Venice

On Saturday morning, our hostess in Vernazza brought us coffee and breakfast, and then I went to an Internet cafe to make sure Jen's flight to Amsterdam had arrived as planned. Then I took trains to Levanto, Milan, and Venice to meet Jen near the Venezia San Lucia train station. Addresses in Venice are not especially helpful for navigation, and, joyously, Google Maps marked our hotel about a third of a mile away from its actual location. That would be no big deal in most cities, but in Venice that means you literally have no idea where your hotel is, and no one else does, either. Fortunately, the hotel manager was very nice, and after calling her at AT&T's bargain rate of $1.29/minute (very competitive with Skype's rate of $0.06/minute) and telling her what piazza (plaza) we were in, she ventured out to find us and lead us to the hotel.

Our hotel, Alla Vite Dorata, was very charming, and our room was right on the neighboring canal. Jen and I had a very nice dinner at a nearby restaurant (lamb ragu for me and cheese ravioli for her). After that, Jen was absolutely exhausted from traveling and being up for the better part of 36 hours, so we went right to sleep.

In the morning, we had breakfast on our hotel's dock on the canal, and then we walked to St. Mark's Square to see the famous basilica and some museums. I do not have many pictures because a mass was being performed in the church and the museums did not allow pictures, but it was fun to walk around St. Mark's with Jen, as it may be Europe's most famous city square. Our favorite museum was the Doge's Palace, which was the seat of government in Venice for hundreds of years and housed the many councils. The governments of Venice through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance served as a model for today's republican governments and are even discussed a bit in the Federalist Papers. Jen and I did laugh a bit at all the council names--the Councils of 6, 10, 17, 100; the three or four councils of 10 that together made up the appellate courts; the Great Council; the Senate; etc. It was also interesting that many of the higher courts held legislative powers, which I found an odd way to separate and balance powers (though it seems many American courts have discovered that they have that power, as well . . . ).

The upper floors of the Doge's Palace hold amazing rooms, such as the room for the Great Council, and along the molding of these rooms, they have the name and face of every Doge (analogous to a Prime Minister today) except one, because there is simply a black cloth for the one that attempted a coup, and in return his name and likeness were to be struck so that he would be forgotten by history altogether. The rooms had many elaborate paintings of notable Venetian naval battles, Mary interceding on Venice's behalf to rid the city of the plague, fires that damaged the Doge's Palace, etc. I also enjoyed learning about the fierce, winged lion seen all around Venice. This symbolizes St. Mark, the city's patron saint, and over time it became the primary symbol of Venice.

For lunch, we bought a half-dozen small sandwiches with different variations of Italian meats and cheeses and split a half-bottle of the red wine made from the terraced vineyards of Cinque Terre (most of the wine from CT is white and pairs with their pesto and fish, but the red was delicious and spicy). Then we explored the city a bit more, took a boat to the glass-making island of Murano, and saw the largest dog in Europe (which prompted an American tourist with a southern accent to yell out, "Holy ****!"). Around sunset, we took a boat down the Grand Canal and saw all of the neat homes and palaces that line what is effectively the city's main highway/thoroughfare, and then we went to the home of what the Guardian called the best pizza in Venice to get a Margherita and a speck pizza (speck = what Americans call prosciutto . . . for Italians, "prosciutto" is usually what Americans call ham). I had bought some Prosecco (Italy's answer to Champagne) in anticipation of meeting up with Jen, but we were too exhausted to have some the night before, so we paired our wood-fired pizzas with Prosecco and called it a night.

We really enjoyed our time in Venice, and it was a fun city to see and explore because it was so different from any city I had seen before. That said, we both agreed that it often felt like a bit of a tourist trap. We don't think we would fight to return in the near future, but we're certainly glad we went to see it. (Photo album here.)

The next morning, we were on to Bologna, where our friends, Michael and Michelle, had planned an amazing day for us. Thanks for reading, and I will post Bologna right away.

- R