Our plan isto be in Venice for three full days. This will give us time to explore the city, visit the island of Murano (where the glass is made) and watch a gondola regatta on our last day.
On the night of our arrival we walk into the local neighborhood (Sant'Elena) to seek out a restaurant. The neighborhood is quite delightful - the buildings are elegant multi-level houses that have been turned into apartments. Kids are playing in the streets (remember no cars) and the windows are open to the sounds and smells of Italians cooking dinner. We are hungry and find a little trattoria. The food is good but not out of the ordinary. However even modest Italian cuisine is a welcome change after two months in Croatia.
On the morning of the first day we decide to walk into the center of Venice - St. Mark’s square. It’s about a 20 minute walk but we started later than we intended and it is hot. We walk alongside the main canal with the sun beating down on us and reflecting off the buildings. It is time for a shady lunch.
Venice gets a bad reputation for food, but we had seen articles saying that it has been improving. So we are optimistic. We decide to try pizza. Oh dear! My prosciutto pizza is OK but Lori and Brian order sausage pizza. expecting Italian sausage. It is hot dog sliced up and arranged whimsically on top of the cheese. No amount of whimsy can make up forthe pitiful nature of this offering. But the surroundings are pleasant enough and it is good to be in Venice.
As an antidote to the pizza, Lori and Brian have gelato from one of the many vendors. They feel better.
We walk on to St. Mark’s with gondolas lining the quay to our left and passing the Doge’s palace with its astonishing facade.
This part of Venice was planned, with much the same intent as Washington, to impress and to be a manifestation of the power of the state. It succeeds even now.
We spend some time window-shopping the expensive jewelry stores that line the colonnade that goes round three sides of the square. Mixed in with the stores are historic cafes like Florian which, founded in 1720, is the oldest cafe in the world. Ithaca had patrons like Goethe, Casanova, Proust, Dickens and Lord Byron. And still has some characters today……
There is a long line to visit St. Mark’s basilica so we share a bottle of wine opposite the Doge’s palace and wait for the crowds to go away.
Once they do we go inside the church. This is a Byzantine-style church whose construction began in 1063 and was completed about thirty years later. Inside, the walls and ceilings are covered with vast gold mosaics whose area is equivalent to that of one and half football fields. The mosaics on the floor are marble and almost equally as stunning. We are all impressed but Brian perhaps most of all.
We walk through some of the narrow alleyways that cross the little canals and take our first vaporetto (water-bus) ride back to our marina. We were going to go into town for dinner but we are hot and tired and eat in another little restaurant close by. Again the food was good but, again, not especially remarkable.
