Venice, Day Four

We were in two minds about leaving Venice.

On one hand, we could imagine spending much, much longer here – there were still plenty of things we hadn’t seen, done, or tasted; and we hadn’t tired of the city’s charms (I doubt we could have done).  But on the other hand, Florence beckoned – and our apartment awaited us; as did the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio (and other amazing sites), and friends in various parts of Tuscany.  There was nothing to do but savour our last few hours in Venice and the board the train south as planned.

I still don’t quite know how Venice manages to make chipped plaster look so endlessly appealing…

We didn’t have time for much, but we wanted to squeeze one more Venetian experience into our schedule before we left.  We’d decided that a gondola ride was out of our budget, but we’d heard that the traghetto (a gondola used to ferry passengers across the canals) provided a similar experience.  So, after packing our bags and tidying the apartment for our departure, we left our things ready to go by the front door and headed out into the labyrinth of crooked streets.  It didn’t take us too long to locate a sign indicating the jetty we were looking for.

After a very short wait, the traghetto appeared, punted (well, actually rowed – but the oar movement looks a lot like punting) at one end by an older gentleman and at the other by a younger woman.  We quickly negotiated a price for a return trip (which we’d heard could be cheaper) and hopped aboard.

We loved it!  We sat and enjoyed the novelty of the experience; being ferried to and fro across the Grand Canal by gondoliers, transported just as Venetian passengers have been for centuries.  I’ve since learned that passengers traditionally stand in the traghetto, but I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time – ignorance is bliss; and a dunking saved is, well, one less mess when you’re with a gaggle of boys!

Other Venetian forms of transport nearby: gondolas (foreground) and a vaporetto (background)

And, just like that, we were done.  It was time to head back to our apartment, haul up our bags, and head for the train to Florence.

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It seems like every place with a dyke or canal tries to ride this city’s famous coattails: Amsterdam (which is a wonderful city in its own right, but utterly different from this ancient Italian city) has been called ‘Venice of the North’ – as have Stockholm, Saint Petersburg, Bruges, and others.  Various cities in Asia claim to be ‘Venice of the East’.  But Venice herself is unique and unparalleled.

Venice is charming, mysterious, intricate – and eternally enchanting.

Torneremo – we will return.

Venice, Day Three

Our third day in Venice dawned with brooding skies.  Having managed to walk everywhere we needed to go, we hadn’t yet taken a ride on the vaporetto (the Venetian equivalent to a city bus).  We had plans to remedy that oversight with a trip to the glass-making island of Murano – and a side trip from there to picturesque Burano.  With that in mind, we purchased a vaporetto day pass.

The boat ride was a highlight – especially for B, who giggled maniacally (and infectiously) as he stood on the open middle deck.  He laughed out loud, head flung back, as he caught the spray from the rising waves in his face.  I held D to my chest in the front pack – sheltered from the wind and spray by my scarf – and he slept through the excitement.

The Peggy Guggenheim Museum, where we’d been the day before

When we arrived in Murano, we immediately realized the shortcoming of our ‘plan’ – and that was that we had none (aside from the vague intention to ‘go to Murano and see some glass-making’).  We eschewed the offers from the larger factories as we disembarked from the vaporetto, thinking that it would be too commercial a presentation and probably a bit of a hard sell (when we really just wanted to see a demonstration – without a ‘tour’ of the gift shop – and then head along to Burano).

Some of the fine glassworks produced by the famed studios of Murano

So we wandered along on our own on what turned out to be rather a shambolic misadventure.

For starters, we couldn’t find any of the smaller studios we’d read about – and we didn’t even really know where to begin looking.  Our search for the glassmaking studio was further hampered by four hungry boys who were clamoring for lunch.  Complicating all of this was the fact that there were plenty of gorgeous places to eat all along the canal’s edge, with enticing menus, that were just a bit too far out of our budget to consider.  We found a supermarket and loaded up on fresh bread, cheeses, nuts, and a few other odds and ends – and we sat down on a little floating dock beside the canal to consume the meal.

More unfocused wandering followed, with my mood growing fouler and the darkening skies echoing my inner thoughts.  We decided to refresh ourselves with a gelato.

Only, we couldn’t find gelato.  So West popped back to the supermarket and returned with a box of chocolate-coated ice cream blocks.  He was delighted – they were cheap as chips.  I advised him not to get used to it – you don’t go all the way to Italy and then compromise with imitation gelato!

Even D wasn’t impressed – gelato isn’t served on a stick!

