A Daytrip to Venice

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So its been three days since we toured Venice. Unfortunately things aren’t as fresh in my memory as previous posts so the details may not quite be there. However, I did have my pen and notepad, and yes I did take some notes when I could so here goes my best recollection of the day. We met right outside the residence and headed into the same bus that we rode in when we toured the Soave winery. Its about an hour and a half ride to Venice by bus and the cheap train will take us back and last about 2 hours. As we near the city and cross over on the road, Martin begins the history lessons, and of course I’m jotting things down. The road that approaches Venice was built about a hundred years ago. The original way you could access Venice was by boat only. The entire city consists of 150 canals and 400 bridges are scattered throughout making these sandbars (not islands Martin points out) more accessible and navigable. The Venetians back in the day developed the art of glass blowing. Because they were the first ones to do so, they underwent drastic measures to keep the technique secret to the outside world. Artists were exiled to Murano and had to stay there and do there work. If one of them escaped, a very pricy reward was offered to whoever would bring them back so they could be executed. Now, glass blowing is still popular, but not so dangerous should a craftsman share his knowledge with another. In addition to glass blowing, the ancient Venetians were known for their ship building efforts. There used to be large forests north of Venice, but these are completely gone now due to the Venetians of old using them for building ships and making charcoal. As we arrive and park, Martin again warns us about the pickpockets in Venice. He says to beware of the “crumb-snatchers,” the little gypsy kids that distract tourists by swarming them in groups. He says they will be in your backpack and off with your stuff in a flash, so beware. The day before in Verona he told us countless stories of pickpockets. He has never been on a University of Georgia study abroad program where at least one student has gotten pickpocketed. We all look around at each other, wondering who is going to grab the short straw this year. The first time Martin was pickpocketed was in Naples. He was in a crowded train and the thief perfectly timed it so he bumps into Martin and slips out the door at the train stop right when it closes and heads to the next place on the map. As the door closes and the man runs off, Martin yells to the conductor… “open the door, that guy just picked my pocket!” The man’s word for word response to Martin was, “welcome to Naples!” Yikes. Because of these stories, I am extremely paranoid when we get off the bus. I keep my hands in my pockets at all time. I’m turning around constantly to make sure no one is in my backpack. Shoot… I even wear the goofy UGA study abroad shoulder pouch they give us to put all my important documents and cash in. I’d rather be goofy than sorry. We head to the dock where we will take a boat via the Grand Canal to the famous St. Mark’s square (piazza San Marco) and tour the Basilica and the Doge’s Palace. As our group is huddled, waiting for martin to buy the passes I’m still wary of my surroundings. There are several people around and seem to be eyeing us. Suddenly, I see a guy with a black coat carrying a large feminine looking purse… he is running very fast, clearly away from something. No one else really seems to notice, but I can say with confidence that that guy definitely snatched that purse and was making a getaway. Just then, another guy with a black shirt and dark pants, a creepy mustache, and a hat that says “I (heart) Vennezia” starts circling our group, whispering something in Italian under his breath. Ben and I look at each other and say, “this might be our first suspect.” He very obviously circles our group, eyeing us as he walks around. We all notice him, so if his plan was to be stealthy, he failed miserably. I didn’t see this happen, but according to some of the girls he stroked their backs with his hand as he walked by. I guess this is Venice. I had been told before that Venice was dirty. I’m not sure what they meant by that, but after seeing that guy’s mustauche and aimless meander around our group, I can’t help but agree with the “dirty” label of Venice. We board the boat and get some cool pics of the city while on the river. As we disembark the boat, we begin walking toward the piazza. Martin points out a church where famous musician, Antonio Vivaldi, would direct quoir back in his day. We get a scenic walk along the docks and can’t help but note all the pigeons and seagulls in the area. I take a few good shots of the