Italy Part 2: The second leg of Italy began in Venice. We took the train from Florence to Venice and seeing Venice again for the first time in 30 years was just as thrilling as it was the first time. For those of you who have not been to Venice, it can be hard to describe. For me, Venice is a feeling. It has an electricity in the air that I breathe in as soon as I walk out and see the Grand Canal. Prior to arriving in Venice, I had mapped out the exact route to take to get to our hotel because it can be confusing and in Venice, confusion ultimately ends up with you spending a lot more money than planned. When we arrived and went down the stairs and to the right to the number 1 Vaporetta station (basically a bus on water), there was no number 1 Vaporetta running on Sunday due to elections. So, after a rapid redirection and a few questions, we managed to get on the alternate Vaporetta to go to the hotel. They made us wear masks (which we have not worn since leaving the States in August). They made us take off our backpacks which irritated me and there were nine million people on the Vaporetta. Plus, the tickets cost $9.50 each for a 5 minute ride. The positive thing about the ride was that our hotel was directly off the fourth stop so we did not have to carry our bags through the confusing streets of Venice. I do have to report that cell phones and GPS have made walking around Venice a much easier venture than it was using paper maps back in the day! The first day, we went exploring and spent the afternoon on what we named “the Cathedral Tour” because there was a Basilica on every corner. We went into one large Basilica and the pipe organist was playing a concert which was wonderful. We headed to the Leonardo da Vinci museum and were amazed at how many things he had invented during his lifetime. Many of his inventions did not work but later inventors built upon them to create many of our modern tools. I think it is rare to find someone who is a talented artist and a scientist in the same brain. I am not sure da Vinci ever slept but we were exhausted when we left the exhibition! Our next day started early because we could not get timed tickets to St. Mark’s Basilica as they were all sold out online. We knew we would need to stand in line to get tickets but when we arrived shortly after 9am, the line already curled around the square. We voted to try that line later in the day and took a public gondola ride across the canal ($2 each) to another cathedral. At 11:30, we had tickets to Doge’s Palace. Much like Venice, describing the Doge’s Palace is close to impossible. As we walked into the building, I turned to Bill and said, “Okay, I am done taking pictures of ceilings because I have at least a hundred pictures of ceilings and people have to be getting tired of them.” Then…..we entered the first room. The ceilings were so grandiose that we did not even know where to look. There were paintings everywhere and gold everywhere. I started snapping those ceilings before the words I had just uttered had even left the air! One room was about the size of a football field and had a floor to ceiling painting that measured 75 feet wide by 20 feet tall! Rather than a living palace, the Doge was a government building of sorts complete with a prison! The palace was a highlight for both of us and made the next nightmare a little more tolerable. When we left the palace, we headed back into St. Mark’s square to check the length of the line. The end of the line was much shorter (or so we thought). As we rounded the corner, we saw the flood. We were in Venice during a “super tide” which was an unusually high tide. It had flooded the square and water was everywhere. I was surprised to see no pigeons in the square but later discovered that Venice passed a law in 2018 forbidding people to feed pigeons in the square. At the time, they were killing over 15,000 pigeons a year to control the population so something had to be done. Not feeding the pigeons certainly made a huge difference as there were none in the square which (in my opinion) was a huge improvement. Back to the water….during the flood, workers had quickly assembled a makeshift sidewalk that was elevated above the water. Bill said he would stay in line for tickets and wade through the water since he had on sandals. I had on boots so I walked over to get onto the bridge. The bridge was chaos and I could not figure out why people were not just walking to the top of the square which was not flooded. I skipped the bridge and started walking. I easily crossed the square and soon discovered why no one was going that way. The far side of the square was flooded up to shin level. I ended up taking off my shoes and working my way through the flood back to Bill. When I found Bill in line, he said that a woman with about 20 people had just broken in line in front of us. Since we had previously experienced the “official” looking tour guide break into line routine in Florence, we were not going to fall for that trick! We walked up and stepped back in line in front of the group. Another