Land of the Gondola
Tuesday, October 10, 2006Venice was amazing! I don’t care what anyone has told you before about it being hot, stinky, and filled with mosquitoes and rude people. None of that was true! The only real stereotype I had heard about Venice that is actually true is about how expensive it is, it was very, very expensive compared to other parts of Italy, BUT it was so forth it!
Since last week was a three-day weekend Ali, Jessica and I were able to leave on Thursday afternoon instead of Friday. Unlucky for me, my language class that day consisted of an interesting but long tour of Siena, all on foot, which ended at the Duomo. I was supposed to go down to the train station right after class, after stopping at my home stay to drop off my books. The Duomo is about 15 minutes from the Study Center and the Study Center is about 25 minutes from home. So, I had a lot more walk time added onto my trip. Exactly an hour after class ended I finally made it to the train station. I realized I had been walking at that point for pretty much three hours straight! But things were easy from there, we had about a half hour to wait for our train to Florence and then it was off to Venice!
The train ride took about 5 hours, a little longer than it had to because of a slow train to Florence and a small layover, but we arrived in Venice around 7:30. While, not exactly in Venice but right outside of it. We weren’t able to find a hostel actually inside Venice for Thursday night so we ended up taking the only place that wasn’t full, a campground 20 minutes outside the city on the main land! But the bus to the campground took another 45 minutes or so, so by that time we were kind of worn out. And yes, it seriously was a campground, with tents and trailers and everything. We splurged though (spent an extra 3 euro) to have a three-person trailer with our own bathroom. It actually wasn’t too bad. Comfortable, and it had a heater, which was good because Venice was a lot colder than Siena (farther north you know.) Looks like it might be a fun place in the summer time too, it had a swimming pool, bar, restaurant and soccer field.
The next morning we woke up early to take the free bus to the center of Venice and check into our next hostel. At first Venice just seemed large and imposing, but as we walked through it more and more it grew on me. Our hostel for the next two nights was part of a Church actually, and helps fund the students that attend the school the Church runs. It was really nice, quiet and out of the way, with big rooms and comfortable beds. The only bad thing about both these hostels was that they didn’t supply any towels so we ended up using our sheets as towels after the first place and then not showering at the second! After we check in and put our bags down we headed out into Venice.
A little background on Venice before I go on. Venice is as island port in the Adriatic Sea connected to the main land by a land bridge. It is composed of around 118 individual landmasses that are divided by waterways, some small some large, and connected by numerous bridges. Venice is known for its gondolas and Carnivale masks, but also for the Palace of the Doge (the old time head of Venice who was a pretty powerful and independent city in Italy for a long time), San Marco’s Square and Cathedral, the Grand Canal, the Rialto Bridge and its glass and lace making islands of Murano and Burano. The image of the fierce winding Lion is also the symbol of Venice and San Marco. Venice has actually been slowly sinking though, and for 260 days of the year San Marco’s Square floods. Steps have been taken and procedures are underway to keep Venice from sinking even more.
Now back to where I left off, I had to bring up that little bit of history so the next part of my story would make sense. On our way to San Marco’s square we saw lots of beautiful Carnivale masks, stores (Gucci, Dolce and Gabana, a Ferreira store) and passed many fresh smelling bakeries on the way. When we finally arrived in San Marco’s we were a little confused at first because there were so many people around and they all seemed to be concentrated in a very small area. As we soon noticed, that was because San Marco’s was flooded. The entire middle area, where the trademark pigeons usually hang out, was full of water gurgling up from the sewers. And the front of the Church was even flooded! San Marco’s was beautiful, the Venetian’s built it in the shape of a Greek cross instead of following the traditional Church design so it has five domes on tope, numerous statues on the outside, and the very famous gold mosaics (!) that cover the outside! We decided to wait to go in the Church, and had to push our way across these very narrow bridges filled with anxious tourists to the other side of the Square. You had to walk on the bridges in order to not get wet, although some people just took their shoes off and waded through the water.
