Italy Day 8 Home

Our last day in Italy. We didn't fly out until late afternoon, so we had a good chunk of the day to tour.

We started by catching the water bus. We rode the bus all the way to the end of the line, then back again and out to Murano island. Murano is just a few miles away from Venice. It's famous for its glass. Unfortunately it's Sunday, so nearly everything is closed. We walked along the canals peering into windows. Lots of pretty glass jewelry, dishware, art, lamps, etc.

We did go into a couple of shops and Mike bought something for his mother. I didn't think I could even get a piece home safely, so I didn't bother looking for anything.

We saw a very large glass sculpture in the center of town. It was interesting, but not really my style.

The last shop we went to was huge. They had glass everything, I think they even had glass couches. I was scared to death to touch anything because the prices were all in the multi thousand Euro range. One salesman must have thought we were important VIPs because he kept wanting to show us expensive lamps and chandeliers.

Eventually we stopped wandering Murano and caught the water bus back to Venice.

All last night I kept thinking about the painter we had seen near the Rialto bridge. We headed back there, and sure enough, he was there again. I decided to buy a couple of paintings for Koren and Kyle. We took pictures of a few paintings and sent them via text message. They both picked out paintings that I bought from the guy and rolled up in a tube.

We ate lunch then went back to our hotel to puck up our luggage. As we waited for the boat that would take us to the airport, we shopped through some of the stalls that sold Mardi Gras masks. I bought a couple to bring back to my grand kids.

The boat ride to the airport was fun. The driver went slow out of the canal, then kicked the speed up across the channel. He kept pointing out interesting sights along the way, including a tiny private island that was barely big enough for a small house, but someone lived there.

The airport was small, but quick to navigate. Our first leg was to Paris where we had to leave security and re-enter. One of the great things about traveling with Mike is that he's a member of he Delta mucky mucks club, so we get to hang out in nice lounges at the airports. We went to the lounge in Paris and relaxed in comfy recliners, drank soda, and ate munchies while waiting for our flight. The flight home was long, but I slept nearly the whole way.

What a great trip.

Mike waiting at the water bus dock


View of St Marks from the Water Bus


Mike posing on the Water bus


More sights from the water bus


The water bus has to slow down for gondolas I guess


Jewelry in a shop window on Murano island


More Jewelry


Glass sculpture on Murano


Long view of the sculpture


Boats moored along the banks of the canals on Murano Island. Notice they're all power boats over here


Fancy glass shop on Murano


My painter friend drawing a charcoal sketch


Last views and water bus ride back to St Marks


Boat ride to the airport


Having a soda at the airport

Italy Day 7 Venice

After last night's food poisoning ordeal I slept the whole night very soundly and awoke feeling great. I was just a bit weak, but nothing that would stop us touring the city.

It was early morning, so St Mark's square was empty and very quiet. None of the restaurants or shops around the square were open. We walked around the square for a bit and took pictures, then grabbed a water bus back into Venice.

We stopped at the Rialto Bridge to take pictures. By now people were beginning to move around the city but it was still very quiet. We wandered back into the side streets looking for other photo opportunities. After a bit of wandering, we came across an outdoor market with seafood, flowers, all sorts of vegetables. Everything was raw so we couldn't sample anything. There were lots of little old ladies dragging rolling shopping bags around and buying their groceries.

After some more wandering we back came out at the main canal in time to see some large boats being rowed down the canal by men all dressed alike. We had no idea what the boats were doing or why they were decorated with flags, but we watched a while, then moved on.

Right behind one bridge we came across a man selling charcoal paintings. I'd seen him yesterday, but I was feeling so bad that we didn't stop. This time we stopped and watched him for a bit.

We continued wandering the back streets and taking pictures, then we started following signs pointing us back towards St Marks. It is very confusing and disorienting following signs left and right down what look like alleys and small squares. We crossed many bridges over small canals and eventually found ourselves in a pretty little square with a restaurant at one side.

We sat down and ordered some lunch. One of the things I've really discovered on this trip (Mike probably knew it already), is that restaurants don't mind if you sit at their tables for hours. You can order a small coke and just sit and watch people come and go, and the waiters won't keep bothering you or glaring at you the way they would in the U.S.

We were in a square on the main foot rout between the Rialto bridge and St Marks, so there was constant foot traffic in each direction. I enjoy just watching the people and guessing at what they might be on their way to or from.

Eventually we finished and continued our journey back towards our hotel. We stopped in our room for a bit to offload a few things, then headed back out. As we passed the front Desk, we noticed allot of activity out the back side of the hotel.

