Reset search
Northern ItalyNorthern Italy
SatelliteEdit route

Northern Italy

November 2014
The environs of Venice, Ravenna, Verona, Florence and Rome produced many of the artistic, political, religious and culinary elements of our world. We went to enjoy and to photograph them. Read more
  • 41footprints
  • 3countries
  • 14days
  • 360photos
  • 0videos
  • 744miles
Follow Calendar Share Bucket list
Date ascending
  • Northern Italy
    Day 1

    Three Thousand Miles and Four Centuries

    November 1, 2014 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 43 °F

    Gray Southern took us to the airport in Raleigh, where we caught a plane to Philadelphia. In the evening we started our flight to Venice. The flight was very long and uncomfortable. I tried to stand as much as possible on the airplane to stretch my legs and avoid circulatory problems. We arrived in Venice the next morning around 7:00 am local time, and were met at the airport by a representative of Uniworld Cruises. There was some confusion at the Venice airport. Glenda took charge and sorted things out. We were ushered onto the River Countess, where we enjoyed a continental breakfast buffet. The first two new shipmates we met were Jim and Betty Hutchinson from Richmond, Virginia.Read more

  • Northern Italy
    Day 2

    Vaporetto to St. Mark's Square

    November 2, 2014 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 50 °F

    We retrieved our luggage, and Jim said that he wanted to do a general tour of Venice via the Grand Canal. I figured that the cheapest way to do this was not by gondola, but by vaporetto. The closest vaporetto station was St. Marta’s, so we got on a boat that took us to another station, where we transferred boats. As we debarked from the first vessel, I saw before me a lovely church. I went inside and took a few photos of the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus Santa Chiara. There were some women inside preparing the altar for mass. They did not seem bothered that I was taking pictures. I found the interior remarkably beautiful for just a common parish church. Glenda snapped a shot of the nest of a homeless man, where a generous donor had left a new pair of shoes for the indigent man. My baby Italian was sufficient to get us onto vaporetto #2, that would take us under the Rialto Bridge, and ultimately to St. Mark’s Square. The canal was bustling with tourist and cargo traffic, but we made it safely to St. Mark’s. We took only a few minutes to look around because, as it turned out, the boat that was to take us back to the Venice Port Authority, where the River Countess was docked, was to arrive shortly.Read more

  • Northern Italy
    Day 2

    Lost in Venice

    November 2, 2014 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 66 °F

    We almost made the mistake of getting on the boat that would have taken us to the boat via the airport, about a two-hour addition to our schedule. Such an option was not acceptable to us, because we needed to return to our boat by 2:30 pm in order to join the group that was to visit one of the Murano art glass factories on Giudecca Island.

    On the vaporetto I decided to go astern to photograph St. Mark’s Square from the water. There was a German family there with a father who acted as though he wanted to be the commandant of the whole world. Unlike his sons, he never acknowledged that I was even sitting in front of him. When I took their picture, he looked straight up, as though if he were not looking at me, then I could not see him.

    We returned to St. Marta’s, in view of the ship. The only problem was that we found a locked gate between us and our boat. We asked a policeman on a bicycle how to get back to the ship. He told us, in broken English, to get on the “People Mover,” and to get off at the first stop. This would lead us to the street we saw on the other side of the chain-link fence going to the River Countess. With some confusion and difficulty we made our way to the People Mover and found our way to the ticket machine and up one storey to the loading platform. After just a few seconds I saw that we passed over the road leading back to the ship, and continued to travel toward downtown Venice. The sense of helplessness was palpable. We got off at the next exit, and found that we were in the Piazza le Romana. Both Jim and I had maps. We charted a course back to the ship and started making our way south. Unfortunately, there were several places where the name of the street did not precisely line up with the street’s location. Betty and Glenda got worried, though Jim and I basically knew where we were, and were confident that eventually we would make it back to the ship. We wandered through some of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the city. Though I did not know it at the time, this walk through a less visited part of Venice would be one of the high points of the whole trip for me. When we saw the ship we hit another obstacle. We were separated from it by a chain link fence with a locked gate. So we had to backtrack several blocks, trying to remember exactly where the ship was until we hit a street that went without obstruction to the south. Finally we found one, and came out at the ship. We did manage to get back to the River Countess in time to go to the glassworks on Giudecca Island.    Read more

