Venice, Italy

Day 9- July 23

We again took a high speed train (an hour and a half) to Venice.  When we arrived, we had to wait in a LONG line to purchase our vaporetto (water bus) tickets.  But it was nice to be able to view the Grand Canal as we waited.

 

We decided to purchase a 48 hour unlimited ride pass, and we are glad we did:)  While Venice is small, we took the boats a lot.  Luckily, we were able to figure out which boat to take to our hotel pretty easily, and after a short wait and about a 10 min boat ride, we were dropped right outside the hotel!  Our hotel was way off the main waterway, but it turned out to be a perfect location.  The hotel (Tre Archi Palace), as well as most of the buildings in Venice, was an elegant old "palace" situated right on the canal.

 

 

 

 

 

Since our room wouldn't be ready for a few hours, we dropped our luggage in a room and then headed out to explore and grab some lunch.  We looked at several places, but finally found one that looked good.  Unfortunately, it was run by a pretty crabby old guy.  We had no issues, but another family got yelled at pretty badly for wanting to switch tables twice!  After lunch, we headed back to the hotel and our room was ready (they upgraded us to a deluxe room, but only for that night).

 

 

We took a boat over to the island of Murano for the afternoon.  Murano is famous for its glass-making.  We arrived just in time for the last glass blowing demonstration of the day, but we didn't get to see too much.  The glass blower accidentally broke the piece he was working on, so that was it.  It was kind of disappointing.  We wandered around the island, which is mostly shops, looking for some good souvenirs.  I picked up matching bracelets for Juliana and myself, along with a hand blown Christmas ornament.

 

 

 

 We spent the rest of the evening walking around/exploring Venice and caught a nice sunset right near our hotel. We got to see many shops full of Carnivale masks...some incredibly intricate and pricey! 

Day 10- July 24

Today, we started out with a tour (narrated by Rick Steves) of the Grand Canal as we headed  over to St. Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco). 

 This time, we did not have advance tickets, so we waited in quite a long line.  We had read a trick to check a bag and then you bypass the line, but Joe could not find the bag check, so we waited about 40 min.  When we got up to the front, of course, he was told to go check his bag.  I went in without him and waited, but we must have missed each other as he came in.  we didn't find each other for about 30 min!  (the guy told me that the bag check was just 1 min away!)  We enjoyed St. Mark's for a bit, but after all the other churches we had seen, this one blended in with the rest!  We also decided that we had climbed enough bell towers/domes, so we skipped the campaneile.

 world's 1st "digital" clock

Then we headed over to the Doge's Palace.  We had tried to get in on the "secret itineraries" tour before we left home, but it was already sold out weeks in advance.  The Palace itself was pretty cool.  The Doge would have been the leader of he time.  Much of the palace is made of white marble.  There were tons of rooms, secret corridors, even dungeons.  We got to see many of the rooms dedicated to government and justice.  The great Council Hall was a HUGE room that could hold up to 2,000 people!  On the walls were portraits of all the previous Doges, with two blacked out as they were overthrown.  Our tour also included a tour of the prisons, across the famous Bridge of Sighs (prisoners took one last look at blue sky and Venice and sighed as they pondered the rest of their existence).  Even the cells were divided up depending on social class.  The poorest criminals were put in the pits (basement) and endured the smallest and most uncomfortable cells.

 Bridge of Sighs

walking across the bridge of sighs to the prisons....

 

 

We spent the rest of today trying to "get lost" in the city (don't worry, we succeeded!) and to get away from the crowds by finding the "back canals."  We headed back toward the lagoon for dinner at what we thought would be a really nice place to go for our pre-anniversary dinner.  But we got there a little before they were serving dinner.  They finally seated us, but then we waited and waited and waited....at least 45 min before anyone paid any attention to us.  Other guests were in pretty much the same boat.  In fact, most were turned away as it seemed most of the tables were reserved.  After we FINALLY go a server, it still took forever for our food and we were pretty much ignored.  It started to rain, which really put a damper on things as we were planning to do our gondola ride right after dinner (and this was our last night in Venice!)  Joe loved his dinner, but I was appalled when they brought a WHOLE fish (including the scales and head!!) out to him!!  My calzone was also pretty scary, to be honest.  It did stop raining (we were there long enough!), so our hopes of a gondola ride were looking up. 

After dinner, we knew we were getting pressed for time, but we hoped we would run into a good gondolier and still enjoy a nice ride.  Luckily, it didn't take us too long to find our way back, and we found a waiting gondola.  We were hoping for a nice, quiet, romantic ride away from all the crowds, but we were nervous that we wouldn't get it.  Our gondolier was perfect.  He took us out to the Grand Canal for the obligitory kiss under the Rialto bridge at sunset and then wound us through many quiet canals.  He was able to provide some background info on the sights, but also knew when to back off and let us be.  It was great!

 

 A perfect way to end a perfect trip to Venice!