gondolas tied up and parked in a nice row. Martin points out a place called Harry’s bar where Ernest Hemingway used to chill. He tells us we can go in there and pay 20 euros for a drink if we feel like it, but none of us do. Rather a picture of the outside suffices. We walk back towards the Piazza San Marco. This is the square where you’ve probably seen many commercials (probably from Zales or another one of those cheesy diamond ones) of a guy proposing to a girl. It’s a famous place loaded with pigeons. I mean it is practically caked in pigeons. Some people are feeding them and letting them land on them. One lady has about ten on her, she reminds me of the bird lady from Home Alone 2. About what seemed like 17 times that day a group of Indian men would approach us and try to sell us various things. Cheap things. One of them being roses. He would hand a girl in a group a rose. And she’d get it and be all excited and flattered, “ah… thank you… so sweet.” She’d smell it and stare at the guy, somewhat flattered but somewhat confused. But here was the catch… then he would approach the guy that was with her, and demand he pay for the rose. Talk about a cheap, slimy way to get business right?! We had already had these guys basically harass our group before selling “cheeky cheeky’s”…, balloons with sand in them so you could mold them into whatever shape you wanted, complete with yarn as hair on the outside. So by the time about six of these guys had tried to sell us cheeky cheeky’s we are fed up. Then a dude pulls the rose trick on me, with one of the girls in our group, Carla. And boy, as lame as I thought the trick was, I can see how easily they get business, because I don’t want to be the jerk that makes the girl give the rose back right? I didn’t break though. I told Carla I would buy her flowers some other time, when I didn’t have guilt as a motivation and that I didn’t want that guy walking away with two of my euros. I laughed at the guy as I said this, knowing he didn’t understand me, and said “that is the cheapest trick you could pull!” I later watched a guy fold under the pressure of buying the rose for the girl he was with. I think he was dating her, so I’m sure the pressure was even harder for him. Martin gives us some time to stroll around and grab a bite. He advises we eat further away from the square as meals will likely be cheaper. We find a very cheap sandwich shop and I pay four euros for two sandwiches. We head back and snap some pics in the square and head into the St. Mark’s basilica. It is pretty gorgeous. We aren’t allowed to take pics inside but I snap a few, unfornutately they didn’t turn out so good. We then meet Martin who has gone and bought tickets to the Doge’s palace (basically the ancient emperors of Venice). As he ushers us away from the square he points out the brass Lion on top of one of the pillars near the corner of the square. The Lion is the symbol of St. Mark’s gospel (he wanted to emphasize the royal quality of Christ). Years before this square, the Saint that Venice had buried in its town was St. Theodore. A bunch of people essentially got together and agreed this Saint was junior varisty. They needed a better symbol. So what was the best logical conclusion? Steal St. Mark’s body from Cairo, Indiana Jones style. Enter the muslim ruled region, break into the tombs, and bring his body back. Sounds crazy, but believe it or not, mission accomplished. His tomb rests in the Basilica. Now, several of these brass lions are placed all around the city and have been sculpted by various artists. The most commonly known one is the one on the pillar I described earlier. Martin points out that the tail is down on this one, which meant that Venice was at a time of peace when the statue was made. Some of the Lion’s have their tails up in the air, meaning it was made during a time when Venice was at war. Pretty fascinating. I reiterate… Martin is the man. So we head to the Doge’s palace and enter the courtyard. Its pretty incredible and we sit there marveling at the architecture. Martin gives a little backstory on how they used to elect the leaders of the city that would stay in this palace. I get out my pen and notepad but quickly give up taking notes, as the process is extremely overwhelming, complicated, and doesn’t seem to make any logical sense. About a thousand nominees would be in the mix and 1200 electors would no joke draw numbered balls out of a hat, each number representing a candidate. Several rounds of drawing balls out of a hat (lottery style), putting them back in, drawing them out again, separating them… pausing for a quick ping pong tournament (I made that part up) eventually, a Doge would get elected. That is the best way I can summarize and recollect what Martin described to us… it