Lost in Venice Pt 2

Fog. Everywhere. We can't see across the canal, nd it just won't go.

Oh, well.

The first part of our tour is the San Giorgio Maggiore church, which dominates the tiny island of San Giorgio. It's a renaissance church, built in the late15th century by a famour Italian architect whose name I've forgotten - Deodato or Reospeedwagon or something - with two paintings by Tintorretto. Very refined and restrained by comparison with earlier typical Venetian churches.

Then we landed in the main section of Venice for a gondola ride. On my previous trips to Venice I've flatly refused to take a gondola ride, dismissing them as a ridiculously overpriced tourist trap. A ride for two people is $180 Euros for 30 minutes. 

Take a gondola ride for $180 Euros? Seriously? How about we just rip up a fifty and say we did?

But this ride was part of our package, so sure, why not?

I have to admit it was actually rather good. Because the ride spends most of the time in the smaller canals the fog enhanced the experience. We went past the opera house, several famous hotels with entrances onto the canal, past houses under renovation, and under a dozen bridges with tourists snapping pictures of the tourist in gondolas snapping pictures of tourists on bridges.

The last part was a tour of a glass factory on Murano Island. Venetian glass-blowing is a dying art. Today there are 450 glass blowers, fifty years ago there were 1,000. The seventeen year apprenticeship explains why.

One of the master glass-blowers, a huge guy who looked like a roadie for a 70s rock band, made a vase and a horse, and made it look absurdly easy.*

After the demo the sales pitch started. We saw a set of wine glasses and carafe we liked, at a price we didn't: 440 Euros, over $700. The pressure sell started: free shipping, engrave our names into it, not available online or by post, we'll name our firstborn after you...

We said "no", and from the look on the guy's face you'd think we'd killed his dog. 

After that we returned to the main island, although we were warned the fog was so bad that regular shuttle ferry services had been suspended. So time for lunch, this time at a foccacia shop full of locals.

After that we checked in at the ferry service ("still irrregular"), so our options were hope for the fog to clear, take a vaporetto along the Grand Canal to the ship, or walk. In the meantime took Anna and Mario through the San Marco Cathedral while Emma bought a few presents.

San Marco is magnificent, with astonishing mosaics on the walls and ceiling, but I love it, but it's seriously overblown compared to San Giorgio. Nine-point-seven on the Gaudy Scale.

After this we set off for the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal, and started walking towards the ship. This took us away from the tourist areas through the residential areas. Nowhere in Venice is every tourist-free, but it was certainly much quieter.

Of course being Venice, with lots of winding streets and bridges that all look exactly the same - well, I may have taken a few wrong turns. At one point I was convinced we were heading northwest, but was actually leading us almost due east towards the Grand Canal.

Eventually I worked out exactly where we were on the map, and guided us unerringly towards the ship. The big yellow signs with the arrows telling us the way didn't hurt.

I thought the walk was great, but I broke Anna and Emma in the process. Ach.

We were too late, and too tired, for a proper dinner, and just grabbed some food from the buffet and retired to our cabin, looking forward to tomorrow, one of the major highlights of the trip: a sea day.

Doing nothing. Bliss.

* Mario bought the horse from the demo. I must remember to grab a photo.