Venice - Days 9 (& 10 in the next post) - Yahoo!!

We woke up early to get on desk by 7am to watch the sail through the Venice Lagoon (this is bigger than the Grand Canal - the biggest canal in Venice), but isn't a canal, but is protected from the open sea, and very much a main thoroughfare for water traffic. San Marco's Square (which I will probably refer to as St Mark's half the time) is right on the Lagoon. Venice is actually separate from the mainland of Italy - it is more than 115 islands, more than 175 canals and more than 400 bridges. We were just starting to see the fun that would be had traversing the streets of Venice over the next 2 days. :)

It was quite chilly & breezy on deck 10, but not raining - the rain held off until just after we started on our excursion. We were in the water bus on the way to Murano (one of the many islands, but this one is special because that is where Murano Glass started being made...the other famous island is Burano - known for lace - we didn't go there) when the rain started. We dashed through the rain into the Linea Mazzuccato glass factory to watch some glass masters at work. Them and their bottled beer (which must have been really warm due to the proximity of the glass furnaces) and cigarettes. They did look like long-shore men - just like Linda (our dinner table mate said). We watched for a little while, then they led us to the fancy showroom - with items costing upwards of €20,000. (Needless to say we didn't buy anything up there - or stay and look at it for very long). The downstairs was cheaper - but some glasses that I liked (size wise they were about 20 oz tumblers) cost €300 each - yowza. Rachel and I bought 3 rings and 2 pendants - maybe for too much, but we liked them and thought that Kath (ring) and Grandma (pendant) would like them too. With about 5 minutes left until we were supposed to be back on the water bus the downstairs showroom was in a frenzy - people were madly grabby and thrusting credit cards. We made it back to the boat in time with purchases in hand.

After the Murano portion of our tour, they took us to San Georges Magiorre island - it is across the lagoon from San Marco's. There were some famous (but I didn't know of them) paintings in there - mostly it was a really dark church. Afterwards we were supposed to ride on a gondola - but it got rained out. That was the only way that we were going to ride in a gondola (it would have been with 4 other people and I am sure there wouldn't have been singing) - the average price for a 30 minute gondola ride without any of the perks is €80 - and that is after bargaining. It just wasn't gonna happen.

We went back to the ship with the tour and checked back on board. We ate lunch. I changed into tennis shoes (my green dansko sandals were soaked - the day was already resembling a day in Versailles with Kathy, Mom, Jeanne and Sue a couple years ago - ropes of rain, wet shoes, ponchos and a lot of walking). Rachel left her purse and we headed out with umbrellas.

I really liked the church in St Mark's Square - it is so colorful. And all of the umbrellas really added to it. We wandered to the Rialto Bridge (the biggest bridge across the Grand Canal) stopped in stores along the way to dodge the ropes of rain. We found some nice postcards. The next stop (again dodging rain) led to buying several prints. Go look at the Itaca Art Studio website. The link will take you to one of the prints that I got...you get the gist of the style.

The rain let up a little, and we made the rest of the way to Rialto Bridge. It wasn't too hard to find. In the heart of Venice there are 2 major landmarks - San Marco's and Rialto Bridge. On most building there were directional signs pointing the way to each - some were real signs, some were graffiti. There were many many routes, so you could basically aimlessly wander and look up at the last minute and still find your way. We liked it. :) We found a great store near the top of the bridge. I got sucked in by a stripe-y glass paper weight in the window (which I bought). We also found a pendant for mom and a glass cherry for a friend. We also found another store with some fun EuroTrash ties and decently priced masks that we liked - we planned to return on Venice day 2 - this day was already expensive enough.

This is what I wrote that night "hopefully tomorrow it won't rain - I liked the umbrellas today, but I'd like sunshine tomorrow. We'll be on our own and we have to be back on the ship by 4 to sail back out of the lagoon into the sea." Well, it wasn't to be - the rain continued.

That night we had a postcard writing session so we could mail them from Venice. Happily, Rachel's foot seemed to be doing very very well.

Venice Day 1 was good.