The square of canal behind our hotel and near the Hard Rock Cafe must be a real jumping off spot for gondola rides. There were always people and gondolas lining up and maneuvering to get in and out of the area. A gondola ride is one thing neither Mike nor I wanted to do on this trip.

After lunch, we went back out into St Mark's square. By now the square was fully alive with people. The line into St Mark's Basilica wasn't as bad as yesterday so we headed in. No photography was allowed inside the cathedral, so I didn't take any. The Basilica is famed for the amount of mosaic tile work it has. Nearly everything is covered including the pillars, arches, ceilings, and floors.

Eventually we climbed up onto a balcony at the front of the Basilica overlooking the square. We took pictures looking out over the square. I took a series of pictures to create a panorama of the square.

After the Basilica, we toured the Doge's palace. The Doge was the leader of Venice during the dark ages. The palace sits beside the basilica, and again, no pictures were allowed. We saw the room where court was held and political decisions were made. We saw the armory, the dungeons, and allot of paintings.

For the rest of the afternoon, we again wandered some of the back streets and crossed some of the Grand Canal's bridges. Once while watching traffic pass beneath the bridge, we watched a young man rowing a small boat with a girl in it. He was rowing the boat by standing up, facing forward, and using 2 oars that he would push forward and away from his body. I don't know if it was a date or what, but the girl looked relaxed and kept watching the boy row. They didn't seem to talk much. Water buses and other traffic veered around them as he rowed steadily up the canal and out of sight.

On our way back to the hotel we decided to look for some Gelato to eat. There were little shops everywhere and it didn't take long to find one. A small shop with a narrow door and almost as narrow window sat to one side with a few people in it. We waited our turn, then asked the girl behind the counter what her favorite was. She answered in broken english with a heavy Italian accent. Somehow we got on the subject of her english and how she'd learned it by watching TV. I told her she must have watched allot of westerns because she had a subtle drawl behind her words. She started laughing, then in clear english she admitted that she was from Texas and had come to Italy for a vacation and just decided to stay. She was working multiple jobs to afford living here.

We ordered our gelatos, I don't recall what Mike got, but I got a strawberry flavored gelato. It was great. We ate as we walked along the streets and peeked into the various shops. As I was nearly finished, Mike said "By the way, you know that gelato has allot of alcohol in it don't you?" "No" I said, how do you know that? He said "Anything citrus or acidic can't have milk in it, so here they use alcohol instead". "Gee thanks for he warning Mike"

Back at the hotel we took a short break, then went wandering the little streets and alleys around St Marks square.

Now, when I says streets, alleys, roads, or anything else like that in Vencie, I'm really always saying the same thing. There are no cars, so none of the roads are big wide things. Most are just 5 to 10 foot across at the most. And all of the buildings are multi stories tall. So it feels to me like I'm walking down a back alley between tall buildings, but they're just the roads of Venice.

Eventually we made our way to the last building on the island. It had a glass factory that gave tours. Nothing much was going on this late in the day, but we went in and wandered through their souvenier shop.

For dinner we wandered the narrow paths around St Marks until we found a restaurant that didn't have a 1 hour wait. I was in the mood for a steak. The menu had "Steak Saltambocca" listed, so I decided to order that. Mike warned me that it wouldn't be what I was expecting, but having ordered it, I wasn't about to back down. It certainly wasn't what I expected. It was steak, but it was pounded flat and very salty with cheese and prosciutto ham on it. It was ok, but I wouldn't go looking for it ever again.

St Marks Square early in the morning and empty of people.


Gondolas still tucked away


Looking back at St Marks from across the Grand Canal.


The Rialto Bridge


Views down the Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge


More views from the Rialto Bridge


Fresh vegetables at the market


Fresh Seafood


Side canals filled with boats. Does everyone in Venice own a boat?


Decorated boats being rowed down the grand canal. No idea why


A chalk painter near the Rialto bridge


A picture of me on one of many bridges we crossed while wandering in Venice


A small grocery store on a small back road


Gondolas and waiting passengers queue up near our hotel


Mosaic art at the front entrance to St Marks Basilica


Panorama of St Marks square taken from the Basilica


Me with the square behind me


A lady in the square feeding the pigeons. At one point she had about 20 on her, but I didn't get the camera out in time


Courtyard in the Dome's palace


View of the Grand Canal with the young couple in the boat just visible

Italy Day 6 Florence to Venice

Friday May 8th, 2009

Our last morning in the Diana Park Hotel.  I've mentioned that the clerk of this hotel has a very warped sense of travel time because he tells us that pretty much everything in Florence is a short 10 minute walk away when it's actualy 30 to 45 minutes to get anywhere.

