Day 37 - Venice

Today we only have a 4.30pm walking tour booked. So we had breakfast in the apartment and headed out to grab a coffee, anyone that knows me knows I love a good cappuccino with lots of milk froth but I must say I am switching to espressos from now on as they are frothier the further north we are heading! Espresso here is like a can of red bull so I am not complaining!

We walked into the area San Polo first & went over the Rialto Bridge, this was surprisingly not as busy as I thought it was going to be. We kept heading South towards Dorsoduro, the narrow streets in this area was the first time we had noticed shops shut for the public holiday today & when most Italians take time off - that being said has not one bit affected us so no complaints here just noticed a store shut with a sign every so often.

We stopped for lunch at a focaccia place called Farini, when we first went past it had no line, as soon as we come back, there was a line going out the door… typical!

We made our way around Dorsoduro down to Accademia area where Ponte dell’ Accademia is, a bride which is poplar for photography and adorned with padlocks from people.
We kept going around and came across the Corner Pub, 3Euro Spritz… You had me at Spritz but had me with happy tears of 3Euro! We sat nearby and watched the world go by on the grand Canal. I had a fabulous idea, lets take a traghetto across the grand canal instead of walking the bridge. A traghetto is a gondola that literally goes one side to the other for 2euro pp. All good until I found out the one I wanted wasn’t working due to the public holiday. So we walked back to the apartment, picking up dinner supplies along the way.

We left for the walking tour which started near Hoel Ai Reali, a 17th century palace which is now a swanky hotel with a posh spa… Again could of stayed here but the cats diets consist of top shelf food of course. The tour walked us over the Rialto bridge to Chiesa di San Giacomo di Rialto, which is where Venice was colonised. Venice was founded in 421 AD and you can’t find Roman things around Venice as it was founded as the Roman Empire fell. We saw the Rialto Markets that was once taking up a the majority of the area instead of now two blocks. This is where silks and other items from around the world that Venetian’s brought back from their travels would sell. The guide showed us the buildings and how the salt water is eroding the buildings and how they fix the bricks that are exploding one by one, from the salt that is left in them as they dry out over summer.
We then went to Ponte Delle Tette, a small bridge that was well known for the area for past prostitution, as the older Prostitutes would live on the Market side of the bridge and not let the sailors see the younger ones that they had moved to the other side of this bridge. If a sailor did go into the younger area, the girls would stop them from leaving the area by blocking this bridge until the sailor paid them.
We went to Campo San Polo the second biggest square in Venice, obviously San Marco being the biggest. We learnt that before Napolian, there was no paved streets, just mud and fields for growing food.
We finished the tour at Campo S. Toma, a store with masks & the guide explained about how masks came to be with Carnival.

After the tour we walked back to the apartment via the Basilica S.Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, as it was the public holiday for S.Maria, the church was opening and as I put it ‘rehearsals for their performance later in the evening’. This Basilica is famous for having a small Pyramid like sculpture inside that has the heart of a famous sculpture, Antonio Canova, the pyramid is fro an unrealised project of his and was made a decade after his death. The family got his body back but the priest at the time ordered that his heart be cut out and left in the church as his heart belonged to Venice, probably not the worst thing a priest has done though…

We got back to the apartment, we were very tired from walking and we made dinner and watched some Netflix.Read more