Venice - every turn a picture

Cameras everywhere in Venice 

Our long awaited Italian adventure began as we touched down at Veneto's Treviso airport after leaving home at 4:15am .  Friends had advised us to sacrifice a couple of meals and splash out on a water taxi entry to the city from the airport. This is only possible if you land at Marco Polo airport. Treviso, where the budget flights land, is a 30min bus ride inland! There is a blue bus service that provides a non-stop route to the end of the mainland for 10€. We caught the Vaporetto (public water bus -7€50 per person with luggage) from there so still had a water entry even if it was very crowded and not so 1960's movie starish.

On board the water bus - Vaporetti, on the Grand Canal.  A water taxi coming the other way.

First bridge of the Grand Canal from the Tranchetta stop where lots of cruise passengers were heading for their chartered entry into the city.

Rounding a bend, the famous Rialto bridge popped into view and was half covered in scaffolding. This was the closest stop to our accommodation - all organised by a firm called 'Typically Italian' (sales@tupicallyholidays.com). We had a bit of a job finding the place. We had the right address but didn't know that we had to go to a hotel to pick up the keys for the apartments.  Luckily the restaurateur where I went in to ask directions, offered to ring the number on the form and had a fast chat in Italian to find out where we were meant to go. Soon Poss was settled in hers -very close to where we got lost in the winding streets at one point and we got the jug on in ours for a much needed cup of tea!

The half of the Rialto bridge without scaffolding and a gondolier staying out of the big boat's way.

Left:  The street of our address - M is standing in front of one of the few bits of graffiti we saw here on the restaurant of a lovely lady.  Right: Garden entry to Poss'

By noon we were out on the streets of Venice and very hungry. We stopped for a light lunch and got a bit of a fright at the bill after all the service charges were added so made good use of the apartment kitchen and the Coop supermarket at the end of our street for the rest of our stay.

All the brochures bang on about Venice being a unique city but really it is the perfect word to describe it. The pastel coloured palazzo lining the canals are shrouded in the eerie play of sunlight reflected off the ever moving water. Bridges glow underneath, summoning tales of fairies and adventurous quests; all this on the way to get some milk or put out the rubbish! No wonder the city's history is full of daring deeds and romantic - or just plain lusty, dreams made real.

I love water views - this city has buckets of it!

Transport hubs on the Grande Canal

Speed boats still maneuver around these narrow stretches and dodge the man powered boats.

Streets of Venice

Lots of Venice is on the lean!

On our first explore we strolled past lots of mask shops - a tiny percentage of the hundreds in Venice. Much to Poss' delight and M's regret I think we managed to enter half of them over the three days. Poss added to her life long collection with some genuine Venetian works.  It was rather funny to have every single store owner telling us that only masks made by artisians working in their store were sold here - genuine - not available anywhere else - all the others are factory made etc. We quickly noticed that the same papier maché and metal faces stared back off the walls at us but with differing levels of painting and decorating skills.

Left: Papier maché waiting for the master's touch.  Two right - Masquerade supplies.

A giant face of David (see Florence blog) that has scenes of Casanova's Venice painted over gilt.
Both Poss and I wanted it but at over 1000€ it was out of our league! Too big for our suitcases anyway.

M liking the lintel? St Marks Lion - patron saint of Venice among the mask shops.

We finally made it around to St Mark's square and took the opportunity of no queues to go in and see the Doge's Palace(Palazzo Ducal). The Doge was the top dog(elected for life - chief magistrate) of the Venetian Republic and a very wealthy. powerful person. The post was obtained by a vote of the male members in the ruling class. There were 120 over more than 1000 years, the portraits of many were painted as a frieze around the main hall of the Doge's palace.

Every Doge ever elected is painted in the frieze around the largest room in Europe - The Chamber of the Great Council (around 2000 men).  This painted black curtain is instead of Doge Marin Falerio's portrait. He attempted a coup in order to be a dictator of the state - he was executed and sentenced with Damnatoio Memoriae - total eradication of his name and memory from all official records.  According to religious beliefs at the time this meant he would never be able to move from purgatory to heaven.