But I haven't mentioned the rest of the wonderful attributes of the hotel.  Like the elevator.  We've all been on spiral stairs before.   You walk around and around going up to the floors above.  But imagine if you hollowed out the middle of the staircase and put an elevator shaft right up the middle.  That would mean that you would have to have a round elevator, and that it would be a pretty small one.  That's exactly what this hotel has.  Mike, me, and both our luggage barely fit in it with both of us crammed against the wall.  There is no sense of movement as the elevator rises and falls, and it takes 30 seconds to go 2 floors.

When we got the hotel, the map seemed like we would be out of town center on a fairly obscure street.  Instead, we seem to be on one of the busiest streets feeding into town.  There is a constant stream of traffic past our window.  That wouldn't be a big deal except that the hotel's air conditioning won't be turned on until June.  The first night we tried opening the window but when the 4th ambulance drove past in 30 minutes, Mike decided to suffer the heat rather than the noise.  The second night we begged the clerk to turn on our air conditioning.  He did something and it wasn't nearly as bad last night.

The bathroom is shaped like a wedge of pie, and not a big piece of pie either.  The end of the room with the toilet in it has a window that you can barely reach by standing sideways.  The other end has the tub and ummmm I guess you could call it a shower.  There's one of those handheld shower wands on a flexible hose with a mount about 4 foot up the wall.  But there is no shower curtain.  The tub is way to short to actually try to bathe in, so I took quick showers to try to minimize the water damage.

We ate the free breakfast again, but stuck to yogurt, fruit, and pastries.

We asked the clerk to call us a cab, then went outside to wait for it.  I again marvelled (or shuddered) at the audacity of the scooters.  Every time the light changed to red, the scooters would work their way up through the cars.  Kind of like sand filling in around big rocks, until there were 15 to 20 scooters around the 2 lead cars and they nearly filled the street including the left side.  Then when the light changed, the scooters all surged forward trying to get in front of the cars and merge back into 2 lanes before the oncoming rush of cars and scooters hit them.  I tried to get a pictures but it was just too chaotic to photograph.

We got to the train station with plenty of time so that we weren't rushing.  We got a few drinks to take with us, then waited for our Eurostar to show on the big board.  We waited and waited with the departure time getting nearer, but still no platform was listed.

Finally with 10 minutes to go, the platform was displayed and an announcement was made.  A huge surge of people rushed toward the platform.  We were in car 2, and of course, it was on the other end of the train from where we were.  We started walking and heard an announcement for final boarding and immediate departure of the train.  So again, we started running down the platform.  We got to car 2 and found our seats easily enough.  The train left about 3 minutes after we sat down.

I spent most of the trip writing the report for day 4.  Mike spent the trip sleeping.  I've been tired each night, but I feel like I'm getting plenty of rest.  It's probably the altitude here.  There is so much more oxygen in the air than I'm used to getting in Colorado, that I'm resting well.

We arrived in Venice by 10:00.  The train runs all the way right out onto the Island at the North end of the Grand Canal.  There was also a bridge with cars on it parallel to the tracks.  Mike checked one of the guide books and it said that you could drive out to the island, but that it cost something like 20 euros an hour to park out there.

We got off the train and walked outside to our first view of the canals of Venice.  The grand canal cuts like a bit snake through Venice in the shape of a backward S with the train station at the top and St Mark's cathedral at the bottom.  Our hotel is near St Mark's and we could either get on the water bus or hire a water taxi.  Mike opted for a water taxi because we weren't sure how the buses worked.

We found the taxi stand and they pointed us to the next available boat.  Our taxi driver took us down a side canal as a shortcut.  We stood in the back of the boat just staring around us at the other boats, houses and buildings right on the water, and the people everywhere.  It was nice ride and pretty quick.  Eventually he drove into a narrow canal.  We went a couple hundred yards in to where it widened just a bit.  There was another taxi already moored, so he honked his horn.  It was amazing to watch these 2 drivers manuever the boats without ever touching each other or the walls.  When our taxi finally got to the off ramp, he swore then told us that the gate was locked so we couldn't get off there.  He backed the boat the whole way back out to the Grand Canal then took us another 1/4 mile down to the docks in front of St Mark's.  We asked him where our hotel was and he waved vaguely across the square, then left.

We drug our luggage away from the water and tried to figure out where our hotel was.  Before we had gone far, Mike decided to call the hotel and ask for directions.  They told us to cross the square and we would see the hotel.  But cross in which direction?  They also said the hotel was near the Hard Rock Cafe, and that was something we could ask for directions to.  We asked a few people and were pointed to the North East.  We picked a passageway and walked out of the square, and there was the Hard Rock.  A large canal dead ended right in front of the Hard Rock, and across the canal was our hotel.  We back tracked to St Mark's square and picked a passage more towards our hotel.  We crossed yet another canal and there was the lobby of the hotel in front of us.

