Day 22: Monday, May 12, Venice

A back canal in Venice.

After waking up to a view of the sewer barge doing its thing from house to house on the canal, we had breakfast at our hostel. It was the standard mixed-country cheap breakfast here: corn flakes, bread with butter/jam, yogurt, coffee and tea.

First stop today was the Correr Museum. The art wasn’t up to par after three weeks in Europe, but the history and insight into Venetian life was good. The descriptions made the Doge sound like a virtual prisoner in his palace. The Doge was elected, and the other aristocrats wanted to be sure that he didn’t become too powerful in a “cult of personality” – he couldn’t put his face on coins, for example.

Lunch was a huge pizza. We didn’t want to pay cover charge, so we wandered a few blocks and found a residential dead-end street that we could have to ourselves. It was a really nice break from the tourist bustle everywhere else. (FYI: here “peperoni” means bell peppers; our pepperoni is their spicy salami.) After more gelato at the same place we headed for the north side of the island to catch a vaporetto to Murano.

Living in Venice would be hard on a lot of levels, but one is that people would constantly ask for directions. (I will be the first to admit that “people” includes me.) Venice is like one of those hedge mazes, but very crowded. Signs point you to the Rialto or St. Mark’s, but not too many other places. You end up half following your nose and half asking for directions. When you do ask for directions, you only get directions for the next two or three turns. After that it’s assumed that you’ll have to ask directions again because getting them all at once would be too complicated. We made it to the north side of the island via a residential neighborhood that was a nice walk.

Signs in Venice say that bare chests are not allowed. Bare backs are apparently not a problem.

We wanted to see some glass blowing at Murano, but apparently that all shut down by 4pm and we arrived after. We did wander through the shops and look at the beautiful (or kitschy) works until they closed. Some things are really pretty, some things are cheap trinkets, and some things seem like they would never sell but are there to “anchor” the store and draw customers. (Case in point: a 4-ft tall statue of an eagle landing on a branch. I didn’t want to know the price. I would be interested to see if it is still there in a year.) While on Murano, we ran into a couple that had stayed at the Soggiorno Magliani (Florence) with us a few days prior. I must confess that I didn’t recognized them at all, and when I joined my brother’s conversation I said, “I take it you are Americans?” That stopped the conversation until the wife said, “Yeah… we stayed with you in Florence.” Unfortunately I am terrible with names/faces and that happens more often than I would like to admit.

A shot down the Grand Canal.

After Murano and a snack dinner we hopped on a vaporetto for a cheap Grand Canal cruise. It was during the throes of sunset, so it was a pretty ride. The trip back was almost better since all the day-trippers had gotten off at the train station and the Venetian nightlife was starting up. (A lot of dogs ride the vaporetto – with muzzles.) When we returned we made a quick trip to St. Mark’s Square to listen to the dueling orchestras. There are a lot of restaurants, and at night each has a band/orchestra that generally take turns playing. The cheapskates like me don’t sit down and pay the exorbitant cover charge but simply float from music to music.

Our Venetian night was no longer young, so we picked up our luggage from the hostel and took a final vaporetto ride to the train station to catch our 0005 train (midnight plus 5). Vaporetto tickets are sort of a scam. It’s E6.50 for one ticket on most lines, which is really expensive. A 12-hour pass is E14. Almost everyone springs for the pass, of course.

UPS in Venice.

Venice is a place where you can see daily life and never see how life goes on. All of the sewage boats, etc. are on the small canals that run behind buildings and don’t have a sidewalk, so you could walk all over Venice and never see them. You occasionally see people walking through the streets pulling trolleys with goods and you feel sorry for anyone who has a shop that doesn’t back up to a canal.

Shirt for the day: “Set, Ready, Be.” (No, I didn’t get the order wrong.)