  • Northern Italy
    Day 2

    Murano Glassworks on Giudecca Island

    November 2, 2014 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 66 °F

    Our cruise director, Tony Campaillo, let us to our own private motorboat, which took us to the glassworks. First we saw a demonstration of how glass blowers ply their craft, and then we went to the showroom. There were all sorts of the most beautiful and fantastic works, from small figurines to large chandeliers. It was unfortunate that we were prohibited from taking photographs, although a Japanese-American named Steve totally disregarded the prohibition.Read more

  • Northern Italy
    Day 2

    First Evening on the River Countess

    November 2, 2014 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 61 °F

    We returned to the River Countess to enjoy a delicious dinner, went out onto the sun deck to photograph a passing cruise ship, the MSC Fantasia, and then put away our luggage, squared-away our stateroom, and went to bed.Read more

  • Northern Italy
    Day 3

    Walking Tour from the Garden to St. Mark

    November 3, 2014 in Italy ⋅ 🌫 46 °F

    In the morning a walking tour led by guide Immanuela. To the Arsenale, through streets east of St. Mark’s Square. Trail is marked by the GPS coordinates of the photographs Glenda took with the Nikon Coolpix 510. We went through several of the campos, originally fields surrounding churches. We spent time at the Arsenale, the old shipbuilding facility that built one ship per day in the fifteenth century. In the fog the buildings were lovely. Glenda was especially interested in all of the shops. In Italy, as in much of Europe, there are not supermarkets. Rather, there is a shop for meat, a shop for cheese, one for flowers, a separate vegetable market, and so on. All of the food looked good and fresh.Read more

  • Northern Italy
    Day 3

    Assembling at the Doge's Palace

    November 3, 2014 in Italy ⋅ 🌫 50 °F

    We all assembled in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace and went inside to see one of the most beautiful buildings one can imagine. One noteworthy feature on the outside, which I did photograph, is a box for the collection of complaints against one's neighbor. Its recepticle is in the shape of a face. One can only wonder about what action the state took against people whose neighbors tattled on them. Inside there was a prison.Read more

  • Northern Italy
    Day 3

    Inside the Doge's Palace

    November 3, 2014 in Italy ⋅ 🌫 55 °F

    The interior of the Doge's Palace has some of the most beautiful art and architecture in the world. The Doge was elected for a term, then replaced. One person could, however, serve multiple terms, and some of the Doge's became quite powerful. The largest room is the hall where the assembly met. They were reminded of their duties by a wall covered in Caravaggio's depiction of the Last Judgment. Inside the building there was a prison. Some of the cells have walls holding poignant graffitti. The Bridge of Tears led away to the place of execution.Read more

  • Northern Italy
    Day 3

    Frari Church and Scuola di San Rocco

    November 3, 2014 in Italy ⋅ 🌫 59 °F

    The Frari Church of the Franciscans and the nearby Scuola di San Rocco contain the finest collections of renaissance Venetian art in the world. Our British guide Susan has lived in Venice and studied art here for twenty-nine years. Though we were not allowed to take photos inside either building, I was able to snap one shot of Tintoretto's masterpiece, Virgin and Child with the Saints just as I entered the narthex. The church itself frames the work, which is itself the altarpiece. A carving of the work tops the tomb of Tintoretto, which is also in this church. We had dinner with Beth and Pete, from Portland, Oregon. Beth grew up near Glenda in Mount Holly, NC, though they did not meet until this trip.Read more

  • Northern Italy
    Day 4

    Sailing to Chioggia

    November 4, 2014 in Italy ⋅ 🌫 54 °F

    While traveling to Chioggia we heard a lecture by art historian Louisa. She says the best book on the Scuola di San Rocco is by Tom Nichols. We passed by the Lido, both a beach and a residential area of Venice. It was unfortunate that as we passed Isola San Spiritu that the buildings on it are now abandoned. It has been a prison, an insane assylum, and a hotel. On San Clemente Island Hilton Hotels is now building a resort. We met Ray and Ada from Southern California. They got together over the Internet. She is of oriental background. When we came abreast of the inlet just north of Chioggia, we felt the swells of the Mediterranean Sea. Obviously this river cruise ship was not made for the open ocean. I couldn't figure out why Uniworld decided to bus us to Padua from Chioggia, when it's actually closer to Venice.Read more

  • 2024© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Support
  • Legal notice
  • English