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They wanted it spooky
Jul. 21st, 2006 11:39 pmMade a surprisingly easy 8:30 curtain call with time to spare. Breakfast here was much like in London, except more pastries and less fancy cheese. And more annoying waitstaff, who insisted on getting our room number and seating us individually. Service was courteous, however, and the food plentiful and good. They also had delicious complimentary cappucino. There are no Starbucks anywhere in Italy. Good coffee of many varieties is too easy to find. Cappucino is available like tea in London.
Piazza San Marco is always full of pigeons. Feeding them is a popular activity, as you can buy bags of corn for a euro from nearby vendors.
Our first activity was San Marco cathedral, the giant refrigerator door of Venetian religious art. In the Byzantine tradition, of which this 5-domed beauty is a lovely example, the church was considered God's house. And shouldn't you make God's house the prettiest one in town? So they did.
Enormous, glittering mosaics cover the ceiling, all in real gold and colored glass. Light streams through cupola windows, creating shafts across the tremendous space of the interior. Fine marble mosaic patterns wave across the floor. Every inch of space is designed in some elaborate tribute to the glory of God, his disciples and his saints. Really incredible stuff. Tragically, they allow neither shorts nor cameras, so all I have to take home from my visit is strong memories and a smelly pair of pants (even the big churches get hot here). At the back of the church you can pay another 2 euro to see the golden screen that was stolen from Constantinople and finished with thousands of precious stones and colored icons. Walking past the back domes, there are scenes depicting the disciples, but there are 14 - Mark has been added. It is his church, after all, where his remains lie under the altar. His image, the winged lion, is at the peak of many towers and mosaics here.
This was on the top of the lift in the Campanile.
The outside front of the church has four beautiful classic Greek horses, the originals of which are stored in an anteroom at the top rear of the cathedral.
Nobody actually knows where these horses came from.
Copies now stand outside, to protect the originals. To see the originals is another few euros, but it is well worth it, as they let you out on the roof. You can also see all the wonderful dome mosaics up close, especially the renaissance ones in the back. We hung about and took pictures of the square from way up, then went down to cross the square to the Campanile.
The lines on the square were for church processionals, to show the processors where to stand.
Campanile is just an Italian word for clock tower, but in the San Marco square area there is only one il Campanile, and we were to go to the top. After a very hot wait in the queue, a lift whisks you up the 100-some foot tower to stand below the 4 bells and see almost all of Venezia and the islands. Vicki insisted we stay till noon, as there was a surprise. It turned out to be a rather loud one - the bells ringing!
Video of Campanile bell
We broke ranks for lunch and more delicious cafe food, then met back at the Campanile for the vaporetto ride to San Giorgio across the water. The vaporetti are Venezia's boat bus system, used for getting around the island and its neighbors.
The vaporetto stations float.
San Giorgio is a lovely Greco-Roman cathedral in the traditional cross design, very stark and elegant. A surprising contrast to the haunted beauty of the Byzantine cathedral, it had a very mathematical appeal.
It also had a campanile, which we paid the 3 euro to ride the lift up, for a different view of Venice from the front. Unfortunately I was on a later bus to this cathedral, and did not get many good pictures. There were two gorgeous paintings there, however.
On our return to Venezia we broke for dinner. My roommates and I had picked up a visitor to the group back at the vaporetti ticket counter, a young English lady visiting from Munich. She had gotten on our half-price group ticket to the cathedral, and we let her tag along for the lectures. She seemed eager for company, but had to return to the mainland shortly, so she invited us out for some wine at a good bar she had found earlier in the day. She had a hard time finding it, however. It turned out that she worked as a translator in both Spanish and German, and could communicate easily here with her Spanish. Based on her experience, if you are a young English lady needing directions in Venice, don't ask a woman. Also, if you're going to drink in a non-tourist bar, know exactly what you're ordering, and don't sit outside. We encountered the most humorless Italian women, especially the surly bartender. It seemed strange, as most of the local surliness can be attributed to simply being misunderstood, but that didn't apply here. It was sure nice to be hanging out with someone who spoke, lost though she may be.
Anyway, the bar she had in mind was closed until 6pm, but we found another one (tended by said surly Italian woman) and parted ways, she to attend her friend's wedding, us to eat and sleep.
Our english visitor and Nick.
Tonight was pizza night. We had a reservation for the whole group at a Vicki-recommended local place, an accomplishment that is hard to comprehend. You try calling a small Venetian pizzaria and ask for a table for 30, and see how many "no, no, no"s you get before they'll take you! The group enjoyed $8 pitchers of incredible local wine, perfectly cooked thin tossed-crust pizzas, and a very bemused waitstaff. We celebrated all 4 July birthdays on the tour by singing "Happy Birthday" in Italian, much to the amusement of the staff.
Try to find the pepperoni!
