Very few people live on the island of Venice itself and those who do, are usually shop or restaurant owners. Others travel to the island on a daily basis to work. Everyone who works on the island, works in tourism.
Arriving in Venice and never having been here before, I agree to walk to the B&B where we will be spending the night. I discover that Venice is not trolley bag friendly! We locate our hotel, ring the bell and are greeted with a little, old Italian man, Nico. He speaks basically zero English so Tim fills out forms and converses with him with a lot of hand gestures. We need to explain that we will check out early the next day but will be leaving our bags in the B&B for the day and picking them up before our train departure. With some patience from both parties and the use of google translator on the iPad, we get our point across and everyone is all smiles! (We send a follow up email to confirm, as the English in our email correspondence with the B&B was quite good, so we assume someone else manages that part of the business.)
After checking in, we head out for lunch and then join a walking tour + gondola ride of Venice. Cliche? Yes. Fun? Yes. Our tour guide points out some key things in Venice, including the difference between the gothic and renaissance architure in the buildings before popping us into gondolas and sending us off. We don't just experience the waterways of Venice, but also peak hour traffic.
After the gondola ride, it was time for dinner in Camp San Stefano, where we also try what our guide believes to the the best "gelato" in Venice. Unfortunately, while it was extremely delicious, it was more like ice cream than gelato. A short stroll after and we were home.
The next morning, Nico fixes us up a continental breakfast which included freshly baked croissants. He offers us coffees from the coffee machine. As non-coffee drinkers, we politely decline. We then check out and head back to where everything happens in Venice, the San Marco plaza. It's time to visit St Mark's Basilica. Another quick history lesson for you: the original church was built to house the body of Saint Mark after it was "rescued" from Muslim-occupied Alexandria, burned down in 976. The basilica we see today is from 1063 and the contact lens sized gold mosaics that cover the entire ceiling are from 1260. St Mark's is also considered to be a church, a cathedral because it is the one church of the local bishop and also a basilica because it is the home of a patriarch and was given the honorary title as conferred by The Pope.
Next up is the "secret itineraries" tour of The Doge's Palace. The tour takes visitors into hidden rooms and passages of the palace that the middle class would use to get in and out of the palace to do work and to not be seen by nobility. We also saw the prison cell of Casanova and heard tales of his escape from the palace to make his way to Paris.
After lunch it is a tour of the three islands - Murano, Burano and Torcello. On Murano we are amazed by the handiwork of the glass blowers as he quickly creates a glass horse before our eyes. On Torcello, we walk around the outside of Venice's oldest church and on Burano, we watch a little old lady creating Venetian lace. It must be said, we didn't find the three islands overly exciting, but that could just be the result of travel fatigue.
Returning to the main island of Venice, we hot-tail it back to the B&B. Nico has trustingly left us with a key to the front door. We let ourselves in, grab our bags and make our way to the station on foot. It was time for an exciting overnight train journey to Paris on the Thello trains!
While overpriced, Venice is a beautiful city and who says everybody gets lost in Venice? We didn't get lost once!
Tim's observations:
- Ness received her first official "ciao bella" from the very friendly/smiley Nico (aged about 60). He then proceeded to tell me how lucky I am and how beautiful Ness is...well that's what I assume he said in Italian.
- Experiencing a traffic jam while in a gondola in Venice is very entertaining. We witnessed two Italian men having an argument across the canal. It was particularly amusing when one of them broke off mid-sentence with an exaggerated sigh. It seemed like he was saying "I can't even talk with you anymore, you're being unreasonable".
- The freshly painted street signs throughout the town, together with the use of iPhones (with GPS capability), makes navigating Venice quite simple. One wonders if there will be a "GPS generation" who are incapable of reading maps.
- I was very disappointed when I came to the realization in Venice, that I never said "when in Rome"...when in Rome.
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