Saturday in Venice

Posted on 2012/06/20 23:01:52 (June 2012).

[Saturday 16th June 2012]
We had planned to get up really early this morning and get to St. Mark's square before any of the tourists. I think where we went wrong was having breakfast - it started at our hotel from 7:30, and even though we were down there for 7:30 on the dot, by the time we'd eaten and left our hotel it was almost 8, and by then the vaporetto from the station was already disappointingly crowded.

We were at St. Mark's square by about 20 past 8, and there were already quite a lot of people milling about, but I suppose only a fraction of the hordes that would be there by the afternoon. Luckily it seemed a lot of these people were just milling about outside. I think we were among the first people into the Doge's Palace when it opened at 8:30, and with the exception of a guided tour group of Japanese people, we had many of the rooms all to ourselves. I have a feeling I might be overusing the words "grand" and "impressive" in writing about this trip, but they do seem apt when describing the Doge's Palace. There's interesting parallels with the residences of powerful people the world over - we'd seen the same thing in stately homes in England and castles in Japan. The whole point is to impress - and intimidate - visitors, so that it's quickly made very clear who is in charge. The rooms of the Doge's Palace seemed to keep on getting larger, grander, and more lavish as we progressed through. Unfortunately photography wasn't allowed in most of the interior, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

After the Doge's Palace we had booked to visit St. Mark's Basilica. Booking ahead was definitely a good idea - we only waited about four or five minutes to get in, and it only cost a euro to book (other than that entrance is free). Even at 9:45 the queue for people who hadn't booked must have been over a thousand people. The highlight for me was the Pala d'Oro - the excessively ostentatious altar screen covered in gold and plundered gems. In fact much of the ornamentation of St. Mark's is plundered, including of course the four horses taken after the sack of Constantinople. It's interesting how the Venetians stuck all these trophies on as ornaments to the exterior of the building in a seemingly ad hoc fashion - it's like a sort of inside out version of the British Museum. It makes for quite a showy, at times perhaps even gaudy looking building, and consequently it has had many detractors amongst architectural critics over the centuries. Ruskin however was a big fan apparently, probably in part because it is so colourful. It has obviously deteriorated somewhat since Ruskin's time, and some of the colours have faded, but many of Ruskin's sketches are still very recognisable.

All of that and it was barely past 10am!

I wanted to go for a coffee in one of the grand cafes on St. Mark's Square, but just couldn't bring myself to pay the crazy prices for table service, so instead went into Lavena - considered by some to do the best espresso in Venice - and had a standing espresso at the bar. Amazingly even here it cost just 1 Euro. It also came with an amaretti biscuit which was quite delicious.

Next, we decided it would be nice to get away from all the crowds, so got on a vaporetto and headed for the Lido. It's essentially just a large sandbank in the lagoon to the East of the main island, which has been developed in more recent years. Unlike the other islands it actually has cars, which was a bit of a shock to the system when we arrived!

We walked from the vaporetto stop to the East side of the island, where we found a public beach, and Chie had a little paddle in the water. Had we thought ahead a bit we should really have brought our swimming togs with us. Although I'm not sure I really wanted to show my pale English skin to a lot of bronzed Italians. So instead we had an early lunch at the beach cafe, at a table actually on the beach, which was rather nice. The beach was next door to the Hotel des Bains, where much of Death in Venice was set. So we were more or less on the beach where the closing scene of the film was shot. Despite it being a rather unsettling and challenging film, the cinematography was superb, and this had been part of the reason I'd wanted to come to Venice, so I was really pleased to have been able to visit this spot.

Thinking we might go to Murano next (the island famous for glassmaking) we got the vaporetto from the Lido to Fondamenta Nuove, on the North of the main island, from where the vaporetto to Murano goes. On the way though we changed our minds, and decided instead to just walk back from Fondamenta Nuove to our hotel for a bit of a siesta. On the way we stumbled upon a little hole in the wall pizza place called Arte dell Pizza which I'd read good things about, so we popped in for lunch number 2, and shared a pizza. I'm conflicted as to whether this or the pizza we had in Turin was the best of the trip. They were both very good.

Once back at the hotel we had a nap for a couple of hours, hoping that it might cool down a bit outdoors during that time, as it was a little too hot for my liking.

After our nap we ventured out again, as I wanted to find a coffee shop I had read about. It proved to be rather difficult to find, not least because of the rather confusing naming system of Venice's streets, where sometimes the same street can appear to have as many as three different names, and businesses appear to choose which one of these they want to use somewhat arbitrarily. We eventually made it there though, and in addition to an espresso and an iced coffee I bought some ground coffee to take back home. I also noticed they sold spices by weight - I'd heard spice shops were once commonplace in Venice and have now all but disappeared, so it was pleasing to see a bit of that tradition had carried on here. I bought some red and green peppercorns, at least partly because they had such an impressive vivid colour.

Another thing on our to do list was to use a traghetto - the gondola ferry across the Grand Canal. We didn't particularly need to cross the canal for any reason, but just wanted to say we'd been on a gondola whilst in Venice (without having to pay the extortionate rates they charge for private hire). It cost a mere 0.5 Euros each. I'd read somewhere that it's customary to stand whilst crossing, which turned out to be harder than it looks, and was actually a bit nerve wracking! Still, even though we were only on the gondola for a couple of minutes it was memorable and rather fun. Later on I saw other people crossing and just sitting down. I think that's what we should have done.

We had planned most of our meals out pretty meticulously so far, not wanting to just leave it to chance and end up in a tourist trap. By this evening though we'd more or less ran out of places which we'd planned in advance. There was one Chie wanted to try, which turned out to be full, and by this point it was 9pm and we were quite hungry. So we did end up more or less wandering around and choosing a place without a particularly strong recommendation. I guess it could have been worse - I think Chie at least enjoyed her starter (razor clams), the rest of it was a bit bland and a tad overpriced for what it was. Like I say though, it could have been worse.

The vaporetto on the way back was very overcrowded - even at 10:30 - so we ended up walking back to our hotel. One thing that surprised me about Venice - at least the parts we saw - is that it doesn't seem to be a very late night city. By 11 most places seemed to be shutting up for the night, even on a Saturday. I thought Venice at night might be quite atmospheric but actually it just felt a bit deserted and if anything ever so slightly sinister. Not in a likely-to-get-mugged way, but more in a slightly haunted way. The city has actually endured a lot of hardship in its history with more than its fair share of plague, famine and war. It's easy to overlook all of that when the sun is shining, but somehow at night that all seemed slightly less far away.

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