Venezia, Italia by Mel

Hello from Venezia,
We are in one of the most beautiful cities (to my taste!) in the world. I love Venezia.
We arrived here on the 4th of August, which was our 7 months anniversary of the beginning of our travel. I can’t quite believe it has been 7 months already! We have done a lot in those 7 months and I am loving it. Traveling is so fulfilling for me. The one thing I am struggling a bit is the planning: it is a lot of planning. Between planning where to go, booking accommodations, visits, train or bus tickets, making sure the kids keep up with their schoolwork and trying to still help for work… It is a lot sometimes. I wish I could travel a bit more slowly, with more day “off” which will give us more time to plan and work. But well, we only have one year, so we are trying to find the balance between seeing enough and doing what needs to be done!
I would still much rather be doing that forever!
Back to our day: we took a couple of trains from Pescara to Venezia. The first one was a very nice train, super comfortable. I don’t think I bought expensive tickets, but it was business class and we really enjoyed the comfort!
We got there, walked to our place: Luckily someone helped us when we got there, because I got sent the wrong code to open the door. Someone saw us struggling and called the owner (I assume) and we got the right code to get in. More and more places, do non-contact check in now, which sometime is a bit tricky as you need to find the key box or where to enter the code, or something along those lines and it can be a bit of treasure hunting feeling! Which when you have all your bags and did a full day in trains or buses, it is not always fun!
We settled in then went out to explore.
Venezia is a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; different portions of the city are linked by 438 bridges. The Republic of Venezia was one of the major European commercial and naval powers for over 1100 years. From 697 to 1797, the republic of Venezia was governed by the Doge (elected for life) and several different councils. Only men of the patrician (noble and rich) families were allowed to govern. The republic of Venezia was extremely power for a very long time. It ended when Napoleon troupes invaded Venezia in 1797.
We walked along the small streets of Venezia, climbing over bridges, looking at the hundreds of little shops selling a lot of beautiful objects (that would not fit in our bags!!). Being the touristic season, there are a lot of people, but we knew that, and it is manageable.
We got to St Mark square as we wanted to buy tickets for the main monuments to visit (and the website wasn’t clear). We ended up buying a pass for 10 museums (cue Emma’s groan!) We took the regular selfies in front of gondolas and the Doge palace and stuff.
Venezia is beautiful, truly. The small streets, the bridges, the churches, the gondolas, the atmosphere: everything makes the place magical.
Emma saw a Pandora shop and she saw a gondola charm, so she bought it with her own money, as we already bought her Italian charm. She is going to need a new bracelet soon!!
The kids also bought themselves some chocolate. It is hard to walk in Venezia without wanted to buy things. There are shops absolutely everywhere!!!
Normal evening things. Except Andrew lost his tooth! First tooth lost during this trip!
The tooth fairy was kind and gave 2 Euros (which is better than 2 Aussie Dollars).
The next day, we visited the Doge Palace, which is the place where the Doge use to live, where the republic was being governed and where you could get imprisoned as well. Busy place it was. It was built in 810, but needed reconstruction and modifications over the next centuries.
The rooms inside are incredible. Painting on every wall and ceiling: huge paintings! There is a weapon collection pretty massive. I don’t like weapon, they kill people, but if you like them, they have a lot in that palace!
One of the most impressive rooms is the Chamber of the Great Council, which was used when the Great Council was needed (obviously!): this Council was made up of all the male members of patrician Venetian families over 25 years old, which were between 1200 and 2000 people. This is the biggest room in Europe. The walls are decorated by paintings of the Venetian history, the ceiling has paintings of an allegory of the republic and also example of Venetian heroism. The dimensions of the room are extraordinary: 53 meters long and 25 meters wide. It also have the longest canvas painting in the world (22*9meters): Il Paradiso of Tintoretto, painted in 1588-1592. This is a magnificent painting: it is incredible to look at from far and close.
We walked on the bridge of sigh: which is the bridge where people were taking into prison and they would have their last view of Venezia from there. We visited the prison, as it is always interesting to see the conditions of life of the prisoners.
After the Doge Palace, we grab a bit to eat. I have to mention how expensive the food is here. I read that some inhabitants of Venice are angry at tourists for not spending enough money in Venice, but everything is so expensive! To eat a normal meal of 4 mains and 4 drinks (as we are 4 people), it costs around 60 euros (108 AUD, yes the change is killing us) at a cheap place. And it is often not enough and we leave the restaurant hungry! We can’t do that everyday and I’m sure we are not the only one! I couldn’t find a room with a kitchen in Venice, so we eat sandwich and pizza to take away a fair bit, which is slightly cheaper! And if you sit at a restaurant, there is the coperto, which is an amount per person eating, usually between 2 and 2.50 euros per person. We are 4: this adds between 14 and 18 aussie dollars to the bill!!! This is crazy!
Anyhow, back to our visits: we went to the Correr Museum, which is also on the piazza san Marco. This museum has more artifacts like boat lanterns, coins, earth and celestial globes (like very big ones). It was a nice change. The rooms are gorgeous as well of course!
There is a beautiful ballroom where Kev and Emma waltz for a few minutes. It was a lovely moment.
After that, we just walked in the street of Venice, taking minuscule streets and getting lost. It was lovely stumbling upon small piazza, bridges, streets and looking at the buildings with their feet in the water! It is also very nice to not see or hear cars! Venezia is truly amazing (I might have said that already!)