Left:  St Mark's Square from Mueso Correr, the Bascillica is just in sight at the right of the picture.  Right:  The Campanile, a clock/bell  tower in the square.  Both icons had 2hr long queues so we kept our appreciation to the outside of them.

The Ducal Palace (Doge Palazza) courtyard with the domes of the Basilica towering over it.

Pretty awesome views from the palace windows - I think the Cruise liner would have surprised the medieval inhabitants.

Just the ceilings of the staircases - no big deal! 

The painted ceilings, plaster decorations and the layers of gilt are mostly secular and cover every public room in the palace.

The real bridge of sighs - prisoners sentenced for their crimes in the Republic's hall of Justice were taken across this bridge back to the prison cells.  A last peek at the outside world through the lattice windows may have pushed up a sigh from all.

Views from the Palace balconies - without the cruise ship.

This painting on display in the Palace shows Venice(always portrayed as a woman) with the Dogaressa's necklace on, patting St Mark's Lion and telling Neptune - God of the sea - to put his offering of riches alongside all her other treasures. 

The winged lion is the symbol for Venice's patron, St Mark. In his gospel he writes of a voice crying out int he desert like the roar of a lion also states that Jesus is the 'lion' of the tribe of Judah. Apparently this and the fact that his body was smuggled back from Egypt where he had died under a load of pork, to evade discovery at the Muslim customs, and the legend that a friar on board had a dream that saved Venice's bacon seemingly from the St himself is how the lion of St Mark is every where in Venice.  The text on the book is latin for 'May peace be with you, Mark, my evangelist.' If the building or statue or painted was made in a time of peace the book is shown open, if in wartime the book is shut.

With someone under 15 in your group, everyone can get their museum passes for 18€ instead of 24. Great value for a short stay like ours - it gives access to about 10 museums including the Murano glass and Burano lace museums, Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo, Palazzo Ducalo and Museo Correr.

Museuo Palazzo Mocenigo.  M was so pleased that it had a textile art display and a perfumery display.

Museo Correr: This carved Ivory box was the only thing under heavy guard - with a clear perspex box all around, infrared alarms and not very much information - the  'Capsella Eburnea da Samangher (Pola)' is a bit of a mystery!
Right: Venus by Antonio Canova 1804-18111, The Metropolitan Museum of  Art in New York also claims to have her - so who has the copy?  I'm thinking this one in Canova's home town may be the copy.

 When we checked in at the Hotel we heard tell of a free trip to the glass island of Murano. Willow was nervous because she had read in a guide book not to accept free trips because you then are pressured into buying something at the factory they take you to. I told her that you just keep saying no! There was a family from Perth nearing the end of an eight week trip around Europe and a family from England who were all very friendly as we climbed aboard a wooden water taxi, accompanied by someone who worked at the factory - a friend of the hotel manager who had offered to share his ride to work?! We watched  a couple of guys make a multicoloured glass - it was very hot.

The humidity of Venice in heat was not nearly as bad as Sydney after a summer thunderstorm but we needed to buy the plug in mossie repellent gizmo to stop the bites. There was always a breeze down the canals and shade in the narrow, winding streets. These would have also helped 'The Ten' (those voted by the Republic, back Venice's hey day as a maritime super power, to control state security) organise one of the most effective secret service agencies ever known. The story I wanted to uncover was whether or not it was true if 'The Ten' ordered the assassination a master glass worker who was bribed and smuggled off Murano Island to France by Louis XIV's agents and gave away Venetian mirror making secrets for Versailles' Hall of Mirrors.

Whisked off to Murano in a water taxi.