We then tried to buy a 24 hour pass for the water taxis around Venice so we could go check out the islands, but that particular Friday, everywhere in Italy, there was a bus strike going on, which apparently included the guys running the water taxis and we were unable to buy the tickets! So after that defeat we wandered around a little, trying to get lost. That was when we started talking to this pretty cute gondola guy. He said he would take the three of us around for 90 euros. We said no, that was too much and we wanted a ride for 60 euros. He said he couldn’t do that because the guy he worked for wouldn’t allow it, so we still said no and walked away. Then the large, balding older man next to him said he would take us for 60 right then. So we decided to go with (too bad not the cute guy) and climbed into his gondola for a half hour ride. It was really nice, very relaxing (it actually made us quite sleepy) and very pretty. We weren’t out in open water but stayed inside the city so the water was nice and calm. We supposedly saw Vivaldi and Casanova’s houses. We asked our driver to sing but he said he smoked and had a bad voice, he suggested we sing instead but we just laughed and said no (this was all said in Italian as well.) Now I think our ride was a little short for what we paid, only around half an hour, but I think overall the experience was worth it.
After getting charged and extra three euro each for a “sitting fee” at the café we had lunch at, we were grumpy and decided to go in a museum. We visited the Museum of the Doge of Venice (the head guy back in the day) and spent hours there looked at his palace filled with countless ceilings of gold, giant paintings and rich furniture. Finally it was time to head back to our hostel and rest before the evening.
That night we bought tickets to see an orchestra performance in this small theater right off of San Marco. The performance was a tribute to Vivalidi and consisted of arias from ten different operas by Puccini, Verdi, etc. It was really exciting, and wonderful to hear. There were opera singers there and everything!
The next morning that we visited the Cathedral of San Marco. The mosaics were beautiful, covering the floor, ceiling and walls, but the Church was very touristy, which detracted some from its grander and prestige. It was sad to see it flooding though; hopefully they can fix that problem soon. After that we were able to buy our 24-hour water taxi passes because the strike was over. We boarded the water taxi, an old looked, low to the water boat that makes frequent stops around Venice and headed to the island of Morano, known for its glass making. The glassmakers were moved to this island hundreds of years ago because of the danger of their furnaces. Back in the day things could easily burn down. After a short ride we arrived at the island. It was very cute, not nearly as tourist packed as the rest of Venice, so it was a really nice change of pace. The morning we had also gone to the grocery store next to our hostel and bought fresh bread, cheese, salami, orange juice and chocolate so we could make our own lunch and save money. We had our little picnic on the island and it was very satisfying. There were tons of glass shops on the islandAfter going in countless glass shops we hopped back on the water taxi to head to Burano, an island known for its lace making. Equally cute, perhaps more so because all the houses and stores were painted in bright pinks, oranges, purples, reds and blues (think typical Italian postcard.) After exhausting all the stores there we made our way back to the Venice’s city center.
After a quick trip to the hostel to drop off our new purchases, we walked to the train station to get on the water taxi that would take us all the way down the Grand Canal to San Marco. This was an amazing half hour ride! It was just about dusk when we got on. The sky was painted with clouds and soft hues, and the lights of the city were just coming on. We were able to get seats right in the front of the boat and with a cool breeze in my face I looked with awe at the beautiful buildings we passed on either side. The lights were twinkling inside and out and I was able to see the chandeliers and people inside each beautiful. We got to San Marco right as the sun was setting. What a beautiful ride.
The rest of the night we wandered around and went to bed early so we could get up really early the next morning, check out, go to the three remaining museums our tickets got us into and buy masks all before out train left at 1:30.
Surprisingly, we were able to see all three museums! One contained artifacts, coins, etc from Venetian times, the other was an archeological museum with Greek and Roman statues and the third a library. The library was really cool because it had this exhibit of these huge prints a guy had hand made, with Italian ink in the traditional style, that pictured six Italian cities, Venice included from the air. They were very beautiful. After the museums, Jessica and I found so beautiful masks to buy and we headed to the train station.
The return ride was uneventful, we made our own lunch again so that was good, and were happy to be home for dinner that night! Venice was a great trip that I had a lot of fun on and am very glad I was able to go on!
posted by Madeline Faye @ 4:03 PM
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