Venezia: The Floating City

Our last big trip before heading back to the States was Venice this past weekend.  Fun facts: Venice used to be very famous for its navy.  It was a huge center for artistic movements during the Renaissance.  AND it's the birthplace of Vivaldi!  So anyway, we had perfect weather, which was great because I was told it was rainy and windy in Palermo all weekend.  We took a bus from the airport to Venice, and then had to take a water bus to our hotel from the bus station.  Venice is completely built on water, so to get anywhere you either take the water bus/water taxi or you just walk.  It is impossible to get off of Venice by foot.  Taking the water bus was a really cool experience, but it does take a while because of all the stops.

I had read that it's pretty much a guarantee that you will get lost in Venice.  HOWEVER, we totally managed to get to our hotel without getting lost!!  But that was the only time we didn't get lost...we made up for it multiple times throughout the weekend.  There are so many streets and alleys in Venice that all of them are not even marked on maps.  There are many dead end streets as well, but the good thing is that Venice is a pretty safe city.  It's mostly all tourist-inhabited, so walking around at night we only encountered other tourists or restaurant workers.  It's a very strange feeling, because I kept expecting something out of the ordinary to happen at night, but it really is like a ghost town at night.  Even if you get lost in Venice, if you keep walking eventually you will hit a landmark/piazza, and you can locate that on a map.  You really can't go to Venezia without trying to find your way through its labyrinth!

On Saturday we explored the Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square), which is just a huge plaza with many shops and restaurants, and of course Basilica di San Marco (St. Mark's Basilica), Torre dell'Orologico (the Clock Tower), and Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace) among others.  This is all located right along the water, so it's absolutely beautiful.  Across the water you can see other islands with churches and museums, and you can literally arrive at the doorstep of a building right after getting off of a water bus. You're not allowed to take photos in most of the museums and churches, but I managed to sneak a few non-flash pictures.  Basilica di San Marco was nice, but I think I got spoiled after seeing Basilica di San Pietro in Roma.  We didn't get in the line for the Clock Tower because it was quite long, but we did go in Palazzo Ducale and I got an audio guide.

 

Basilica di San Marco

 Piazza San Marco & Clock Tower

Palazzo Ducale was pretty impressive.  It was huge, with many rooms and secret passageways.  Many of the rooms didn't even have a specific purpose because the palace is so big.  Oh and what's a doge?  He was the highest authoritative figure in the Republic of Venice, but he actually didn't have that much power.  The power actually belonged to the Council and Senate.  When Napoleon conquered Venice, the position of the doge ceased to exist and Venice lost its independence.

The Palazzo Ducale is filled with Gothic artwork and sculptures.  There is also a lot of stucco walls and the stairwell visitors use is the Scala d'Oro (Golden Staircase), due to its gold paintings and stucco design in the ceilings above the staircase.  The most impressive room was the Chamber of the Great Council.  It reminded me a lot of the Sistine Chapel, but it's much bigger.  There are paintings that cover the entire room.  The walls are paintings of Venice's history, while the ceiling has paintings of examples of Venetian heroism.  The Palazzo Ducale also has many paintings that show the importance of the sea to Venice.  Many paintings show Venice as a woman hidden in shadows and emphasize the sea surrounding the people in the paintings.  We also got to check out the prisons which were built in the attics and ground floors of the Palazzo.  Pretty creepy...apparently at one point they tried to build better prisons (because the previous conditions in which prisoners lived was considered pretty inhumane) but it didn't turn out as hoped.

 

Palazzo Ducale

 

Shot of the incredible ceiling 

 Ceiling above the Golden Staircase

 Chamber of the Great Council

Neptune and Mars at the top of the staircase in the courtyard

So Venice is HUGE on art.  So many art galleries filled with artwork of really famous artists.  We visited The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, which is a collection of all kinds of artwork by Peggy Guggenheim (who was actually married to Max Ernst!).  There were original paintings by Jackson Pollock, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, Picasso, Man Ray, Dali, and Marc Chagall, among many others.  It was incredible how much art she was able to collect from such amazing artists.  Again, no photos were permitted but I sneaked a few...I just had to!

 An original Jackson Pollock

 An original Picasso

Outside in the garden, the ashes of Peggy Guggenheim are memorialized near an olive tree that was donated by Yoko Ono.  You are supposed to write a wish on a piece of paper and attach it to the tree, which I did!  I wished the same thing at the Trevi Fountain, so it'd better come true! (Are you allowed to wish the same thing twice?)

Saturday night we ate at the Hard Rock Café...I know, I should be ashamed.  BUT I didn't want to eat more pasta, and it's really hard to come by a good salad in Italy so it worked out well.  I did order a Spritz though, so I did get to experience something very Venetian after all.  A Spritz is made with Prosecco wine and a bit of Aperol topped off with sparkling mineral water and an orange wedge.  Pretty good!  After dinner I wanted to stop by Harry's Bar, which is famous for creating the Bellini and for being the place where Ernest Hemingway used to sit and write.  It's a very small little place and they seem to serve some very classy dinners.  We just stopped by so I could try a Bellini.  So the Bellini's I've had in the states are nothing compared to Harry's Bellini's.  A real Bellini consists of fresh peach purée and Prosecco wine...it's not very big but tastes amazing!  The bartenders and waiters wear white suit jackets with white shirts and black dress pants...the bartender was really good at pouring the Bellini's (there's a certain way you do it, you don't just pour half peach purée and half Prosecco and mix), so I asked him if he ever spills when making the Bellini's and he just laughed.  So I'm assuming that's a no.

Our last big stop before leaving Venice was of course the Rialto bridge.  There are many bridges in Venice, but this is the major one.  The bridge is actually very wide and the view is awesome.

 Rialto Bridge

Also, of course there are a lot of gondoliers everywhere.  We didn't take a gondola ride because they're not cheap, and it wouldn't be very romantic with 2 girls anyway!

Lots of good shopping in Venice...lots of shops claiming to sell real Murano glass (there are even signs that say 'not made in China'), but you can kind of distinguish what's real Venetian glass and what's not according to price.  3£ for a 'real Murano glass' bracelet?  Probably not real.  There's also a lot of Italian leather shops with gorgeous leather gloves and bags, as well as the famous brand stores like Chanel, Ferragamo, LV, Prada, etc etc.

Venice was beautiful, and it's apparently the #1 place to propose!  Return trip in the not-so-near future?  I hope so!!