We packed up and departed from Verona late Friday morning to head to Venice for 3 nights. We again notice that no driving is allowed in Venice and after some online studies determine that the best way forward is to park at Tronchetto. We set our GPS in that direction and when we get close follow the signs to a modern parking facility.
I would say, however, for the next 90 minutes we face some extreme frustration. We are schlepping some heavy bags given our length of stay (2 weeks) and the need for semi-formal attire as well as vacation apparel. The signage is not clear to us as we try to exit the parking garage and people even steer us to the wrong floor. We are trapped but eventually a parking attendant puts us in the right direction. I tried to study in Verona the directions on the hotel website and with google maps to find the way from our ACTV Vaparetto water bus landing at San Basilio. Unfortunately we get turned around and hike in the heat and wind almost 3/4 of a mile in the wrong direction and return back to the starting point. At which point we go in a 90 degree direction from our original starting direction and reach the hotel in about 100m. So we are a bit aggravated to start, but the Hotel San Sebastiani Garden is quite nice and the people are friendly. We are right on one of canals and got upgraded to a junior suite with a view of the San Sebastiani church and canal.
We unpack a bit and then head down to a restaurant about 20m from the hotel front door for lunch. We use this time to de-stress and get into the Venice experience. It is hard to explain. Here is a mostly man-made island chain dedicated to tourism with hundreds and hundreds of buildings. Many of them are former palaces, mansions, towering churches, and government buildings. The architecture is amazing. But most are in a state of disrepair and perhaps half look like they are in a steep decline. So part of the experience is imagining what the buildings were probably like in their prime. Truthfully, you would be hard pressed to find a building anywhere in Venice that is in its prime condition today.
We think its the confluence of a couple of facts. One is that as you renovate a building that is ancient (most are) you find that there are layers of other types of architecture underneath … perhaps roman heritage. So a common thing for wealthy people to do (not in Venice, but say Verona) is to peel the plaster away in patches to expose the ancient underpinnings while reconditioning the rest of the house. This creates an aura of antiquity, luxury, wealth, value …. So this becomes part of the culture. So if you can’t afford it and let your house fall into a state of disrepair it almost mimics the ‘valuable’ ancient view.
The other driver is that, of course, renovating historical houses is a challenge. You don’t want to destroy the archeological value and its probably illegal to do so, but you can’t let the property become condemned for its state of disrepair and risk. The costs to mitigate within preservation guidelines is probably prohibitive if not nearly impossible. So they are caught between a rock and hard place.
No matter the reason, you are strolling through this huge city of treasures that are pretty decrepit and appealing at the same time. The canals are cool but make no mistake, you do not want to fall into the water. I am not sure you would recover with only a single shower. But how cool is it to have water taxis and boats zipping around everywhere in these mostly narrow canals.
Back in the room we are having trouble connecting to the Internet. I try to help the people behind the desk and explain to them their configuration issues and how to reboot. I finally give up and borrow an ethernet cable. Fortunately I brought my adapter for the laptop and hook it into the wall. I then create my own hub with my MacBook Air (MBA) laptop so that our iPhones and iPads can connect. So we are good to go.
Another technology problem we have been having is that our iPads are not connecting to the cell phone towers. I even get on the phone to ATT and then Apple, who blame each other. I see online that its a common problem and I am pretty sure I know how to describe it in the future, but I plan on getting it fixed when I return to the US and not waste more valuable vacation time helping them debug their systems. I will see if I can get refunds from ATT for the intentional data plans we purchased.
So we embark on our first stroll into Venice. Rick Steves says to get a good map. Yes, it’s tough to find your way around. After a couple of days here Nancy and I are convinced that within a week of staying we could get around quite well. Unfortunately, it’s still pretty random luck if we can get directly where we want to go without iterating. However, as Rick Steves says getting off the beaten path is pretty cool too. Turns out a big percentage of Venice is actually not touristy at all but residential. You could probably visit and not notice since the tourist sections are large and its normally more comfortable to say on the main routes. Most of the time we enjoyed improvising our routes.
We head for Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) which is a main city center. One needs to traverse several canals by bridge and no street will go more than 50 meters before you need to turn. But the scenery and atmosphere is pretty amazing. Nancy gets us there and we explore shopping along the way.