On Wednesday the 6th, we visited more famous monuments of Venezia. We started with the amazing Basilica Di San Marco. We know that Venezia is sinking, but you can really see it in the basilica: the floor is pretty uneven.
The first church was built in 836, but subsequent addition and reconstructions will happen during the following centuries. The church is where the relic of St Mark, the Saint patron of Venezia, are kept. Over the centuries, the decoration inside evolved and golden mosaic were added to the ceilings, demonstrating eight hundred years of artistic styles. Also, as a result of Venice’s participation in the crusades, many of the columns, reliefs, and sculptures now in the basilica were stolen from the churches, palaces, and public monuments of Constantinople.
We have seen a lot of churches in Italy and they are always beautiful. Saint Mark Basilica is not an exception!
After that, we did something that all tourists do in Venezia: we took a Gondola ride! The kids were extremely excited about that! We took a tour of the canals, enjoying the slow pace of a gondola ride. It was a great experience.
The next thing we did, was another really interesting place. We visited the famous clock tower on Piazza San Marco. This is, according to the guide (you must have a guide to visit it), the second most famous clock tower after Big Ben. It was built at the end of the 15th century to show Venice’s power and wealth. At the top, are two bronze statues: one old which strike the bell 2 minutes before the hour, to show the time that past: and a young one, which strike the hour, to show the new time. Under that is the lion of Saint Mark, symbol of Venezia. There used to be a statue of one of the Doge, but it was removed when Napoleon took over the city. Then come the digital clock, which was added in 1866. 2 panels show the time: one panel is roman numeral for the hour and one panel is in Arabic numeral showing the minutes at 5 minutes interval. It is in Arabic numeral as there is no zero in roman numeral and a zero is needed for the minutes. In the middle is a statue of the virgin Mary. There use to have a procession of 4 statues going around the virgin Mary every hours, but it was removed. It is now only done on the epiphany (6th of January) and 40 days after Easter. Under that is the clock with golden hand which show the time on a 24 hour-time clock (Italian time: they switch to 12 hours clock when the French invaded), the zodiac sign and the position of the moon. Under is the arch to enter the piazza. We visited the inside and could see the mechanism which run all that. Until not that long ago (mid 20th century I think), a time-keeper and his family were living in the tower to take care of it. Now there is an engineer who came every week.
We then walked around Venezia again, walked on the Rialto bridge, bought some more magnets… I need to stop buy them!!!
In the evening, we got some take away pizza, which are the most delicious cheap food around and picnic along a canal.
On Thursday the 7th of August, we visited 2 other islands of Venezia. We took the bus-boat to get there.
The first one, is the Burano Island, famous for its extremely colourful houses and its lace. We visited the lace museum. It is always amazing to see the different craft that exists in the world and how people try to keep them alive. Emma really seemed to enjoy it and want to do something along those lines when we come back in Australia. We will have to see! Walking in the island, is a pleasure for the eye with all the colours. If you go there, get there early before too many tourists arrive and you will be able to enjoy the streets, but saying that, it wasn’t too crazy anyway.
Then we went to Murano Island, which is famous for its glass. Murano is not as beautiful as Burano but it is still worth a visit. We obviously visited the glass museum, with incredible glass work. I was astonished with the miniatures: portrait a few millimetres tall made with glass! The sculptures made of glass, with glass details inside of them were also incredible. This is a must visit. I am again astonished with the craftsmanship that was on display. It is inspiring.
After those 2 islands, we came back and rest for a bit. For the evening, we got some sandwich for a supermarket as it is much cheaper!
For our final full day in Venice, we did a couple more museums and the kids were happy about them! One was a museum about textile and perfume. Venice has a long history of making perfume. It was originally in shape of soap or candle to burn to have some nice smell. Eventually someone figure out how to extract smells and perfume was born. In this museum, they had perfume which was used in Ancient Grece or during the Roman Empire. They found recipes on temples walls and reproduce the scents of old time. I loved it! It is easy to imagine what it looked like, but now I know what smells were used in temple in Ancient Greece: it was very sweet as they used honey. In the Roman Empire, it was more floral. I really enjoyed that. I always picture how it was in the old time, now I can add some smells to my imagination. They also explain what was used and how perfumes were made. There was also a part about textile and costume wear in Venice in the 14 and 15th centuries.
We finished our museum tour, with the natural history museum of Venice. It was really well done. The presentation was enticing and interesting. They also had a lot of items that you could touch, making it more fun for the kids. The only negative, is that there was no explanation in English, but I guess it is more a museum for local as I don’t think to many tourists go there!
We walked around to take on one last sight of Venezia.
We came back to our place to blog for a bit and in the evening, we had one last nice (expansive) dinner out.
Italy has been amazing. I love this country. The arts, the architecture, the beauty is everywhere. There is so much culture here and history. This is my kind of place! I was extremely amazed by the crafts we saw. I am glad that we managed to see some old art and new ones. We mixed fun stuff the kids found and some visits of more cultural things.
A few negatives are, the prices: when you book hotel, you need to add the tourist tax on top of the price. When you eat at a restaurant, you need to add the Coperto on top of it. There is always some extra fee somewhere! It is not a cheap place! I know Kev will talk about the food, which we were a bit disappointed in, so I won’t go in details for that.
I loved Florence, Roma and Venezia: those cities are amazing. But I know there is so many other cities that I would like to visit. Maybe we will come back to do more of the south of Italy.
MelRead more