City of Canals

Experience 15. Travel Venetian style. Venice. 11 June.

 

Excitement was brewing as we descended from our castle on the funicular for our day trip to Venice. Approaching the city we found the two main entry points to the city from the expressway blocked due to work being undertaken on a new tram service. So we had to double back to an earlier exit and ran into the worst traffic jam that involved all the traffic trying to get to Venice on that morning...as it was the only route open. We soon forgot all that after we crawled into Tronchetto, where all land vehicles stop, as we had a surprise introduction to romantic Venice awaiting. Surrounded by 5 ocean cruise ships, our first taste of Venice was a private water taxi trip down the entire Grand Canal. Travelling under the three bridges that spanned the canal, the most famous being the Rialto Bridge (grafitti covered and all) we finished our journey at St Marks Square. A truly amazing way to start our day in Venice, the canal was a buzz of activity, ferries, barges, taxis and of course the famous gondolas. But more about them later. So much amazing beauty to take in from all directions. The smile on our faces was about to last all day except when we picked our chins up off the floor.

Experience 16. Mosaic, Marble and Murano. Venice. 11 June

A guided walking tour of Venice took us to the St Marks Basillica. Another amazing architectural delight which our guide told us took a century to build and six centuries to decorate. Once we stepped inside it soon became apparent how this was possible. Looking down, the finely patterned floors were made from marble of all colors from many sources but the majority was looted from Constantinople after a sacking by crusaders. As our eyes followed up the walls we were dazzled by the mosaic tiled frescos all the way to the top of the five domes in the ceiling. The frescos were made from tiny square mosaic tiles of marble and murano glass with backgrounds of goldleaf inlayed murano glass tiles. Spectacular to say the least. Our guide noted that pieces do from time to time fall from the ceiling...but no luck today in finding any.

Venice is also famous for Murano glass so we took the option to visit an authentic Murano glass gallery where we were treated to a glass blowing demonstration and an insight to the history and techniques used for this famous glass. Also a few tips on how to identify authentic Murano glass and not the cheap copies found in countless stalls in the streets of Venice. The gallery was full of very expensive beautiful sculptures, vases, bowls, glasses etc. I picked up a lovely bowl that appealled, about the size of a noodle bowl, which was in a more contemporary style. Unfortunately the price tag read about 500 euro. Instead, as a memento of our glorious time in Venice, I found a lovely glass bead to add to my Pandora bead collection.

Experience 17. Gondola

Our guide organized a Gondola ride for those interested from our tour party. There were fifteen of us in all. To carry this group required three gondolas. Five went in the first, four in the second and six in the last. In the second boat, in which Chez and I were passengers, a singer and an accordion player also jumped on board. We shared a bottle of champagne as the player played and the singer sang. The gondolas cruised Indian style up the narrow canals before entering the Grand canal. The skilled gondoliers then ran our gondolas along side each other as we cruised the canal. We sang along to Delilah and a few other songs that I scarcely recall even the day after (as I write this). As a group we were all smiles for the duration of the ride. On our return to the drop off point through the narrow canals, people on the bridges we passed took photo's of our performers and clapped and cheered their efforts..."don't cheer, throw coin, this is costing me money!" I yelled, but to no avail. It seemed quite surreal...the whole event. The pictures are testament to the enjoyment we gained from this experience.