I want a haircut and Rick Steve’s recommends Coiffeur Benito near San Zulian Church very close to Piazza San Marco. So we search for it and find it. They have no slots but I make an appointment for the next day at noon. We spend time shopping as I am looking for the right thing for Tabitha and for Shannon. I get lots of ideas but am taking my time. I originally thought I would do this shopping in Prague but Nancy is nervous that I may fail and it’s our last stop.
We come back and after what felt like miles and miles of hiking decide to crash in the room. I try to use the iPhone for navigating but it has a rough time updating location with the blockage of satellites from the ‘urban valleys’. I go to a local grocery store and get some snacks and we just enjoy snacking in the room, catching up on e-mail, and I work on these journal reports. We sleep long and hard that night.
The next morning we get up and imbibe in breakfast in the hotel which is adequate but considerably below what we experienced at The Penz, Hotel Grief, and Due Torri Hotel. Apparently we are getting spoiled since our breakfasts at home are quite spar ton.
After breakfast we head toward Frari church (Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa die Frari) and pay a few Euros to tour. Again the artwork is amazing with paintings, sculptures, frescos, and various pieces scattered throughout the church. No pictures are allowed but they wouldn’t do it justice anyway. Nancy had been there before but wanted to see the incredible Titian painting over the main alter, considered by many to be his finest.
We need to get near Piazza San Marco for my haircut by noon so we decided to go via Rialto Bridge. However, not too far from Frari Nancy spotted a shop with ceramic salt cups. She bought some pearl salt spoons in Verona but these were the complete set in a design pleasing to Nancy and less than 50 euros. Unfortunately the shop (Porcelliane Artistiche) was closed. We also spotted a shop nearby that made embroidered products and we had them make some for Andie and Michele.
We made our way to the Rialto Bridge which has some shops on it. Near the top of the bridge we spotted a jewelry shop we really liked call Le Perle. We really like their jewelry and wanted to remember it for future reference. We made it to Piazza San Marco with time to spare.
To fill time and knock off an item on our list I used my iPhone to navigate us to Hotel Danieli. This hotel has gotten famous since it was included in The Tourist, a movie with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. Tony and Mellie, two new friends we met in Innsbruck, planned to stay there this week. As we enter the hotel a guard tries to turn us and others away. Apparently many people have gotten the same idea since the movie came out a year ago. We tell the guard we are looking for our friends. This gives us a chance to look around a bit and we ask the concierge if they are still in, but they checked out a couple of days ago.
We grab a quick bite to eat, find Coiffeur Benito (the barber shop) and deliver me on time. The good news is that Benito is in and handles me personally. He doesn’t speak English but he prepares me and then asked me what I want. I try to signal an inch and he says ahhhh ‘poco’. I nod my head yes and off he goes. I am used to the TLC from Celia of Salon Visio but this was an experience. For example, most haircuts with scissor and comb has the person carefully comb my hair and the reach over and snip. Benito basically turned his hand with the scissors into a machine opening and closing the scissors probably several times a second (perhaps like Edward Scissorhands). Then he would apply it to the combed hair. It’s probably equivalent to using an electric razor with comb but with more style. Haircut was excellent, he was friendly, took only 20 euros and wouldn’t take a tip. Nancy came by and snapped a picture with him and me together. This was a nice experience and I recommend it.
Now we had to make our way back to the hotel with a little shopping mice in. We had made a 2:30 appointment for a water taxi to Murano. Murano is known for its glassworks and I wanted to see the museum/factory and possibly do some shopping for jewelry. The clerk said she could arrange a ‘free’ water taxi. As we had walked around Piazza San Marco several guys came up and offered us a ‘free’ water taxi to Murano. So I thought I was getting it. In my mind there was this collective of shops and factories that worked a good deal with the taxis to transport people to the island to create more business activity … sort of like a chamber of commerce.
