Venice

I thought "labourers of the month" was a bit too progressive for the time
- Adrienne, on discovering that Marco meant to say that the centre arch of San Marco's
Basilica features 13th century carvings of the Labours of the Month.

And welcome to Venice! Today we travelled 45 minutes from Padua to Venice by the Italian train system (designed by people who don't like to organize and who have never heard of tabs or their inherent fun-ness). Venice is a beautiful city.

Our first stop, after wandering around for a bit - it's extremely easy to get lost in Venice - was Piazza San Marco to wander some more - but this time purposefully - and take in the sights.

We then got into line to go to the top of the Campanile. It was from the top of this structure that Galileo demonstrated his telescope in 1609.

Well, not this exact tower. This is actually the second tower, the first having collapsed in 1902, miraculously killing only the custodian's cat. The Venetians rebuilt the tower dov'era e com'era (where it was and how it was) so we can queue and get to the top today. The views are amazing.

Next it was on the Basilica San Marco.

It was beautiful inside, a gothic basilica with an interesting blend of eastern and western influences and full of mosaics. Sadly, no pictures were allowed. This means that you will never see the hideous piece of poo-brown crepe paper I had to tie about myself to enter since my outfit was deemed immodest (I was wearing shorts, not even short ones). While breezy, it was rather bunchy and generally, not a look I will revisit for client dinners.

What would a trip to Venice be without selling an organ to ride one of these?




The gondola ride was both fun and relaxing. I would gladly do it again (really - it was awesome) if only I had another spare kidney to sell.

Pressing on, we went to the Doge's Palace, the seat of government, the Palace of Justice (now my office) and the home of the Doge in the early days of the republic. Again, no pictures but we managed to get some nice ones of the outside.



Approaching the ninth hour of sightseeing, we decided to rest a bit and get a coffee at Florian's Cafe. This is an historic place: Byron, Dickens and Proust used to caffeineate themselves here.

Remember when I said everything was expensive? This is what we ordered. Can you guess how much it cost?

If you said 28.50 Euro (roughly $45.60 Canadian) is reasonable to pay for two lattes and a donut with some apple stuck into it, you would be perfectly correct EXCEPT you would have forgotten the 12 Euro "supplemento musica" charge because there was an oboe, violin and piano playing nearby (intermittently - they took two breaks in our 30 minute visit). So, in total, the above cost us roughly $64.80 Canadian. It may have been cheaper, and more filling, to simply eat Euros themselves. However, it was ever-so-literary and who can say no when an oboe's involved?

Before leaving, we hit up the Rialto Bridge

where we took the same pictures that everyone takes when they come to Venice.


On the way back, we passed the most amazing mask shop we saw all day. You may feel inclined to C&E (click and embiggen).


We're off to the final leg of our Shakespeare tour tomorrow: Verona!