The clouds were really starting to look threatening, so we decided to wander to the main drag (the internal piazza of the island) and then head towards the vaporetto stop; we thought we’d give it a final try and see if we could find a glass studio on the way.

Gorgeous glasswork in the piazza – but still looking for the studios…

Under black and roiling skies, we reached the end of our exploratory walk before our turn-around point, and A announced the need for a restroom break.  I happily concurred, and the two of us (along with D, who was strapped back into my front-pack carrier) popped into a café for an espresso for me and a pit stop for both of us.  (Upon my return to our apartment, I posted this status update on Facebook: “If balancing over an Italian toilet wearing your toddler in a front pack were an Olympic sport, I wouldn’t make the team…” – so you can guess how well THAT went!)

A lighthouse outside the cafe – the photos don’t do the stormy sky justice

The coffee was a welcome pick-me-up, but we could see that the downpour had begun to dowse nearby islands, so we hightailed it back to the vaporetto.  Perfect timing – there was one waiting at the jetty, and we hopped on.

But as we waited for the boat to leave, we had second thoughts.  We’d come all the way to Murano without seeing a glass-making demonstration.  Wasn’t that just too negligent of us?  We thought that it was.  So we quickly hopped off the boat and headed for a big, touristy studio where we were ushered in to see a short glass-blowing demo – the boys even got front-row seats.  With that done, we skipped out of the gift-shop when the rest of the group went through, headed straight for the boat, and sheltered from the first heavy raindrops as they hit the deck.

We FINALLY got to see some glass-blowing!

We walked home through shiny streets, revelling in the sights and sounds: Venice was beautiful in the rain.  The scent of wet stone, the reflection of exquisite buildings in the puddles, the sight of Venetians hurrying home to dry off or sheltering from the deluge in a café…

We had wasted money buying our vaporetto passes and only using them twice; we’d been grumpy; we’d wandered aimlessly; we’d eaten supermarket ice cream instead of real gelato; I’d lost my balance and ended up sitting on a seat-less café toilet (ugh!); and it had POURED – we hadn’t even made it to Burano… The whole day was a bit of a comedy of errors.  But on the plus side, we’d had a riotously fun vaporetto ride; we’d enjoyed the island in spite of our moods; we had seen some amazing glasswork; and WE WERE IN VENICE!  Even when you’re a jaded tourist or a grumpy traveller, and even when your sightseeing doesn’t go as planned, Venice is still incredible.

In spite of it all (!) it was a good day

So that night, as we waited for Westley to return with our seafood feast and watched the rain drench the courtyard outside, I felt grateful for the day we had.  Grateful for my little D, perched in the windowsill and calling out to everyone returning home to the neighbouring apartments, “Ciao!  Ciao!”  Grateful to be in this beautiful place with all my boys, savouring La Dolce Vita.

Life is sweet – even in the rain.

We’d put our camera away when it got really wet – so here’s Dmitriy Moiseyev’s photo from flickr

Venice, Day Two

On our first morning in Venice (having arrived the previous afternoon), we traipsed along to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection – the gallery that had awakened my own interest in modern art fifteen years prior.  I figured that the collection is presented in a way and in a location that is particularly accessible to kids – and it’s a comprehensive representation of the genre without being so large as to be overwhelming.  Well, that was the theory.

In the end, we kind of blitzed the main areas – just quickly took in the major works, pointing out the most interesting/weird pieces to our boys as we passed by.  The kids found a particularly comfy sofa in one room, an arresting sculpture in the garden by the entrance, and enchanting vistas from both an elaborately-screened window and a courtyard overlooking the Grand Canal.  They were whiny and ‘over it’ way sooner than I’d anticipated, but I wasn’t going to fight it – we headed back onto the street to see some more of Venice.

A comfy couch!

The visual appeal of an amazing view, well-framed

Artistic metalwork in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection

A view of the Grand Canal from the museum courtyard

Sculptures, scenery, and sunshine: a winning combo

Across the canal

Iconic view

By the end of the day, we’d wandered through Piazza San Marco, found the Bridge of Sighs, watched some crazy tourists in Carnevale masks paddle along the Grand Canal in an inflatable boat, and marvelled at (and walked upon) the famed Rialto – and in the course of it all we’d conducted a scavenger-hunt for ‘our bridge’: the one pictured in an art print we’d had hanging on our wall at home in Canada.  West spotted it first – and in real life it was just as gorgeous as it was in our picture.

‘Our’ bridge – pretty as a picture!

Seafood at the market in the piazza near our apartment

Crazy tourists!