Near the furnace

Afterwards we were shown into their showroom filled with examples of the work that their factory's artisans create(no photos allowed). The lovely guide did confirm the story of the French bribe though - he said that the mirror maker, as with all other glass makers of the Venetian state, were kept on Murano for their whole lives - under threat of death if they left - in an effort to keep the trade secrets of their superior glasswear. Three men escaped with the aid of the French, they were hunted down by the Venetian secret police. Two were killed in Paris and one, who returned to his home city to make sure his daughter(whose mother had died so she was now in Vivaldi's orphanage) was financially secure as promised by the French, was soon found. The secret police chopped off his hands and threw him into a canal - I assume he died of blood loss before blood poisoning!  Next we were shown into the sales room with plenty of 50% off signs - Willow raised her brow and ...

Left - enormous birds - why? Because they can.             Centre - tiny little glass works in the window of a store - one place had life sized ants, the girls were keen to get a couple to trick Nana with back home.
 Right:  Another glass factory with gaudy floral glass decorations.

Walking around the island gives good views back to Venice

Left:  The big bridge - gelato on the other side!  Right: Good place to stop with our supermarket lunch. 

 We walked around the outside of Murano on our way to the museum past countless glass factories and shops - many with the same demonstrations as we had seen. Poss and I were soon dragging behind. In one factory store we saw a huge green carnival horse - no photos allowed of course! We eventually crossed the highest bridge over the widest canal and found the others gobbling down a gelato. No narrow streets to hide us from the frying sun so backs dripped and vision wavered. We made it to the museum without jumping into a canal and enjoyed the subtle air con on offer.

In the glass museum, girls 'playing' in the lovely grounds of the old house, old vase with metal lacework and tools behind M.

 We made our way to the vaporetti station, Poss and I bought a tacky Venice fan each which turned out to be very helpful in Rome and Pompeii! The queue to Burano, the lace island, was very long and we were crushed up in the waiting room until a second boat came.  We bought a 24hr ticket for 20€ each which allowed unlimited vaporetti travel within that time. The wait was worth it.

Getting mocked for the way I stand in photos to reduce the view! Huge queues at Murano for the boats to Burano.

The lace industry is long gone although we saw two older women with their cushions and needles hard at work and most of the products in the 100s of tourist shops have 'made in Italy' on them. After chatting to one lady in a store (so great that most people in Europe speak enough English to converse with me!) she said she was really worried because none of the expected big cruise tours had been through that day and the vaporetti tourists didn't often make it to her end of the island.  She said that every household on the island was dependent on the tourist trade for their income.

The most amazing thing about this island though is how all the lived in houses are painted bright gelato colours. The canals, the bridges, the funky leaning bell tower and bright houses make for great photos. Fishing is the other major trade - as we walked away from this area a drone followed us for about 10 minutes.

Burano - not Pisa, but the tower is definitely on a lean!    Is it hot enough to risk a swim Willow?

Not sure what the letters in the corners of some pavers are for - perhaps the drains?

A lace maker at work                                                                   Poss on the boat back carrying her precious mask and handy fan.

The fishy end of the island.

After filling our water bottles from the fountain near the vaporetti stop we caught a boat and changed lines at Murano so we would circle into San Marco Piazza a different way. The boat stopped at the cemetery station and then the hospital ( I guess it makes more sense when travelling the opposite way). I had always thought that the word Lido was an English one for public pool but the big island opposite the eastern end of Venezia is called Lido and is the last stop on many of the vaporetti lines- I still haven't gotten to the bottom of this etymological mystery.  We saw lots of private traffic on this route. Families with heaps of kids - none in life jackets - make your own connections here! Young hoods bouncing the noses of their jet boats and hitting the wakes of others side on for little thrills. Old blokes with bare leathery nutbrown chests heading home with fishing rods jutting out but no chill bins cause it's just an excuse to have a yarn and a riposo in the sun.

Petal always finds the cats.     A sculpture pointing the way to the cemetry island.  After a set time buried here, remains are dug up and taken somewhere else for new burials.