We're all exhausted most of the time. Jet lag is still biting at my sleep, and being out in the element (heat) is very draining. My ankles are swollen, likely due to dehydration, and my posture is ruined by ducking in all the low-ceilinged doorways and lifts. Nobody knows what day it is, and most sense of time is punctuated only by the occasional bell tower. Traveling here is darn hard work, and it's worth every minute.
Piazza San Marco is always full of pigeons. Feeding them is a popular activity, as you can buy bags of corn for a euro from nearby vendors.
Our first activity was San Marco cathedral, the giant refrigerator door of Venetian religious art. In the Byzantine tradition, of which this 5-domed beauty is a lovely example, the church was considered God's house. And shouldn't you make God's house the prettiest one in town? So they did.
Enormous, glittering mosaics cover the ceiling, all in real gold and colored glass. Light streams through cupola windows, creating shafts across the tremendous space of the interior. Fine marble mosaic patterns wave across the floor. Every inch of space is designed in some elaborate tribute to the glory of God, his disciples and his saints. Really incredible stuff. Tragically, they allow neither shorts nor cameras, so all I have to take home from my visit is strong memories and a smelly pair of pants (even the big churches get hot here). At the back of the church you can pay another 2 euro to see the golden screen that was stolen from Constantinople and finished with thousands of precious stones and colored icons. Walking past the back domes, there are scenes depicting the disciples, but there are 14 - Mark has been added. It is his church, after all, where his remains lie under the altar. His image, the winged lion, is at the peak of many towers and mosaics here.
This was on the top of the lift in the Campanile.
The outside front of the church has four beautiful classic Greek horses, the originals of which are stored in an anteroom at the top rear of the cathedral.
Nobody actually knows where these horses came from.
Copies now stand outside, to protect the originals. To see the originals is another few euros, but it is well worth it, as they let you out on the roof. You can also see all the wonderful dome mosaics up close, especially the renaissance ones in the back. We hung about and took pictures of the square from way up, then went down to cross the square to the Campanile.
The lines on the square were for church processionals, to show the processors where to stand.
Campanile is just an Italian word for clock tower, but in the San Marco square area there is only one il Campanile, and we were to go to the top. After a very hot wait in the queue, a lift whisks you up the 100-some foot tower to stand below the 4 bells and see almost all of Venezia and the islands. Vicki insisted we stay till noon, as there was a surprise. It turned out to be a rather loud one - the bells ringing!
Video of Campanile bell
We broke ranks for lunch and more delicious cafe food, then met back at the Campanile for the vaporetto ride to San Giorgio across the water. The vaporetti are Venezia's boat bus system, used for getting around the island and its neighbors.
The vaporetto stations float.
San Giorgio is a lovely Greco-Roman cathedral in the traditional cross design, very stark and elegant. A surprising contrast to the haunted beauty of the Byzantine cathedral, it had a very mathematical appeal.
It also had a campanile, which we paid the 3 euro to ride the lift up, for a different view of Venice from the front. Unfortunately I was on a later bus to this cathedral, and did not get many good pictures. There were two gorgeous paintings there, however.
On our return to Venezia we broke for dinner. My roommates and I had picked up a visitor to the group back at the vaporetti ticket counter, a young English lady visiting from Munich. She had gotten on our half-price group ticket to the cathedral, and we let her tag along for the lectures. She seemed eager for company, but had to return to the mainland shortly, so she invited us out for some wine at a good bar she had found earlier in the day. She had a hard time finding it, however. It turned out that she worked as a translator in both Spanish and German, and could communicate easily here with her Spanish. Based on her experience, if you are a young English lady needing directions in Venice, don't ask a woman. Also, if you're going to drink in a non-tourist bar, know exactly what you're ordering, and don't sit outside. We encountered the most humorless Italian women, especially the surly bartender. It seemed strange, as most of the local surliness can be attributed to simply being misunderstood, but that didn't apply here. It was sure nice to be hanging out with someone who spoke, lost though she may be.
Anyway, the bar she had in mind was closed until 6pm, but we found another one (tended by said surly Italian woman) and parted ways, she to attend her friend's wedding, us to eat and sleep.
Our english visitor and Nick.
Tonight was pizza night. We had a reservation for the whole group at a Vicki-recommended local place, an accomplishment that is hard to comprehend. You try calling a small Venetian pizzaria and ask for a table for 30, and see how many "no, no, no"s you get before they'll take you! The group enjoyed $8 pitchers of incredible local wine, perfectly cooked thin tossed-crust pizzas, and a very bemused waitstaff. We celebrated all 4 July birthdays on the tour by singing "Happy Birthday" in Italian, much to the amusement of the staff.
Try to find the pepperoni!
We're all exhausted most of the time. Jet lag is still biting at my sleep, and being out in the element (heat) is very draining. My ankles are swollen, likely due to dehydration, and my posture is ruined by ducking in all the low-ceilinged doorways and lifts. Nobody knows what day it is, and most sense of time is punctuated only by the occasional bell tower. Traveling here is darn hard work, and it's worth every minute.
