Venice

 

  Who hasn’t wanted to visit a city built on islands with canals for streets. I do. Well my time to do it has come. Venice is sinking as am I. Teresa and I kept talking about Italy until finally we heard about an eight day bus tour to the big three: Venice, Florence and Rome. 

  I’ve always been death on tours, wasting time waiting for a bunch of strangers while being bossed around by a tour guide. I tried to forget the negatives and look on the bright side. Someone else would take care of the stressful details and we'd meet some interesting people.

  We flew first to Amsterdam, another city of canals. We had always wanted to see Amsterdam so we spent three pleasant days there recovering from jet lag.  On the train to the airport to fly to Venice on November 15, Teresa discovered her suitcase handle wouldn’t go down. There was a convenient luggage shop at the airport and Teresa made the swap on the shop floor. The shop recycled her broken down suitcase. It's probably part of a homeless person's gear right now.

  After a ninety minute flight to Venice, we took a ferry to the Lido, a barrier island that forms the lagoon of Venice. The tour company had booked us here rather than in Venice itself. We had asked the company to book us two days early in the hotel our tour group would be staying in, which they did.  The Lido is a long narrow island. Its sandy beach makes it a summer tourist destination with plenty of hotels and restaurants. From the ferry pier it was a short walk to our hotel.  

   Our room was clean and roomy with all the amenities, hot water heater for tea, nice shower, but I thought it strange there was no TV. It was later lying in bed that I noticed the red dot in the corner of the ornate mirror.  What I thought was a remote for the AC was the TV remote.

  Next morning after the very good continental breakfast at the hotel, we bought ferry tickets to Venice. The ferries leave every few minutes and take about 15 minutes to get to Venice. There's a series of ferry stops around the island. We jumped off at the second one in the Castello area and joined the throng walking along the waterfront.

  Simplified map of  Venice: The island of Lido is off to the right. The airport is an hour to the north. We spent most of our time around San Marco. The blue line through the middle is the Grand Canal. Not shown are the 150 canals in the city.

  We ambled along the waterfront crossing humped bridges over the larger canals that lead into to the maze of little canals within the city. These bigger bridges along the waterfront had ramps for wheelchairs but the smaller bridges don't. We had just been in Amsterdam, another city of canals, but here there were no trams or speeding bikes to dodge. Just fellow tourists. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and even in the low season the place was busy.

Under the Bridge of Sighs. Bella

  The islands of Venice had been inhabited for hundreds of years before Christ, but people really started moving in after the fall of Rome in the sixth century. The islands were just poor enough to make them unappealing to the barbarians. Once the barbarians became civilized, Venice was in the perfect place to provide trade between the Christians in the west and the Moslems to the south and east. The Silk Road ended in Venice. The city grew rich enough to create an empire of its own.

  The empire of Venice collapsed in its turn and has been in decline for several centuries. But it's been a glorious decline and not all downhill. The government of Italy has been spending billions to keep Venice above sea level. Our guide says people who work in Venice can’t afford to live there but have take a bus in from the mainland. The barbarian Mussolini built the road in the 1930s. Our guide is in the tourism business but admits we tourists are killing the city.

  Until a solution is found, we tourists will continue to traipse around the maze, crossing the humped bridges, watching the gondolas; sometimes even paying to ride in a gondola. There are 400 gondolas in Venice. Many of them start from the waterfront, but every time you come to a wider place between the buildings, there'll be a cluster of gondolas waiting for riders. And they don't have to wait long. For a few euros more you can have a musician and a singer. At this point, why not.

O solo mio 🎵

  On Sunday we returned to Venice for mass. The church of San Guseppi was listed as having an eleven o'clock service.  But no one told Giuseppe that. The place was locked up tight. I checked my schedule and rolled the dice again and landed on Santi Giovanni e Paolo. There was supposedly an eleven there and we scurried through the alleyways and along the canals following the blue dot on google maps. The church was open for business. A sign by the door said tourist keep out during mass. We were worshipers not tourists, at least for the next hour.

 Reading the Wikipedia article about the church I discovered it was named for two obscure fourth century saints and not for John and Paul in the Bible  I also learned that the foot of St Catherine of Sienna was at a side altar, visible in an illuminated jar. I lit a candle at the altar for a sick friend.

After a post-mass pastry and coffee our goal was the iconic Santa Maria della Salute. This church is under the immense dome seen in all views of the Venice skyline. Artists have been loving Santa Maria since it was finished in 1687. It was built to give thanks for deliverance from the plague. Salute means health.

The Grand Canal

  Like most famous buildings in Italy, Santa Maria was under repair. These places are like old people who don't let a little major surgery prevent them from inviting you in for coffee. We took our pics, lit a candle at St Anthony's altar and headed back to the Lido. It was time to meet our new friends.

  We were to meet the other 15 tour members at supper that evening. But first we had a chance to meet Sabra, our very nice Italian tour director. Sabra told us that by a fluke in her family genome she had had red hair as a child and everyone called her Irish. She had no idea what that meant and resolved to visit Ireland. She liked Ireland so well she lived there for a while and went to school. So we got off to a good start with Sabra.

  At the communal supper we met the rest of the gang. These fifteen were self-selected to want to enjoy a trip to Italy, but it's only natural that some folks you would like right off while the rest would have to grow on you gradually. Wine is a good social lubricant.

  Next morning the group traveled over to the very photogenic Piazza San Marco for our tour of the Basilica of San Marco. The company always hired local guides in whichever city we were in. Rita led us into the congested basilica and up to the altar where the remains of the evangelist rest. We had headphones and Rita told the story of how St Mark's body had been stolen from the Muslims in Egypt and buried in Venice where it belonged. "You believe or you don't believe," Rita said. We heard that expression a lot visiting the churches of Italy. I tend to believe myself.

  After St Mark's we walked to the Murano Glass store. Venice is famous for glass but the glassmakers kept burning down the neighborhood so the factory was moved over to the nearby island of Murano.  At the store we were given a glass blowing demo and the chance to buy a beautiful glass piece for the price of many gondola rides.

  On the way to the store Sabra had pointed out a cafe. "Best pizza in Venice." At my funeral my fans will talk about my pizza so I'm always looking for a chance to kick up my pie. Sei bravo solo quanto la tua ultima pizza, as they say in Naples. You're only as good as your last pizza.

  The Neapolitan pizza at Rossopomodoro was fantastic. As I mulled over in my mind if I could replicate it at home, a pigeon flew in the open door, swooped past the dome of the wood fired oven and flew out the other door. The cook smiled and shrugged. Signs and wonders. They happen all the time in Venice.

There will be pizza