Day 30 - July 14 - our last day

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We headed straight over to Murano the next day, to see the legendary glass. Sam refused to follow the crowds stepping off the boat to a glass museum where we were all being directed by an enthusiastic promoter, even though I was afraid we would not get to see a glass blowing demonstration! Instead, we began wandering the island, looking at all of the glass do-dads, enjoying the atmosphere.

Almost immediately Sam saw a blown glass bowl with blown glass fish in it. He fell in love. Sam is not a consumer, and hates shopping. I have very rarely seen him want anything (except the occasional computer game). Generally he buys only what he has to, only when he really has to. I have certainly never seen him want anything just because it was pretty.

But he really, really wanted this glass fish bowl. The small ones were $500 euro; the one he waned was $1000. We talked about getting those fish all day, and well into the night (the next morning we would wake up and wonder what on earth we were thinking). Ultimately we decided that those fish, however attractive, were outside our current art bracket (our current bracket, really, is framing the photographs we take ourselves in Walmart frames). But we did promise ourselves that one day, maybe ten years from now and maybe twenty, we would come back for those blown-glass fish and when we did, we would buy whatever one we wanted.

We found a corner-in-the wall glass shop, and fell in love with some wine glasses. Also outside our bracket and we really weren’t going to get them, but the sales lady - who was very good - dropped the price from $230 to $100 euro. “Student price” she called it, and we didn’t correct her (figuring our collective 21 years as students, and the debt associated with that, gave us some moral leeway here).

As we were debating buying them, the sales lady announced that they were going to do a quick glass blowing demonstration. I was so excited! We watched the local artist pull glass out of the furnace and make a horse with it. It was absolutely one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.

The sales lady then gave me all sorts of information about glass blowing, about their more extensive winter operations (apparently it is too hot to run any but one furnace in the summer), how to make the glass different colours, and the types of things they make. Well, anyone who will spend that kind of time with me and drop the price deserves a sale. We bought six beautiful wine glasses.

As soon as I was out of the store I began to wonder if we’d been had and our glasses had been made in China. I’m paranoid that way . But I didn’t think so - the detail on them was too fine. Plus, I did not see those glasses in any other store we looked in all day; a lot of the merchandise was available in every single store, and I figured that stuff was from China. I think our special Murano glasses were made in the store we bought them in and I have so enjoyed using them since we got back (although one broke on first use, thanks to its unfortunate encounter with Sam’s foot). Regardless, the experience of the out-of-the way gallery and workshop had been worth it.

We spent an hour in the glass museum - one of my favourite pieces was a little glass replica of Venice - and saw glass trinkets from hundreds of years ago, tracing the art’s improvement until the present. It was a small museum, but worth it. We wandered around Murano, had a nice lunch on a canal, and then headed back to Venice.

Sam had figured we should see the Jewish Ghetto, as the vaparetto let us off on the right side of town. I had been reading about the Jewish Ghetto in my novel too, so I was keen to see it. We went to a square - literally a tiny square - with large buildings up all around it. “Here it is,” Sam said.

“Here what is?” I asked.

“This is it.”. In that moment it struck me - hard - how very small a space it was. I had read about how families lived on top of families and how there were gates on all the bridges leading out of the area, locking the Jewish people in at night - but somehow, in all of that reading, I was imagining a suburb or a large open area. Not a teeny tiny square, with no place to run, play or even relax. Seeing it - seeing how small it was - kind of choked me up.

There really wasn’t much to see. We wandered past a few kosher bakeries on our way out, and headed back to our room for the now traditional, and much-needed late-afternoon air conditioned rest.

We ate some produce and bread we had bought on our way back, while watching the sun start to set over St. Marks. It was our last night in Venice, in Italy, and we planned to splurge, again, this time on a gondola ride. We wanted to avoid the nonsense at St. Marks, and had seen many gondoliers hanging out near our old hotel by the Academia, so we took a vaparetto to the Academia stop, and started walking towards the Campo San Marguarhita.

We came across the most perfectly gondola (some are overdone, I had determined after five days there) and a very Italian-looking, strong looking gondolier. Dusk would soon be over, I knew, and I was dying to get on the water, and thrilled at finding what looked to me like the perfect gondola. We asked the price. He laid out a route that sounded perfect, and agreed not to stray right into St. Marks Square. What he quoted us - $140euro - was I knew higher than the evening set price of $100. I asked what he could give us for $100, and the route was just not as pleasing to me. Sam was keen for the longer, more extravagant route - so we agreed to the higher price.

It was worth it. Every moment of that gondola ride was worth it. We went by side canals, and our gondolier pointed out interesting sights, told us the history of some of the buildings, and showed us the crabs that cling to the walls. He told us how none of the bottom levels are inhabited. He was quiet at all the right moments, letting us enjoy the romance, and he even started singing for a journey down one canal - a special surprise, as I had understood you paid more for a song. He was quite good too!

The sun was going down over Venice all through our ride, making the buildings glow and the water sparkle. It was the perfect time to be in a gondola. As we pulled out to the Grand Canal, Sam asked if it was everything I’d hoped for. “More,” I told him, and it was true. I had been waiting for that gondola ride for six years.

See, the last time I’d been in Venice, I had considered taking a gondola ride. I watched people take them, and have a great memory of standing on a bridge, watching a gondola with an opera singer go by, and the opera singer looking right at me and with a wink, singing a key just for me. I debated all day whether I would take a ride. There was a moment that the decision was made. I had been looking out at the Grand Canal, and a gondola with a happy-looking couple in it floated past. At that moment I knew something with absolute certainty. I would be back to Venice. I would be back with someone I loved, someone who loved me just as much as I loved him. And when I came back with that person, I would take a gondola ride.

It did not escape me as we passed the Academia, heading towards the Rialto, that it had been worth the wait. Here I was, on the most perfect gondola ride, with the husband I loved who loved me right back. I felt such amount of appreciation for the love, determination, partnership and sense of adventure we share. I think we will be back to Venice, but I do not think we will ride a gondola again. Not because of the price - our 45-minute ride was well worth it - and not because it is touristy. But because nothing could ever be more perfect, or ever compare, to ending our trip to Italy in a perfect gondola, at dusk.

As wonderful as it was, it was over far too soon. Our gondolier took us to the Rialto, turned the gondola and stopped it for a few moments so that we could gaze out at the Rialto, now lit up in the near-darkness, then pulled over to a little dock. We got off and I paid him his $140, plus a $20 tip, not regretting a single cent.

We took one more stroll across the Rialo, and had a quick pizza at a crowded canal-side restaurant. We chatted there with an American couple just starting their journey, who were considering flying off to Germany the next day. We laughed about the quirks of Italians, the realities of travel, groaned about going back to work when it was time, and compared notes of all the places in the world we’d all been, and all the places we wanted to go. It was a great chat, and a nice way to end the trip - dreaming, with fellow dreamers.

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Photos

Dragon church
This church supposedly has Dragon bones in it - so Sam is posing like a dragon.