Our weekend in Venice was a lot of fun. I ended up with 569 pictures (yay, digital!). Don’t worry, I won’t post them all here.
The train was 3 hours. It was a nice train, big with dining car, but we were not assigned three adjacent seats even though we bought them together. That took some working out (language barrier) but we were able to switch with some other passengers. When we arrived, we immediately boarded the “bus” (a/k/a boat) for Murano, an island very close to Venice where we were staying, after purchasing a 20-euro student 3-day bus pass. Murano is the island where they make the famous Murano/Venice glass.
My first picture of Venice.
Here are some snapshots from our first Venetian boat ride:
Handicapped "parking"
This is Cemetery Island. Self-explanatory.
A pigeon decided to join us on the bus-boat.
Our bus stop.
Our first Venetian bus.
Murano was completely empty when we landed. Apparently things close down so early that people aren’t even out. Our hotel was a bit hard to find (we ended up passing a large glass abacus on the way) and in the end it was just a door in an alley with a little sign above it. But inside it was nice. We tried to find dinner because we were starving but we didn’t want to have to bus back to the main island. We had to walk for a long time before we found an open restaurant. The food was very good. On the way back, we found some lighted glass sculptures and took pictures of them.
This is what it looked like.
Murano at night.
Our hotel.
In the morning, we tried out the continental breakfast which turned out to be pretty gross and walked around Murano a little. We did some shopping and then went through the glass museum. It had a lot of really neat ancient (B.C.) glassware and some really elaborate stuff. Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed. We went out into the garden of the museum and there were big glass flowers and a glass bed out there.
A glass factory.
We tried to see a demonstration at a glass factory but their scheduling didn’t work with our plan so we decided to just head back to Venice. The bus from our stop on Murano stops at the north side of Venice and then goes all the way around to the south side, where the San Marco square is (and where we wanted to get to). The lady at our hotel said that we should get off at that first stop and walk across Venice, because that was faster than taking the extra 30 minutes to bus around the island.
Boy, was she wrong.
Me, on the bus-boat.
We followed the signs. And they took us over, under, and through the most inconvenient pathways that we thought San Marco might not even exist. Here is an example:
It took us a few hours to get there. But it was a pleasant enough walk, and we were able to stop and get some lunch. We also saw the most judgmental tourist-watching cat:
My favorite bridge in all of Venice:
The weather got very nice and we passed a gondolier and decided to go for it. His name was Alex, and he took us through many of the little canals to the Grand Canal and then back. He showed us where Marco Polo lived and many other famous people. Who I can’t remember now. It was a lot of fun. 80 euros. I only paid 1/3 of course. Well worth it.
This one cracks me up.
The Grand canal.
me in the gondola
My favorite bridge via Gondola.
Us & Alex.
Random picture of the carnival masks all over the place.
We finally arrived in the San Marco square.
We took the elevator up to the top of their campanile and got some great shots of Venice (how nice to be able to take an elevator!).
Us in the elevator.
Basilica (left, russian-looking) and Ducale Palace (right, pink brick)
Then we walked to get tickets for a show called “Carnival, the show.” It was a presentation in English about Venice’s history, including an explanation of how Venice got started and why the masquerade/carnival is so huge there. We walked around the room a little after we bought our tickets and I took some pictures of the costumes they had around.
A band on the way.
We returned to the square and went into the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace). The Doge was a very important religious/political character in Venice until the past few hundred years (times change, Italy united, etc.). The palace was enormous and it includes a prison, senate chamber, and many many large waiting rooms for merchants wanting to do business. Not too many pictures were allowed in here, either.
This was inside the Ducale's courtyard (pictures allowed there). Venice was full of weird faces like this. Some of them were quite funny - they had a crazy sense of humor back in the 1100's. Others were quite creepy (this one was built probably in the 1400's).
Outside the Ducale there were these purple men. They are very famous purple men, because there is no more purple marble anywhere in the world except all over Venice's architecture. Apparently these men are worth more than their weight in gold or diamonds or whatever you can think of. And there they were, just sitting out there next to people who were touching them and kissing them and posing by them.
A clock in the square.
More pigeon fun.
We headed to the Carnival show (which included an all you can eat dinner). That left us on Venice around 10 pm trying to find a bus to Murano. None of the bus employees were able to help us, and we ended up having to call a cab. That, again, means “boat.” The cab ride was ridiculously fun, so it was worth the 70 euros (divided by three). We all sat on the top of the back of the boat.
Picture from the taxi ride.
Turns out, the buses run to Murano from the north side of the island 24 hours a day. But no one on the south San Marco side happened to know that. Also, the bus lines change numbers and routes randomly at all times. The only way the bus system could make less sense is if they changed directions randomly (they only go one way at a time, but even then sometimes they switch at certain times).
On Saturday, we headed back directly to San Marco by bus, despite the fact that the boat “takes longer” (the boat ride is much more pleasant than wandering around a foreign city for a few hours, across bridges & through alleys, trying to find your way). We played some more with pigeons and then went inside the Basilica of St. Mark. That was really neat, but again, no pictures. Apparently, St. Mark’s remains were stolen from Egypt, hidden under pork (revolting to Muslims, so they could sneak it out unnoticed) and transported to Venice, where this church was built around his remains. So goes the story. I’m not sure that a 2,000 year old body (this is the St. Mark that wrote the gospel of Mark) was really anywhere around. And if it was, I’m not sure anyone can really be sure that it really is St. Mark. Apparently the Latin or Italian word for “pork” is all over the writing inside the basilica, and therefore the story is supposed to be validated, but I didn’t know what the word is to recognize it. There was not a location for the remains inside the church anywhere.
Sometimes I am very skeptical about history. Just because that’s the accepted story doesn’t mean that’s what actually happened.
From the boat ride.
the view walking from the bus stop to the SanMarco square.
We climbed up to the top of the church and got a great view of the square.
Then we walked across the square and visited the San Marco museums. Interesting. No pictures allowed inside, but I was able to get this great shot of the Basilica from across the square:
We boarded a bus and took a trip up the Grand Canal to the Rialto bridge, which is lined with shops. And so we shopped.
Rialto bridge.
Taxi.
Then we decided to get on any bus and see where it took us. We got off at a little garden, where we saw a Venetian wedding. We began restaurant-hopping, getting some drinks and appetizers at one, dinner at another, etc. on our way back to the San Marco area.
Wedding.
One of the streets we restaurant-hopped.
That night, we were able to find a bus that took us from San Marco to Murano. The thing that wasn’t supposed to exist, and didn’t the night before.
Oh, Italy.
And we didn’t get adjacent train seats on the way back, either.