Upon landing at the San Marco stop we passed little carts with souviners and decided that the straw hats were a really good idea - I got a bopeep one and M a fidora for 10€. Ms looked good and lasted every day of the trip but after seeing a photo of myself as bopeep - mine got packed for dressups! I can only blame the impulse on minor sunstroke.

This pillar is closer to the edge than all the others and was offered to pirates and other scoundrels as a chance of redemption.
Here Petal is trying to get around the pillar with falling off the step - it is recorded that no one was able to save themselves!

Poss and I spent nearly 30mins here early one morning trying to get this shot without rubbish collectors, café owners setting up tables and tourists looking for their first coffees getting in the way.  To our right the ancient library.

Willow showed us the 'oldest Café in Europe' (Vienna, Paris and London all have sites making the same claim). In part of the U shaped building bordering San Marco Piazza (St Mark's Square) is Café Florian. It has beautiful Neo-gothic decorations and orchestra and a wonderful view of all the hilarious goings on in the square.  We knew it would be pricey so took a seat, stressing that it would only be for a drink. Poss was on an expedition to find where to get her tax back forms for the masterpiece mask she had bought on Burano that day and we were hoping she would find us sipping away afterwards.

Well she didn't! Because we left - M's espresso was listed as 6€, my latte as 10€ the iced chocolate favoured by the girls were 12€ - we thought OK it's special let's really enjoy it! But then the orchestra began to play and the waiter dropped off a little card that informed us a charge of 6€ per person would be charged for the privilege of the live music. Although we hadn't ordered we still felt really guilty as we gathered our bits and pieces and slipped back out into the square trying to hide among the drifts of pigeons. Willow said 'Wow we just saved 80€! What will we spend that on now?" Both the girls would have loved the Pandora gondolier charms for their bracelets but that would have come to 100€!

The Florian Cafe on the side of St Mark's square.  Spot those who are trying to sneak their belongings into a getaway position!

Keen to make use of our vaporetti ticket, we tripped back down the Canal Grande to one of the very first Jewish Ghettos. This word evokes images of traumatised Jews forced to live in disgusting conditions after having all their possessions and homes stolen from them in the Third Reich or Elvis' song, poor New York housing estates. Originally they were a place where a city forcibly restricted the domicile of the thousands of Jews fleeing the Spanish expulsion and torture of all non Christians - Isabella didn't seem to have a very good translation of the New Testament.  Not too different from the refugee internment camps scattered around the world today. The word may come from the Italian word borghetto meaning little town.

Water Taxi and stop - was so nice that most sign headings had the English interpretation beside it.

The Venice ghetto was walled off with armed guards at all the gates that opened at dawn and closed at sunset. If any Jewish person was caught outside of the ghetto outside of these times they were thrown in jail. The Jews were allowed to be doctors, because of their high levels of education and ability to read Arabic medical texts and were visited in the ghetto by sick Venetians during curfew hours if needed. They were allowed to be moneylenders, because it was a banned job for Christians by the Pope, and second hand dealers. This lasted for over 250yrs until Napoleon invaded the city in 1797.  He pulled down the walls and ended the republic laws, absorbing Venice into the enlightened political virtues of the French Empire! All men are equal - Napoleon is god.

Left:  the gate into the Ghetto                      Right:  The holocaust memorial.

Left:  Extensions in the ghetto                Right:  Window of the school where the chanting of the Torah was coming from.

Top Left:A Hebrew inscription in glass.Top Right:Some of the funny cats. Poss has a photo of Petal with one of the real ones.    Below:  Antiques rather than 'secondhand goods' these days.

We visited the site of the Venetian ghetto and found a thriving community with cantillation floating in the air from a Hebrew holiday school. A holocaust museum was guarded, closed to the public that day. We found an artist, Michal Meron who has created a graphic novel scroll of all the Old Testament Feast days and recreated famous and revered works of art with comical versions modeling the local cats she sees around. And had a morning tea Gelato at a Majer Venezia café (a chain with fabulous Italian food stuffs that you can shop online in Europe http://www.majer.it).

