Venice...blizzarding

It started as a well laid plan.   This, like every trip I have ever dragged my family on, begins as an experiment conducted at 3:00 A.M. when sleep eludes me.  This plan began as a dream of submerging our nuclear family, perhaps for the last time, into a fabulous cultural soup.  A soup that held some DNA for three out of four of us.

And thus the plans of July have rendered us in December in Venice...blizzarding.  

We arrived two days ago to Venice crisp, scent-less, brisk, and lacking in many but the hearty few.  Tourists from China (large groups accompanied by a some very slender bold voiced woman/guide), Australia (couples, bundled, big-voiced, smiling), a few French (quiet, elegant), Italians and a few sturdy looking British (women traveling in bridge table sized sets.) 

You enter Venice one of several ways from the airport - bus, water bus, or water taxi.   We selected option #2.  More fun than the bus; less costly than a private taxi.  Now you catch this water bus (a twenty passenger boat) at a pier ten minutes walk from the airport.  Genius!  For 13 euros you wend your way from Murano (of glass fame) to the Lido to San Marco Piazza.  The final step - a ten minute over two bridges walk from our apartment at 1607 Castello.

But of course, our apartment is not ON Calle Castello, or Riva Castello, or Piazza Castello.  Castello is the neighborhood or sestieri.  The actual address is 1607 Calle Pedrocchio.  Why is the numbering this way.  Italian shrug.  15 centuries.  

Joe, Ted and Elle had arrived the evening before, acquired a few basic groceries, wandered about, etc.  I arrived around lunch time, climbed the 58 steps up, up, up to the fourth floor, dropped my gear and fighting jetlag all the way, requested we head out.  58 steps down, and 5 bridges later along the Grand Canal we stood in Piazza San Marco.  

San Marco, splendid, graceful, bathed in milk white, sand, palest pinks and eggshell blue.  

I had seen it 30 years ago when I graduated high school and travelled to Europe with my grandparents, mother and 12 year old cousin, Lynn.  Piazza San Marco.  I remembered my first midnight cappuchino at Florian's with my mother and a wonderful conversation about life. Could it still be so lovely?

Yes, oh yes.

Napoleon is quoted as referring to Piazza San Marco* as "The drawing room of Europe."  It has the elegance of such a salon - filled with soaring structures and accented by large, lovely cafes.  Moreover, Piazza San Marco is unmarred by the great destroyers of sight, sound, air. There are no cars; there is no traffic.  Just the lapping water, clinking glasses, click of footsteps.

The square is actually more of a backwards "L" shape.  We entered at the bottom.  Elle drifted off and shot film here and there while Joe, Ted and I wandered and enjoyed from various vantage points, walking first along the Grand Canal (the bottom of the "L" then to the front of the Doge Palace (the residence and seat of Venetian government for 11 centuries.) 

  

Then up the "L" with of a general goal of reaching the Rialto Bridge and seeing the back streets of central Venice.  As we walked, Ted, Elle and I recalled reading The Merchant of Venice with our summer camp group.  Trying to follow the sign attached to the sides of buildings:  "per Rialto", we were eager to discover "now, what news on the Rialto?" (Merchant of Venice, Act III) 

Actually, not much.  It took us quite a while to find it, and when we did it was fairly closed up for siesta.  Nevertheless, the meander had been a pleasure and we began to note the challenge of mapping this small city and the intrigue of poking about.  After a quick bite, tiredness, cold and sunset convinced us we should head home.  

Easier said than done.  Below is a map.  But let's say you think of Venice as a fish swimming with a package below its belly.  We were near the fins.  We are staying at the tail.   Signs point ever which way, no just not our way.  We try maps.  Hopeless.  We try asking.  People are kind.  Our Spanish helps, but we stayed lost.  Finally we resorted to trying to figure out which part of the sky was less dark (west) and thus the Grand Canal.  An hour or so later we made it.  It was fun.  Okay, perhaps people were a wee bit too cold.  Foreshadowing.

When I arose this morning, I peeled back the covers.  Snow.  Not flurries, snow.  After reading an e-mail from the owner of the apartment warning us to be careful, bundle up, and watch slippery marble (which is EVERYWHERE) we headed out in most of the clothes we had packed.  San Marco was covered in elevated walkways and the Piazza was one foot under water!  The footgear was a site - boots, garbage bags over shoes and our particular solution - 7 euro shoe covers that include line indicating the high water mark for Piazza San Marco.  I think this was meant to comfort us....

We tried to collect our vaporetto pass from the Venice Connected office.  No one there.  Italian shrug.  We tried to see the basilica.  Closed due to water level.  In 15 minutes, in 15 hours, open.  Italian shrug.  Unfazed, we went for coffee at Cafe Florian.  Let's thaw and revise our plans.  Warmed and delighted by coffee and being surrounded by people from several countries, we decided to plunge on.

Now, the basilica was open.  We entered.  Stop - mass is being said.  Okay, the museum.  We finally entered, climbed, climbed, climbed to the top witness the breathtaking vision of literally millions of tiny gold, azure, garnet, emerald tiles laid in the most incredible mosaic - the ceiling of the basilica.  Other notables:  the four bronze horses stolen from Constantinople.

Our next stop:  The Doge Palace, which is a combination residence of the Doge or elected ruler of Venice, a pretty amazing governing structure that lasted over a millennium, and the actual meeting place of the government.  Highlights:  numerous, Tintorettos, Titians as well as stunning architecture.  We thought of our friends Bill and Susan as we took in The Battle of Lepanto by Paolo Veronese.

   

Things brightened further.  Two hours later the Venice Connected office opened, and we even found a restaurant I had research, Le Bistrot de Venise.  I had wanted traditional Venetian cuisine.  Oh my.  14th century pumpkin ravioli, 14th century lamb with pumpkin chutney and saffron bread, chestnut mousse, etc.  hours later we rolled out, followed the signs and actually found the one of only four bridges that cross the Grand Canal and the Accademia d'art.  Four two hours we further immersed ourselves in Italian art and finished by seeing Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.

Our last leg of the day - a lovely evening vaporetto ride home, things for supper and a family chat.  Buona Notte.  

NOTE:  Piazza is a special designation in Italy.  Merriam-Webster simply says it is a "square" but the designation seems to mean so much more.  San Marco is the only piazza in all of Venice!