Cute tourists (not the guy in the background – I mean, he’s OK, but…)

The Bridge of Sighs – so called because prisoners would sigh as they caught their last glimpse of Venice before being incarcerated

Gelato di cioccolato!

We were exhausted from all the walking – we trudged home on tired feet.  The boys rested and played while West popped out for some local seafood to accompany the vegetable stew I cooked up at our apartment, but he didn’t have any luck finding what he wanted, so we dined on supermarket roast chicken to accompany our veggies and finished off with some sweet pastries from a local pasticceria.

Perfetto!

‘Verdure’ – veggies!

A Visit to Venice – Day One

Some other people enjoying that quintessentially Venetian mode of transport: the gondola

Rain thunders down from slate-grey skies and spatters heavily in a courtyard illuminated by flashes of lightning.  Thunder growls intermittently from the roiling clouds.  Little D is perched on a deep stone windowsill, hemmed in by an elaborate wrought-iron railing on one side and me on the other; we are watching for West – waiting for him to return with our seafood dinner.

We had arrived in Venice three days earlier, following a scenic rail journey down from Milano.  On the train, our boys had been entertained by two lovely Italian ladies who chatted with them and watched them with amusement as they joked and played in their adjoining seats.  The boys showed off the toys they’d brought in their backpacks: stuffies (soft animals) and Hot Wheels (train travel tip: toy cars are great fun to skid across train tables between brothers!).  The ladies shared their biscotti, and (to the considerable delight of my boys) one of them memorably complimented one of my sons on his flatulence.  No kidding.  Who’d make that up?!  Apparently – according to Italian folk culture – producing noteworthy emissions is the mark of a healthy digestive system. Proud moment.

As we approached Venezia Mestre we were treated to amazing views – and then we arrived at the main station (Santa Lucia) and our jaws dropped.  West and I had both been there before (this was my third visit), but Venice’s charms never get old.  Arriving at the station and stepping out onto the banks of the Grand Canal is a pleasure undimmed by repetition.

We paused and admired the scene before climbing the Ponte degli Scalzi (Bridge of the Barefoot – so named for the Carmelite monks who traditionally went bare- or sandal-footed).  We quickly figured out a system to help each other up and over the bridges with all our bags; and thus we ferried ourselves and our things along to our accommodation in the sestiere (district) of Santa Croce.

Walking along a narrow canal (the Venetian equivalent of a side street), we could hear strains of a piano practice filtering out from a second-story apartment above a cafe; it was just to the left of this that we found the narrow alleyway we were looking for.  We ventured down the passageway, multi-storied buildings leaning into the alley on either side above our heads.

At the far end of the alleyway was a canal, and we could see boats passing as we stepped to the right, into the apartment courtyard.  Large double doors fronted the building we were looking for, and to the side of them a shuttered window opened.  Our hostess popped her head out to let us know she was coming round to let us in.

Once we’d toured the apartment and settled in a bit, we headed out for a walk through our neighbourhood.  We strolled past canals and over bridges, marvelling at the beauty of the architecture and absorbing the ambiance of Venice in the early evening.  Watching fishermen motoring down the waterways with the day’s catch and families driving boats home for dinner gave us a great insight into Venetians’ daily life.

We were impressed with the delivery men and their method of moving large loads up and over the multi-stepped bridges: they pushed the loads in special wheeled trolleys that allowed them to jack up even heavy loads quickly and methodically over each step.

In one of the main piazzas of our district, fishmongers and greengrocers were packing up their carts at day’s end.  The square soon cleared of vendors and in their place the restaurants set out extra tables and chairs for dining al fresco; nearby, children began impromptu games of calcio (football/soccer).  Other kids scootered around while their parents chatted – many enjoying an ombra (small glass of local wine) and cicchetti (small bites – the Venetian version of tapas).

This seemed the perfect place for our first night’s dinner.  We looked around and settled on a place with an English name (‘Pier Dickens’), just because they had the best list of pizzas.

The service was friendly and we were glad to tuck in when our order arrived at the table.  We shared two pizza Margherita, one Quattro formaggi (four cheese) pasta, two side salads, and fizzy water.  West and I split a mezzo-litro of the house red.  It was all delicious, and the price wasn’t bad for such a feast – E56 for the lot.

As we wandered in the direction of our apartment following our dinner, we noticed that our local gelateria was still open – the perfect ending to the day.

And then it was back to the apartment, where we slept – lulled by the distant hum of boats motoring down the Grand Canal.