself minimally oriented to the location of the Grand Canal, there's really no way to get lost. The greatest challenge in Venice is spotting a local, well that and navigating through the throngs of cruise boat tour groups. In the end, I think we were more successful than most in at least rubbing elbows with the locals. How we did it: We walked from St Mark's square to the St. Elena neighborhood at the southern tip of the main island, (about 25 minutes) leaving the tourists behind with every step. I presume that most of the residents of St Elena support the tourist industry in some way; they live simply, in small apartments, with tiny windowsill gardens and laundry lines strung between windows over the narrow alleyways. We grabbed a slice in a local pizzeria, probably the only pizzeria in all of Venice where the proprietor spoke no English (pointy-talky strikes again) and ended up sitting next to a table of local college girls meeting for an afternoon cuppa, watching the local college boys play a pick-up game of street soccer. After lunch we walked back to the St Mark's madness and stood in line to tour the square's namesake church.
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| street soccer |
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| Just how narrow were they? |
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| A cat at home in St. Elena |
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| Water spickets like this one are all over the city. The water is perfectly safe to drink; it comes down an aquefor from the Alps. Notice the catwalks stacked on the side ready for the tides to come in. |
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| view of St Mark's clock tower |
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The church turned out to be my favorite of the historical sights. It's an Eastern Orthodox church full of icons and imagery that would seem fundamentally out of place in the famous Italian Renaissance churches and palaces in Florence and Rome. Every alcove in the church houses a separate exhibit with separate admission prices, some worth it, some not. My advice would be to skip the treasury and the golden altarpiece (on the main floor), but definitely go upstairs to the San Marco Museum and the famous Bronze Horses. After you've wandered the museum, be sure to go outside onto the roof for up close pictures of the massive replica horses and stunning views of the square, the canal, and the clock tower. Grab a piece of ledge and sit a spell, watching the square bustle beneath your feet.
Back to the sport of spotting local Venetians....
Another place to spot locals is at the fish market; they're the ones carrying large baskets and actually buying the fish rather than simply snapping pictures of it.
Our other brush with Venetian residents was at the local bars as we strolled from small square to small square in search of the perfect
Aperol Spritz (prosecco, aperol, maybe a little sparkling water, and an orange slice). The price of your spritz doubles if you want to sit on the square at a table and drink it with the other tourists. So again, taking advantage of the fact we left the munchkins home with the Grands, we stood at the outside bars and drank. The barkeeps all gamely tried to seat us at a table and offer us "the best touriste menu in all of Venice", but we finished our drink, looped the square and then picked a side street roughly in the direction of our hotel. Followed the side street until it opened up onto another small square with another small bar and started the process all over again. Don't worry we paced ourselves, kept a close watch on our belongings, and made it back to the hotel early enough to get a good night's sleep for our next day island hopping.
Touring the local islands was my favorite Venetian day. The city is stunning, but in good weather the boat ride out to the islands is lovely water watching and the islands themselves, quaint and picturesque. It's about a 100 minute ride back to St. Mark's square from the furthest island, so it really is an all day trip (and that's if you don't spend oodles of time at each island). Be sure to note the boat schedules and make your connections or you'll be stuck far longer than you want to be on Toricello, leaving you no choice but to cut Murano or Burano short.
We left from the Fondamenta Nuove stop (on the lagoon side of the main island) and stopped first at Cimiterio San Michele. The island is an old cemetary. Ezra Pound and Igor Stravinski are buried here as are lots and lots of American and Brits. I took pictures of some of the 18th and 19th century English tombstones, thinking I could later do some research to determine how and why these "ordinary" people found themselves in Venice at their deaths. Some were obviously soldiers, but I'm curious about the others. Next Stop: Murano.
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| main street in Murano |
Murano is the glass island: glass factory after glass factory, glass shop after glass shop. I wanted a few pieces of Murano glass jewelry for myself and for gifts, and eventually just had to pick a store and figure I'd do all my buying there. Otherwise, you'd drive yourself crazy looking for the perfect piece or two. We watched a short glass blowing demonstration and then toured the glass museum before grabbing another boat to Burano, transfer point for Toricello.
Toricello is as isolated as it gets, sandy scrub covered, very much like any coastal Florida State Park. There's a cafe or two for the tourists, but the only thing to really see there is the Santa Maria church, which claims to be the oldest church in Venice.
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| colorful Burano |
Back to Burano: What glass is to Murano, lace is to Burano. We didn't buy any (I'm just not a lacy gal), but walking Burano is fun. It's smaller than Murano with lots of colorful buildings side by side and when you ignore the lace shops it has a very old Key West, fishing village mystique to it.
Venice, everyone should go. It's completely touristy, but it's Old Europe too. If getting there isn't on your radar, grab a copy of the recent Angelie Jolie/ Johnny Depp blockbuster,
The Tourist . Watch it once for the fun movie a; watch it again for the scenery -- you'll get a great view of the grand canal and other famous Venetian sights.
