Our time in Padua at an end, we caught the train for one of our most anticipated cities: Venice. Other travelers’ stories of the city ran the entire gamut: Some said that it was majestically romantic; others said that it was overrated and generally a waste of time. Everyone said that it was expensive, so at least we had that to look forward to.
As much as we missed Lucia, we were glad that she was not with us. Drivers to Venice have to park their car (at a very high price) at Mestre, an outlying town on the mainland, and then train into the lagoon. We were able to catch a train direct from Padua into the very heart of downtown Venice. That is where the fun began.
It was a madhouse. People (mostly tourists: Venice has a standing population of only 60,000; some 150,000 tourists visit the city each day) running everywhere trying to catch one of the vaporetti (buses) that idled outside the train station. By bus I of course mean boat, as there are no roads in Venice. No cars. No buses. No vespas. Only boats. And your own two feet.
It was a bit confusing trying to catch one of the buses, but Amy’s cool head prevailed, and before long we had two one way tickets to the other side of the city, at the exorbitant price of 6 euro each. We learned very quickly just how expensive this city could be. Shaffer would have been grouchier, on account of the confusion and the cost, but we were about to get on a boat. For whatever reason, Shaffer really likes boats. They always cheer him up. Maybe they remind him of his native canoes. Or maybe he is really a 5 year old masquerading as an adult. If so, he’s not doing a good job of hiding it.
Our bus dropped us off at a stop which ostensibly was only half a mile from our hotel. It took us an hour to find it. Because there are no vehicles traversing the walkways in Venice, the streets kind of just do whatever they want to. You can take a westbound street, and within 5 minutes the street has doubled back and is now headed back east, without any opportunity to get off of it. All streets inevitably end at a canal. Some of the streets have bridges across said canal; some do not. If the street that you are on has no bridge, well you simply have to double back and pick a new street. It very much resembles a game of chutes and ladders…only virtually every street ends in a chute. Eventually we bumped into our hotel.
It was a nice enough place, though for being the most expensive of the entire trip it left a few things to be desired. For starters our “canal” view room overlooked a back alley. Also, the air conditioning was stuck at about 50 degrees. Oh well, better a bit too cold than too warm I guess. It did have one unexpected and totally exciting amenity, which we will arrive at shortly.
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| Our "canal" view |
We tried to keep our agenda for that evening un-ambitious: Our destination was San Marco: The central square of Venice where most of the major sights are located. We thought a brief stroll around the perimeter of the square followed by some dinner would be perfectly magical. Magical it was. San Marco was exquisite, both in size and grandeur. Around the perimeter orchestras’ play at posh (expensive) restaurants, regaling both patrons and passersby. We would tarry at one orchestra until it paused, and move down mere yards to the next. In the center of the square hundreds if not thousands of pigeons milled about. You had but to stretch out your arms and in short order several of them would fly up on perch on you! Shaffer considered doing it as a photo op but then he got scared. Not of the birds, mind you. Rather, he was scared that he would stretch out his arms, and no birds would land on him, so he would be standing there looking ridiculous. Yes, he was afraid of being rejected by the pigeons.
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| Wouldn't it be cool if this picture was of Shaffer and pigeons instead of a random woman and child? |
A large clock tower overlooks San Marco and (for the low, low cost of 8 euro each) we decided to climb to the top. It wasn’t much of a climb, as an elevator brought us to the top, where we were treated with views of the city. There was metal grating around the windows, so it was hard to get any really good pictures, but the view of the old city at sunset was still quite charming. What was less charming was a middle aged man who kept following us around and mumbling “beautiful…beautiful.” Assuming that he was your run of the mill lecherous old man, Shaffer was about to tell him to pay up or bugger off, but ended up striking up a conversation with him. Turns out that the poor guy was from Seattle (like every other American we met on the trip), that he just got divorced and this was supposed to be a trip for he and his now ex-wife, but he was here on his own now. He asked as what we did, and we told him that Amy was a marriage therapist. “Oh” he said “I could have used you a year ago.” Shaffer told him that he was a lawyer. “Oh” he said “I could have used you six months ago.” Poor guy. We descended the elevator, and literally 2 minutes after we got down, the bells began to ring. It would have been deafening had we remained, but probably pretty cool.
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| View from the bell tower |
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| Grates we had to stick our camera through to get the previous picture |
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| Bell tower from below, in St. Mark's square |
We decided to try to look for some dinner. Finding a dinner in Venice is an experiment in patience, discretion, and hunger management. Don’t misunderstand us, there are plenty of restaurants. Most, however, provide substandard food at 2-3 times the price of restaurants in other cities. There are, however, little gems which provide fantastic food at reasonable prices. You just have to explore a little bit to find them.
We finally found one and got a table right on the canal. The food was good: Amy had spaghetti con vongole (Spaghetti with clams) with whole cloves of garlic mixed amongst the spaghetti. Shaffer had calamari. Both were good. As we ate a young man with a guitar began playing. We had a difference of opinion on what to call this young man: Amy preferred the term “bohemian minstrel;” Shaffer thought that “transient” was more appropriate. In any event, this young man butchered several songs in short order, his most egregious offense being against the song “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” He then refused to leave our table until Shaffer had given him a euro. Shaffer could have done a better job singing. Any of you who have actually heard Shaffer sing know just how damning an indictment of the young man that is. The bill came with a pleasant surprise: In Venice you are charged not only the standard coperto (cover charge), but also a mandatory 12% service charge on top of it: To summarize, you are compelled to tip on your previous tip, as well as on the food.
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| At our canal-side restaurant for dinner |
After dinner we struck off towards home, through the narrow, twisting, romantic Venetian walkways. 20 minutes later we arrived…right back at the restaurant that we had just left. No joke. We have pretty good senses of direction, but those streets are wicked disorienting. Shoutout to Mike and Sophie. We were in Venice three days. Never once did we manage to take the same route back to our hotel, not for lack of trying.
