Venezia: Venice (Jan 30)

We awoke after our first night train and got oriented to the Venice train station. We checked our big bags at the luggage check for the day. Expensive, but convenient. We walked outside, were shocked by the cold weather that day, and bought a ticket for the #1 Vaporetto. A Vaporetto is a bus-boat, much like a long pontoon boat that seats many passengers. Instead of sitting in an enclosed space in the back, we chose to sit in the front seats, with the wind in our faces to get the best possible view of the Grand Canal! Our first impressions of Venice: COLD & EXPENSIVE!

We took the Vaporetto from the train station at one end of the Grand Canal to St. Mark's Square at the other end. On the way we got a view of the old Jewish Ghetto! In 1516 it was where all the Jews of the city lived, and they worked at the foundry. In Venetian, "geto" means foundry. This is where we get our work "ghetto" today. We also saw the Turkish Fondaco, the oldest house in Venice, and the Casino. In the 1700's, "Venice was Europe's Vegas" according to Rick Steves. "Casino" means little house, and this was the worlds first in 1638. Not part of any organized tour but also worth mentioning, we saw a UPS boat, an ambulance boat, and a boat with 5 new windows and 2 men that were going to install them!


We got tea to warm up, and went to the Doge's Palace. The Doge was the Duke of Venice, which we learned was it's own country/empire for much of history because of it's rich trade routes with places like Turkey. Inside the palace we saw the largest oil painting in the world by Tintoretto: Jesus and Mary surrounded by 500 saints! There was a lot of art of a lion with large wings. This is the symbol of St. Mark, whose bones now rest here after being stolen out of Egypt. The Venetians actually seem proud of this! The armory here was excellent with over 2000 pieces! We saw things like horse and child armor, fuse burning rifles, swards that also fired bullets, 1.5m long 2 hand champion swards, a chastity belt, and the predecessor to the machine gun!

At lunch we sat by an old man that liked to talk (and may have been emboldened by a moderate amount of alcohol). He got 3 tables of us all engaged in conversation: us, a Japanese girl, and his friend from England. It was enjoyable to chit chat, and at the end he bought a round of Grappoling drinks for us (like a Limoncello smoothie). By the time we all left, the waiters were all standing by the door in their coats waiting for us to leave so they could close until dinner!

After lunch we went to St. Mark's Basilica. It had a strong Byzantium influence, so it was unique among the ones we had seen. The entire walls and ceiling were mosaic gold...breathtaking! Scenes in the mosaics told the story of Jesus' life and death...and life. From creation, through Noah, through the birth and death of Jesus. Pretty amazing!


We spent the rest of our time walking through the sinking city, enjoying our last gelato on the way to the train station. We wondered if there was any land on this "island", but even if there is no grass, it was very beautiful. Our last Italian interaction was with the police when they approached us waiting for our train and ran our passports. Once we were cleared, we boarded the train for Austria and heard German being spoken by the conductor. This was our second night train in as many nights.