couple followed us and the woman said they could not break in line. Bill set her straight pretty quickly and nothing more was said about the situation! After a long wait, we finally made it into St. Mark’s Basilica. After all of the cathedrals we have seen, we felt that St. Mark’s was a bit of a let down. The altar piece, Pala d’Oro, was the highlight. It was made of solid gold and had thousands of gems inlaid. While seeing the altar, we had a new level of selfie takers….Narcissistic Nuns! They were snapping their pictures in front of that altar like Kim Kardashian on a Rodeo Drive shopping spree! It was very entertaining to watch! Our last night in Venice, we had grown a bit tired of pasta (even amazing pasta can only be eaten so many times in a week). Bill discovered a restaurant called The Old Wild West which was just too funny not to be investigated. On the menu, every hamburger had the ingredients listed. All the lists started with “bun”. As an American, I found that listing “bun” as an ingredient on a hamburger seemed to state the obvious but perhaps other cultures do not know that a bun is a given. The food was so-so but the experience was worth it. Our next stop on Italy Part 2 was a city called Ferrara. Ferrara boasted a castle and a huge cathedral so we thought it would be a good place to spend the night before continuing our train journey south. The lesson learned on this stop was ‘do not trust the internet’. The castle was cool and had an actual moat but it was closed on Tuesdays. The cathedral had been damaged in an earthquake in 2012 and had been closed since that time. Since 2012….and no one had thought to update the internet information? We spent most of the day on our usual food hunt and were just glad we only had one day in Ferrara. The next morning, we hopped on the train to head to Montepulciano. Montepuliciano was a hill town in Tuscany. I chose it because it was on a train route and it had wine. Lots and lots of wine. I thought since I had found a liking for port, perhaps I would find a wine I liked as well. We arrived at the train station in Chuisi and took a taxi up to Montepulciano. It was a beautiful ride and we picked out my “under the Tuscan sun” homes to buy along the way. Our hotel was an old palace and I had to specifically request a room with wall outlets. Being an old palace, the room stayed very cool and the weather in the hills was cooler than we have had. We asked how to turn on the heat and were informed that we could not have heat yet. We also were informed that if the grapes needed water, we might not have any during the day. Glad to see some things in Italy have not changed over the years! We had a great day of wine tasting and did a tour of some underground streets and Etruscan tombs. I did not like any of the wine and even Bill said this particular wine was too dry for his taste as well. I guess I’ll just stick to port wine! On to Italy Part 3 which will be several days in Rome. We made sure to enjoy the peace of Montepulciano today before we head into the fray. Arriverderci! Ratings for Venice and the countryside: Overall: 8 Venice; 7 countryside Points of interest: 10 Venice; 7 countryside Ease of communication: 7 (most people spoke English thank goodness!) Ease of transportation: 10 (foot power!) Friendly people: 6.5 Venice; 7 countryside Food: 10 Cost of living: 7 Weather: 9 Bill’s favorite thing: Doge’s Palace Sally’s favorite thing: Pipe organ concert in the cathedral From Bill: So, the doge’s palace in Venice was way over the top..doge actually means duke, so this was a seat of govt. The palace started off fairly normally, venice was founded in the 800’s by the current italian rulers, but didnt merge into italy until much later.. ( see attached link to a good quick history of venice) https://www.britannica.com/place/Venice/In-unified-Italy Venice grew from its once sleeping fishing village to a world class power due to the elite families ruling the city, keeping their money and power tied up in the doge’s levers of power.. Most of the amazing paintings and gilt work you will see in the pics was done after a fire in the mid 1500’s by then the spanish were bringing massive quantities of gold back from the new world, and we figured that the ruling families used their trading efficiencies to help the spanish move product, for a small pittance of gold.. Tongue in cheek small.. The venetian empire grew schlerotic in its old age before it peacefully fell in the late 1700’s the ruling elites got lazy and greedy and over extended and the people finally had enough. This is the general fall of an empire throughout history.. Isnt it fun, as we are dealing with our own issues.. Read the piece, not too long and gives good background as to all the goings on..
1 Comment
Carol Ann atwood
9/30/2022 05:18:04 pm
Always love the blog, Sally and Bill. Feel like I’m on a tour with great tour leaders thru some familiar as well as new places I’ve yet to see ❤️❤️❤️
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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