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| At the edge of the grand canal |
We woke the next morning, and ate a substandard breakfast at our hotel. Its saving grace was that the hotel had an espresso machine, so that Amy needn’t be too long removed from her favorite stimulant. Then we were off towards San Marco again, and our big ticket item of the visit: The Doge’s palace.
Doge is the Venetian dialect for Duke, and for a period of 500 years the Doge was arguably the leader of western civilization. Venice peaked in prominence around the end of the 14th century and would remain there until Napoleon sacked and plundered the city at the turn of the 19th century. In its prime Venice overshadowed Paris, London, rival Florence, and the Papacy to the south. It was a naval power, and used its navy to protect its powerful commercial trading vessels. The flag of Venice features the lion of St. Mark. As it rose to power, Venice decided it needed a famous, prominent patron saint to secure constant pilgrimages to the city. Peter was rejected: That would connect Venice too much with the Papacy. So Mark was selected. All that remained was to sail down to Alexandria, exhume Mark’s bones, and bring them to Venice.
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| Venice flag- St. Mark's lion |
At the heart of this power was the Doge. Always a nobleman, the Doge was elected by his peers: A great council of 2000 noblemen whose legitimacy had to be proven and maintained in the “Gold Book of Venice.” Serving as Doge was not only a privilege but an obligation. Doge’s were required to remain in the city at all times, accept by special permission of the Great Council. Woe to any Doge who defied the will of the council: Doge Marino Faliero attempted a coup against the council in the 14th century. For his troubles he was beheaded, and erased from all historical records. In the hall of the great council, all of the previous Doges are memorialized with portraits, all except Faliero. His portrait has been blacked out, and over his name is written: “Marco Faliero, traitor to Venice, traitor to his family.” Maybe Cleveland should do the same with LeBron…
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| In the courtyard of the Doge palace...the only place we could take pictures |
The palace was amazing, one of the highlights of our trip. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures, so for your sake we’ll keep our description of it brief. It had everything: Personal rooms for the doge and his family, great expansive rooms where the council and legislators met, separate courtrooms for civil and criminal trials, a room where three people met who oversaw “legal training and the practice of law” (a sort of proto bar association), rooms for the dreaded, secret council of ten, armories, dungeons and an admiralty court. This truly was the genesis of modern government: A combination of the luxurious trappings of office, and the administrative necessities thereof; form and function, together under one roof. It really was too bad that we could not take pictures. Our favorite part of the visit was a trip over the “bridge of sighs.” This was a narrow bridge with one window that spanned a canal which separated the palace from the neighboring dungeons. Here a condemned prisoner would see his beloved Venice one last time, and sigh at her majesty, before being led away to serve his term.
We wandered the rest of the day. The most wonderful thing about Venice is the ambience. There was a lot to see, without any particular one site being worth the price of admission. So we just walked. All over the city. We walked up and down countless stairs, over innumerable bridges, and marveled at the great renaissance architecture. We got lost, and loved the freedom that came with that. There was no danger, we were on an island. So we just wandered. Wandered through twisting streets, over lazy romantic canals, with gondolas passing underneath, stripped shirted gondoliers singing lazily to excited (and well paying) patrons. Wandered beneath medieval towers and churches. Wandered across the city. Wandered through time.
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| Shaffer, the gondolier |
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| Legitimate gondolier |
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| On a bridge crossing the grand canal |
Then Shaffer got hungry, which always promptly ends any hope of progress or of romance. So we got perhaps the best priced food in Venice. A slice of pizza and a coke for 2.50. Yumm. It would be pizza again for dinner that night, as we picked up two whole pizzas and brought them back to the room. We were hoping to watch the U.S. Women’s world cup game that evening, and were hopeful as our hotel offered 180 television channels. None of the channels had the game on. Oh well. We still enjoyed our pizzas.
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| Pizza and beer....no soccer game |
The next day (our last in Venice) was fairly uneventful. We wandered about the city some more, soaking in every last nook and cranny, finding our favorite spots to sit and watch the pigeons, or bridge on which to people watch. In our experience it was the little things which made Venice so magical. We spent quite a bit of time admiring the many intricate masks that many of the local shopkeepers advertise. The masks can be ceramic, plaster-of-paris, porcelain, or other material. They come in various shapes and sizes, and are often adorned with exotic feathers and other accoutrements. The masks are for carnivale, the Venetian celebration of mardi gras. In class-conscious Venetian society, the masks offered a tawdry release: Legend holds that any person of any social class could enjoy any carnal knowledge of a person of any other social class, so long as both were wearing their masks. Giggity!
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| One of the extravagant masks! |
The most exciting part of the day, and perhaps of the entire trip was a wine store we stopped in. We had taken to drinking pretty much a bottle of wine per day, a habit which has continued since we returned to the states. We got used to paying anywhere from 5-10 euro for a bottle. This wine store was different. It was lined with casks of every wine imaginable: Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc. For three euro, the clerk would take out an empty plastic water bottle, and fill it with your selection of wine. So you would get 1.5 liters, which is two full bottles, of wine for 3 euro. We were elated. Then we were quite drunk, as we finished the whole thing that night, after having a dinner remarkable only in its ridiculously high price.
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| WINE!!! |
If you had a bunch of money to spend, Venice would be the place to do it. It is simply remarkable, and we fell in love it. We were of course travelling on a budget, but it was just as enjoyable. We will be back.
Up Next: An eternal city, Spitalian, the metro, near death experiences, gladiators, Popes, champagne, British people, death marches, kebabs, a water park, missing candy, a pigeon in a coffee shop and the last leg of our Italian adventure: Rome.
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