Contrast between the Ghetto(left) and the art gallery (right)

Next we followed Poss' map to the Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo, which to Petal's delight, had a room full of perfumery substances and a large range of perfumes for sale. As we left she filled the afternoon air with a mingled sample of every perfume she had especially liked - around 12 of them!

After lunch - which introduced Poss to the joys of Aracini, and a bit of a riposo we wandered off into Venice for the rest of the afternoon on our own paths. All of us girls met up again at the Museo Correr which began with a gentleman of the same name donating his archaeological collection to the city. The rooms where it resides were once the apartments of the political machinations of the Venetian republic, then refurbished for Napoleon and then when Venice was under Austrian rule the Venetian residence of the Hapsburg family - our friend Sissi from our Vienna trip is here too!

The only locals left in town, apart from the council employees without whom the city would stink, are the retailers who depend on the summer tourist trade to bolster their bank accounts and those who choose to hide during the hot hours and head out on skirmishes for supplies in the evening (shops are open late every night) and I think they despise everyone of us trampling through their precious city. Perhaps because of what we heard happened in 1989. Pink Floyd did a concert in St Mark's square and 250K people went to Venice to try and hear it - the city sank a couple of centimeters!

Right: Step to the train station from the Vaporetti stop - Ferrovia.

One morning Poss was up early photographing before the crowds, I went down to St Mark's square to meet her. Walking along by myself at that hour the locals setting up for the day must have thought I was one of them - I just kept my mouth shut, smiled at their greeting and head nods and enjoyed being Italian for a few minutes. Many times through our trip people would converse with me in Italian and were surprised when I apologised for only understanding English - maybe way back in our family tree there are some Italian genes.

A rather quirky bookstore - stairs to look over the back wall are built with out of date encyclopedia's and covered with carpet.
I really liked their lamp shades - allowing them to get closer to the walls and spread their light up the wall. Below one of the 120 Doge's looks amused at the fire exit sign.

Can I just say Petal - that mint granitas are horrid no matter how high the temperature soars! Just stick with a lemon or blood orange!!!

Vnetians are working hard to keep their city safe and beautiful.

For those of you who noticed this blog is nearly at the end without a mention of Vivaldi or Marco Polo you may well wonder. On the left is the church said to hold the remains of the merchant, ambassador and explorer - there is a statue at the airport named after him on the mainland but apparently there is quite a strong possibility that he came from an island off the coast of Croatia and wasn't Venetian at all so there are no statues or fuss about him in the city!  We went into a church that has become a music museum that makes a lot of noise about Vivaldi but stops short of claiming that he was in any way connected to the church itself and doesn't have any of his instruments on display.  I thought the display of the lute and the medieval music here was cute though.

Thank you Venice for your lovely friendly bakers, restaurateurs, pizza makers, artists, rubbish collectors and gelato attendants - you swept us off our feet.

We only just made it to our train on time.  We had been asked to leave the keys to each apartment on their benches but when Poss pulled the door behind her and walked down the stairs she found that for the first time someone had locked the door at the bottom of the stairs - she was trapped in the stairwell. She rang me just as I got to her to check up so I had to sprint(an exaggerated account) back to the hotel praying they would have another set of keys - they did - Rapunzel was released with out damage to her locks and off we all trotted to the Rialto vaporetti stop. A crowd of people with suitcases stood in front of us at the stop and weren't getting on the waterbus - I checked the name on the side and it was the one we wanted - I called out to the guard who reopened the gate for us to push through just as the boat pulled away.  The others were all waiting for an airport bus.  Four other buses passed all going the wrong way until eventually one we could use pulled up.  It was touch and go  - Willow spotted and called out the platform number as we piled into the station, Petal spotted the direction beginning a sprint(this time it really was) with suitcases in tow.  We got on board with a few minutes to spare and were relieved to feel the cool airconditioned interior.
Sad to leave so soon!