The clerk in the hotel seemed to take an instant dislike to Mike and I. He ignored us for several minutes, then when he finally asked what we wanted, he first told us that checkin wasn't for a few hours yet.  Mike asked if we couldn't check our luggage and get some lunch, then come back and check-in.  He grudgingly agreed to store our bags for us and just waved us away.  We asked if he was going to give us check tags and he kind of sighed  and started to do that.  Mike also asked when the bags would get put away.  We tried to make a couple of joking remarks as we left, but he just ignored us.

Mike checked the guide book and found a restaurant nearby so we headed off to brave the streets of Venice.  We crossed some canals and found the main road that would lead to our lunch.  We wandered back and forth a couple of times without seeing it, then Mike spotted a neon sign hanging high up above the road.  It had an arrow pointing down a very narrow road.  We walked that way and found the restaurant.  It looked very new age with bright colored modernist painting on the walls and soft American jazz playing in the background.

We both got the tourist special.  It came with a bruchetta appetizer with peas and cheese on toast.  Then I got cheese raviolis with shrimp and Mike got something else.  That fact will be important later.

After lunch we went back to the hotel to try again to check in.  Our same friendly clerk was  there to greet us, but this time there was also an older gentleman who seemed to temper him a bit.  He got us checked in then got our key and led us out the door, across the street and into another part of the hotel.  Our room was an "upgraded" room, which I think meant that there was enough room to walk around the sides of the beds, but only barely.  But the best thing was that the air conditioning worked.

We left our stuff and headed out to look around St Mark's. The line to enter the cathedral was very long, but the line to go to the top of the bell tower was short, so we decided to do that first.  We didn't have to climb stairs this time since it has an elevator.  The sky was clear and we had incredible views of the entire city.  We were taking pictures when I heard an electric motor kick on somewhere nearby.  I wondered what it was until I caught a glimpse of motion out of the corner of my eye, I turned around and the the big bell was beginning to swing.  It was a bell tower after all.

The bell started ring right as I got my camera switched to movie mode and started a video.  The bell rang (very loud) for several minutes.  Most people covered their ears and headed for the elevator.  I video'd the whole ringing, then went back to taking pictures.  As we were getting ready to go down, my stomach started to ache a bit.  It wasn't bad so we went down and kept going.

We bought 48 hour tickets for the water bus and hopped on the first one we saw because we had no idea how they worked.  It turned out to be going in the direction we wanted.  We got off near the first big bridge.  My stomach was really starting to do flip flops one me and I didn't want to get too far from the hotel if it got worse.  As we walked around, we came across a cart that was selling fresh coconut.  I bought a chunk for one euro and nibbled on it as we walked.  It helped a bit, but not enough.  We took a few pictures then got on a bus to go back to St Marks.

Once we got back to the room I laid down and almost immediatly fell asleep.  I slept for 4 hours while Mike did some work on his laptop.

When I got up, I felt a bit later and I figured Mike must be starving.  We headed out to the square to find an open cafe, but just about the time we found one I felt really bad so we went straight back to the hotel room.  I threw up a minute after we got back and immediatly felt better.  All I could taste was that shrimp from lunch.  I was too tired and weak to go out again, but I felt much better and fell asleep almost instantly.


Mike and our Eurostar train as we began the hike to car #2


Our water taxi driver backing away from the dock


A delivery boat.  I didn't see any motorized vehicles on the streets of Venice.


The Venice train station as seen from the Grand Canal


Our water taxi driver trying to slip us in near our hotel.  The offloading gate was locked though.


The taxi stand in front of St Marks


A souvenir cart with a sample of mardigras masks


St Marks cathedral and Campanile (Bell Tower).  The passage to our hotel (Best Western) is at the left edge of the photo


Venice from the top of the bell tower


St Marks Cathedral from the top of the bell tower


The bell in St Marks Belltower ringing WHILE I'M IN THE BELL TOWER.  It was loud


A video of the bell ringing. Did I mention it was LOUD??


St Marks Square


The mouth to the Grand Canal and part of St Marks square


The Douge's palace, the waterfront of St Mark's square, and the south shore of Venice. I'm not sure what the building in the water is.


Our first water bus ride. A boat to take people across the grand canal.


Fresh coconut chunks available at many stands for 1 euro. My daughters would love it here.


A water bus.  We bought 48 hour ride passes and used the busses for touring. we weren't alone


Gondolas on a narrow canal


The gondola parking/hiring lagoon behind our hotel.  Notice the Hard Rock Cafe