We hooked up with our ‘free’ water taxi and had a 20 minute ride to the island. Most of it was at high speed. In the canal, though, there were a couple of near collisions and taxi drivers yelling at each other. I guess it doesn’t mater what kind of taxi you drive, you need to be vocal. BTW I love most of the water taxis. They are wood boats with huge engines. Very stylish and effective. Think of the boat chase scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Once we arrived we found out how it really works. The ‘free’ water taxi was really paid for by a single company. They brought you from their dock to their little workshop. We saw a glass ‘artist’ make a little horse (we got one for Andie) and vase. This is fairly similar to the Steuben Factory in Corning NY near where I grew up (my dad worked at Corning Glass Works). Then you have a guided tour of their gallery by a tour guide (spelled salesperson) through their shop. They had amazing stuff, but the prices were high. In fact, much higher than we had spotted in Venice itself, which were already suspect. We looked at several pieces that were 9,000 Euro which they offered to knock off a couple of thousand Euro (the sales tax?). We later spotted similar pieces in Venice for 3500 euros, which were then discounted more once you showed interest.
We finally escaped to their shop for smaller things and jewelry. Their marked prices were about twice what we saw in Venice, but once we started negotiating we were able to get the prices knocked down to half-price. We spotted a couple of items we liked and got them. One for Nancy, one for Shannon, and one for Andie.
Then they suggested we rush back to Venice. I think its because they didn’t want us to spot similar pieces to the ones they tried to sell us in the shops in Murano. We caught a Vaporetto (water bus) to Venice but couldn’t get very close to Piazza San Marco due to the America’s Cup Race series ongoing. So we hiked and hiked but were getting tired. Stopped and had a nice early dinner, then hiked and hiked. We didn’t have a map and the iPhone was having trouble with the urban valleys. We finally got a clear shot to the satellites and made it back to the hotel weary from hiking.
I started to have congestion (perhaps cold, hay fever, or food allergies) and decided to head for the local grocery store to see if they carried some sort of antihistamine. No luck, so I started exploring through various neighborhoods looking for the telltale green cross symbolic of the pharmacy. I gave up and headed back to the hotel only to find one about 50 meters away from the hotel in the other direction from our normal departure routes. They didn’t have anything on the shelf but the lady helped me out and I got a really strong antihistamine.
The drugs, weariness, and congestion made me a good candidate for hitting the sack. Nancy was already out and I passed out soon after getting back and getting drugged. Interestingly I woke up and felt a quite extensive earthquake. Apparently it hit a couple of hundred miles away and there was damage and few deaths near the epicenter. Nancy slept through it.
Sunday morning we headed for the Ca’ Rezzonico, a former palace of a powerful trading family that is now an important art museum. We got there about 9:15AM to beat the morning rush, but discovered it wasn’t open until 10AM. So we beat our way to Frari and then to the porcelain shop, Porcelliane Artistiche, which was closed. We bought some postcards for my slideshow (I will scan them when I get home). We then trekked back to the Ca’ Rezzonico. It’s collection is quite extensive and includes paintings, sculptures, frescoes, and furniture. What’s amazing to us is that there are probably scores of places in Venice that have such art collections.
We then hiked back to the Porcelliane Artistiche, which was still closed. So Nancy left a note and we parted ways. She was going to continue to Piazza San Marco to get some items for Marcie, Kristi and others. I hiked back to the hotel and made it almost direct .. whoo hoo!.
She texted me that she found some of the glass items I liked for the Arizona house at the Murano gallery at a much cheaper price and better quality. I said ‘No!’, via text. Pretty easy to say when not there. They do include shipping and insurance on large pieces. Who knows, we might come back someday …
I got a snack from a grocery store and crashed … the drugs made me sleepy. I got up and continued these journals. Nancy made it back by about 5PM exhausted from a walk back in the sprinkles but happy with her shopping progress.
Our last night in Venice we decide to splurge and go for dinner at the Ristorante Riviera just only 100m from our hotel. Turns out it was an excellent choice and our best meal yet (except for perhaps the ones that Peter orchestrated in Austria, but we are proud we found this ourselves … by asking around). We had a great appetizer split for the two of us and then the house specialty, a Sea Bass prepared in a salt cake for two. They break open the salt cake at table side and put the fresh delicate meat on plates with grilled vegetables. The meat is lightly prepared with a white pepper and olive oil so the very light meat shines through. They chose an excellent mid-priced light white wine to go with dinner. It was great. I sure hope that they prosper so that if we ever return we can repeat the experience.
Share this Post