was all Greek to us, it didn’t seem to make any sense. Martin tells us we will see a large Grand room with every doge that ever existed painted larger than life size somewhere on these giant oil paintings that cover the walls and ceilings. Except for one. He was a traitor, and because of this, he is painted with a black space near his head. We head into the palace and what ensued were fascinating sights: maps of the known world up to that point, weapons and instruments used to torture people in the dungeons, and the World’s largest oil painting in the grand hall. This tour was really fun but much was detracted from the experience due to the really rude security guards (they probably thought we were rude too though). They basically would not let Martin speak to us in the rooms. He was not a registered/official tour guide of their program so they didn’t want him to educate us. It was really obnoxious. He’d be about to give us a cool history lesson in each place and then a guy would come out of no where and tell him to be quiet and go to the next room. This continued for awhile. Martin said that in his 15 years of going on these trips with UGA, this has never happened. We weren’t allowed to take pics either, but me and a few others secretely snapped a few. We got caught a few times, which makes me wonder if that’s why they were so strict with Martin, but I highly doubt this. Our tour finished in the dungeons. We got to read what some of the prisoners that were in the cells during WWI had carved into the walls, some said Long Live Lenin others said Down with the pope. One guy drew a picture of a woman, that wasn’t too shabby for a carving in stone with probably just a stick. We left the palace and Martin said the rest of the evening was ours. The last train left at about 8 and he warned not to miss it, then he left us on our own. From here, me and about 7 others decided to roam the streets, we decided it was basically a rule (because Rick Steve’s recommended this) to get lost in the streets of Venice, so we did. We went looking for a particular restaurant at one point but ended up giving up and just eating somewhere else. Me, Burak, Sammy, and David wandered into a church that was pretty cool. Some people were praying so we didn’t take pictures or anything but it was cool to see. The night pretty much concluded with me buying some postcards and some other souvenirs. It ended up raining on us a bit but we found the station in plenty of time. The train we were originally supposed to catch got pushed back a bit so we ended up just hanging out in the station for awhile. I liked Venice, and its hard to complain really when you are anywhere in Italy, but it definitely wasn’t my favorite thing I have done so far. Sure I only had an evening there and there is plenty more to see, but I don’t think I will go back during my stay. Regardless, I am glad I saw it and the sights that so many venture to see. I didn’t get a gandola ride (too expensive) but maybe someday (honeymoon?) I will consider the cost well worth it. It was certainly an experience that didn’t lack education and some cool sights to take in. Well, I’m going to bed now. Tomorrow, Ben, Marco (the guy that works at our residence that speaks perfect English and has been to Athens and Atlanta) are going to a local soccer game (Hellas Verona vs. Reggiana) tomorrow. It is supposed to snow but I think it will be an incredible experience…. Hope to meet some locals and taste the culture even further. Today Ben and I ventured a bit around town and ended up taking a bus to the top of the Madonna di Lourdes again to catch the city view. There was a service going on in the sanctuary and Ben and I completed our homework assignment due Monday (yes… we do have some school work here!) so we could get it out of the way and take tomorrow off. I will blog about the soccer game before the weekend is up! Buonna notte!

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Photos

Entrance to Vennezia
approaching venice on the bus. this road was built about 100 years ago... used to only be able to get to venice by boat.

1 of the 150 canals
One of the canals... we all agreed that there was less water in Venice than we expected. We expected the entire city to be majority water... that the water equaled the roads. This was not the case though.

Glass Blowing
It originated in Venice. You were on the major lockdown if you were an artist back in the day.

Grand Canal
we got a boat tour orientation. It was sweet. The guy I think stole the purse came running over that bridge.

Italian job spot
Don't know if this is exactly where the movie was filmed but it looks like the place where they scuba dived, doesn't it?

Gandola's
cool view of the parked Gandolas.

Michelin tire Kid
We all gazed at that jacket.