JK'ing Around in Europe

We decided to get an early start to our last full day in Venice, and got up to watch the sunrise. It was pretty neat to be in San Marco (Saint Mark's Square) with only a few other individuals there - any other time of day it's packed full! The light was pretty spectacular - we were lucky and had unseasonably great weather for our entire trip.

Bridge of Sighs - the only time we saw it without a horde of people on the bridge stopping to take selfies in front of it

Saint Mark's emblem, the winged lion, is the symbol of the city of Venice, and you could see it everywhere!

I think the artist for this banner has watched too much Lion King

Venice's flag (usually flown beside Italy's flag and that of the European Union) - the tails are for the different districts of Venice.

Another Venician flag - not sure why they are different! We saw this one more rarely so I suspect it's unofficial

We spent some time in the cathedral and Saint Mark's Square:


Saint Mark's basillica - so much gold leaf! Kind of underwhelming actually, compared to some of the other cathedrals we've seen. First built around 1073, it's gone through a lot between fires and frequent flooding.

Usual population of Saint Mark's square

I do NOT want to pose with pigeons on me! Yuck!

Walking around window shopping was really fun too! Can't decide what I liked looking at more, the food or the beautiful glasswork and other crafts.

Yummy cannolis!

Gelato shops around every corner!

Just for my sister.

Beautiful masks found everywhere

These sculptures were crazily good

Not the real Vitruvean Man (apparently almost always hidden away instead of on display, disappointingly), but a replica at a Da Vinci exhibit

Children of the 80's and 90's, name this book series!

Most of our day was just spent exploring by vaporetto and foot. Our passes got us one more trip across the island - since they are 24 hour passes, we were still good the next morning (although there was a bit of anxiety as they actually expired about 8 minutes before we got to our destination - if a transit officer boarded and checked passes, we would have been fined, as it doesn't matter that we boarded while our passes were still valid). The water buses are seriously crowded:

This is the hotel where George Clooney got married (or so we were told, and far too lazy to fact-check)

Playing with my new 50mm fixed focal length lens

Great stand-up meal at a local cafe - with some prosecco and Spritz (local drink) to wash down several delicious mini sandwiches!

Justin finding more ancestors (or so he claims)

Great chocolate store!

After some final tourist-ing, we headed back across the island, caught the train to Treviso (almost missed it, actually - that was not fun!) and had a great dinner at a little restaurant on the way to our hotel. The next morning we had an awesome buffet breakfast and caught a flight back home. I'll let you guess which pictures were in Italy and which were in England:

Actually, that's too depressing an image to end such a great weekend on, so I'll find another. Here's one of a gondola's 'hood ornament' that I really liked.

Best fifth anniversary ever!

Hey Everyone,

So I'll try to encompass the entirety of our Day 2 in Vencie to a single post. It'll be tough, we had lots of photos, and traversed the city thrice, but here goes.
We did have a bit of a sleep in after being out late the first night. We opted to make Saturday the day we used the Vaporetto pass (the water busses). You buy them in 24-hr blocks, so it's a good idea to group everything you would use the vaporetto for into one day. This included starting our day off at the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, going to Murano island, and using the vaporetto for an extended cruise down the Grand Canal.

So to start off with San Giorgio Maggiore... While many tourists will go up the clock tower in San Marco's Square and look out at the sea, we went up an equally impressive tower across from the square and got a number of fantastic pics of the harbour and all of Venice too.

Why does the church have a hedge maze? I'd go to church way more if it involved a hedge maze.

As we were about to leave and head back to the main island, we spotted this guy who was having a very hard morning. This is not what I'd call a relaxing trip down the Grand Canal.

We used the Vaporetto pass to return to the southern island of Venice, and made our way from there across the entire city to the northern shore. We made a couple of stops along the way for souvenirs, and a bite to eat, but our goal was to get to the Island of Murano.

Venice is known for it's glass blowing. It's a trade that has been developed in the city for hundreds of years, however, in the 13th century, all of the glass blowers were forced to move to the island of Murano, approximately a 10 minute ferry ride off the northern coast of Venice. This was because at the time, every building in Venice was built with wood, and the glass blowing operations were too much of a fire hazard to remain in a growing city. If you see from our last post, even the Ambulances would have a hard time getting around today. Firefighting would be all but impossible.
So the trade developed on Murano, and today is considered to be one of the best places in the world to find hand blown glass. Jewelry, collectibles, glasses, even full sculptures and chandeliers line the walkways of Murano. Many shops will complete demonstrations, so you can watch a piece being made. We were fortunate enough to watch someone at the back of a shop make a high-ball glass in about 5 minutes right in front of our eyes.

This is just one of the many styles of souvenirs that we saw made of Murano Glass

These too. Almost real enough to eat.

Unfortunately, this is where our sleep-in in the morning started to catch up with us, so we only had about 2 hrs on Murano (not nearly enough time!), before we had to make our way to the meeting point for our walking tour and Gondola ride.

We had pre-purchased the walking tour with the gondola ride to make things easier. Our tour guide was very animated and clearly loved his job. He had a great way of sharing the history of Venice while showing us examples all around us. He was particularly self-deprecating about several things, including the reason for the final design of the Rialto Bridge - the current design allowed shops along the bridge, so they could charge the shopkeepers money, and pay for the bridge. He laughed that when he hangs his underwear out the window to dry, tourists take pictures of it, and frame it as art. He also pointed out a few times that because Venice is a UNESCO world heritage site, if a building is being restored or rebuilt, it must be done so in the same style as what had been there. Everyone in the city is subject to this restriction... except the bank, who, as our guide put it, have put up a building in the 'garbage-nouveau' style. We also came across this beautiful addition to a family 'palace' or ca (like Kah). When it was built, it was obviously a grand addition to the building, but today can you guess what it's purpose is?

A Venetian Fire Escape. Yup!

Since all of the buildings in Venice are supported by wooden piles driven into the muddy bottom of the lagoon hundreds of years ago, they are unable to build any new buildings that would be 'heavier' than what's there now, and some taller structures have ... well... settled a little. Three different towers in Venice have a 'lean' similar to this one.

Pisa eat your heart out.

Our gondola ride followed the walking tour. To say that the gondoliers are talented at what they do is an understatement. At several points along our ride, the gondola was turning corners with less than an inch of space between the building and the boat. Sometimes he was even rowing the boat while smoking, or even talking on his cell. The ride was nice, and we were on some smaller canals that you wouldn't see otherwise, but because the gondola has an off-centre keel (the centre keel is about 20 cm offset from the actual centre of the boat, this is how they can row from just one side), the seats for the passengers are determined to balance the boat out. Kris and I got the two seats across from each other... the married couple in our boat were sat about an arms length apart. As it was dusk, our photos didn't turn out too well.

Our gondolier in action... well coasting along and about to duck under the bridge.

And us as we came back to the dock.

This is considered a wide berth. The speed boat behind this gondola was just 2-3 inches off of the side of our boat.

Following the gondola ride we were feeling fully Italian, so located a little restaurant where the locals eat, and had our most traditionally Italian dinner.... a whole pizza as an appetizer, a delicious spaghetti plate with a bottle of wine on the side, and finished off with a hot espresso.

Can you guess which was mine, and which was Kris'?

We decided to make the most of our full day vaporetto pass, so we walked to the Piazza Roma, and caught the #1 vaporetto all the way back to San Marco square. We saw this idea on some travel blogs, and they were totally right. It's a great way to see the city, and if you go at night, everything is lit up, and the vaporettos aren't super crammed with people. I'll just leave the pictures to tell the story. Kris was getting really good at her night shots. In some you can see the constellations as well as the buildings.