Note: Our hotel only
gives us one hour of Wifi a day … so this is a partial post that will be
updated later 🙂
In preparing for this trip, a few of the guidebooks said
things like “it’s not what you see when you are in Venice, it’s just being
there”. I’d have to agree with them completely.
After a long first two days of travel, today we woke up at
8:30 AM in our hotel Ca’ Zose – which is not late by any standards …. but just
delayed for a trip with Kerrianne and I. We tend to wake up early to beat the
crowds to breakfast and start knocking sites off of our list. However, our
bodies clearly needed sleep and according to my Jawbone Up tracker, we slept
for over 9 hours. You’re welcome body.
One of the best parts of travelling with Kerrianne is that
she likes to be prepared before we venture out for the day. So before we left
our hotel, we had downloaded a Rick Steve’s audio tour of St. Mark’s Square,
marked off our map for spots to visit, and already planned our next meal. We
both need to be fed at regular intervals or the shit hits the fan. It gets
ugly.
If it was to try and draw on a map today were we went it
would probably look like I dropped a pile of spaghetti. I have no idea where we
walked but I can say with certainty that we crossed a whole bunch of canals and
they were all beautiful. After two days in Venice, we’ve really covered the
majority of the places / neighborhoods / recommended walks. We didn’t hit up
the “ghetto” but I’m pretty sure our parents would be fine with that. BTW, the
“ghetto” isn’t a ghetto anymore but more of a reference to it being the first
Jewish neighborhood.
Here’s how today shaped up.
St. Mark’s Plaza & Church & Bridge of Sighs
St. Mark’s square and church was interesting and one of
those things that I guess you just have to see – but personally, I
preferred our little jaunt to Santa
Maria Gloriosa del Frari better.
- Went inside and fought off gaggles of tourists.
I’m sorry but if you are walking around taking pictures with your iPad you are
ridiculous … in all languages and cultures. - We didn’t pay extra to see any of the special
little things or to go into the Bell Tower. Saved cash money for our prosecco
budget.
The best part of the Bridge of Sighs is its name. Essentially, in the olden days (technical term) it was the bridge prisoners crossed before going to jail. So the view from the bridge was the last time they saw Venice … and theoretically sighed. Get it?
Snack Time
After the morning tourist activities, we decided we needed a
coffee break. Obviously. So we took in a little café called Tiziano Sas where
we leisurely sipped some caffeine and read about other sites. At this point, we
realized that we had walked a lot further than we thought we did and were a lot
closer to the Rialto Bridge. Hello good fortune.
Rialto Bridge
The Rialto bridge was interesting and offered great views of
the Grand Canal – but perhaps the best part for Kerrianne was when some old
South American men thought she was Spanish. Bonus? After the bridge, Kerrianne
spotted a cat from about 50 yards away down an alley. They were fast friends
and don’t fret we have video of the entire thing.
Pizza Time
When we get hungry, we get less decisive. I’m not sure why
but that’s how it works. So we wandered for a fare bit of time before finally
deciding on lunch at Bar Archivio. We were initially opposed to place that
appeared to have a cactus in its logo – but they left pictures of their food
off the menu, so that won us over. Plus there was “no coverto”. Otherwise known
as “cover charge”. We hate those.
This pizza was so tasty. It didn’t hurt that we consumed it
with prosecco. And, we had a view of a canal and a church all at the same time.
Life is tough.
Santa Maria Gloriosa del Frari
Kerrianne had marked this place off on our map as a to-do
but we literally stumbled onto it after pizza. It was the church that was
directly across from the pizza place. Kerrianne had wanted to see it because
there was some famous artist’s work inside, Titian. I’m not an “art person”,
I’m a “sit on the bench while you look at art person”. That being said, this
church was gorgeous and filled with beautiful art and sculpture. You aren’t
supposed to take pictures – so close your eyes and pretend you don’t see these
ones that we took.
In keeping with family tradition, we also lit a candle near
this statue of Mary that was covered in little pictures. I’d love to know what
this all meant, but Santa Maria has not bowed to all the tourists here and
translated any of their signs to English.
*TBD* Dinner
*TBD* St. Mark’s Square at NIGHT
Tomorrow? We are leaving Venice and making our way to
Florence by train! But before we do that, we’ll demolish another hotel
breakfast complete with “Cocoa Fantasia” … which is essentially nutella. I now
want to call all chocolate spreads fantasy chocolate.