Venice

 Venice was magic and the stuff of nightmares--the kind of nightmare where you pay a fortune to be sniffing other traveler's armpits.  The first night, we got in late to the Marriott, which had it's own little island and water taxi.  We dropped bags and headed back to the main square to listen to orchestras and catch photos of St. Mark's Basilica reflected in water.  Dinner was average at best but it is hard to get good dining options after 10:30pm.  We missed Ang and Paul, who scored a tasty meal back at the Marriott and rested up with their illnesses.  The orchestras, though!  The orchestras!  If I could go back tomorrow or ever, I would bag almost everything else and spend all my energy dancing and applauding the music from 8pm until midnight.

The boys and their money belts: always good for a laugh.

The next morning, Brady and I hustled over on the water taxi to get in line early for the Campanile, the Bell Tower with bird's eye views of the city.  The views were worth the early wake-up time, although Brady might debate that because I was borderline grouchy most of the day from too many 4-hours-of-sleep nights.

Delicious, complimentary breakfast courtesy of knowing Paul Ritchie:

We made it through the chaos of the lines to St. Mark's Basilica, thankfully with our advanced entry tickets.  The tour was interesting but I regret missing out on the extras--the treasury, altar, and especially the museum with the original bronze horses.  We needed to get our group entry tickets an hour before entry to the "Secret Itineraries Tour," and knew better than to dally too long at the church.  It was lucky Brady and I left when we did--we needed every minute to get through the security lines for our tickets.  Venice is jam-packed.

The Basilica itself was architectually unique especially compared to what we saw in Florence and Rome--onion-shaped domes combined with Gothic pinnacles and splattered with Roman columns.  Venice was a merchant and arsenal-building city-state with plenty of wealth but no religious backbone.  In 828 A.D., two Venitian merchants changed that status by stealing the bones of St. Mark from Egypt and bringing them here.  You can spot the symbol of St. Mark, a winged lion, all over the city.

Inside, the basilica is covered in mosaic--as Rick says, enough to pave an entire football field with contact lenses.  To someone unaccustomed to Eastern Orthodox churches, it feels heavy and dark.  I was glad we had guidance to appreciate the scenes, especially on the ceiling where Christ's blessing is bestowed to his apostles.  He is shown as the "Pantocreator," or "Ruler of All," with his two blessing fingers outstretched--which is again common in Eastern Orthodox churches but relatively unfamiliar otherwise.

After we secured our tickets for the group tour, Brady waited outside and I stayed inside the Doge Palace, noticing the water coming in and out.  I read about Venice shrinking--more accurately, the waters are rising--and my friend warned me that she had to walk across the square on planks during her visit months ago.  Watching the water flow in and out reminded me what a unique city I was visiting.

The "Secret Itineraries Tour," from Brady's perspective:

"I loved being able to touch the same wooden wall where Casanova scratched and doodled in his prison cell, and see doors on their original hinges.  It felt like you could put yourself back to the 1700s because the rooms were so well-preserved and had not been restored.  The torture chamber had a rope hanging from the same beam they used on prisoners, and large cabinets in the next room where they placed prisoners-on-deck so they were in an optimal position to hear the screams.  They had all the same hardware and iron.  It was fascinated to see the roof truss structure where they were supporting incredibly heavy sculptures and ceiling artwork."

I thought the tour was a gimmick and eye-roll, but it was a change of pace and I appreciate how much Brady liked it.  I also liked that we came out of the secret passageway through a chest--straight into the Doge's palace.  I felt like a character in a novel.

I somehow missed the Bridge of Sighs, easily seen from the Doge Palace, but we did see Tintoretto's "monsterpiece," Paradise:  500 saints crammed in to create the largest oil painting in the world.

The Doge palace tour was definitely better than the next few hours getting shoved around in the hot sun by the crowds.  I was proud of us for doing the Cincetti bars with their ugly appetizers.  The little sandwiches were delicious and the melon-wrapped meat was unique, but the anchovies with hairy whiskers will never go down well for me.

More tasty were the last few stalls of a giant market closing down for the day.  We ate ripe cherries and strawberries and sun-dried tomatoes that dropped from heaven, and purchased pasta spices just in case we ever crave pasta again after eating it about 14 times on this trip.

The highlight of the day was stepping into the Frari Church, a Franciscan church featuring an altarpiece with Titian's Assumption of the Virgin.  After museums full of art, I was surprised to be as excited and full of anticipation to see this work.

Painted during the High Renaissance on an enormous scope, it highlights Mary's twisted body and gesture of awe, and the apostles' dramatic surprise.  After Michelangelo's Pieta, this was my favorite.  Titian is also buried in this church, with a sculptural relief version of this scene over his tomb.

Choir stalls:

Another moving Pieta, this one from the 1930s:

Donatello's St. John the Baptist:

We explored a bit then the group split off--Brady went with me to the Accademia for yet another art experience while the rest of the group swam at the Marriott.  I recognize this as an act of love and loyalty to a wife who has a difficult time missing out on museums.

There were some treasures at the Accademia but hands down, our favorite part was the ceiling decorated with heads:

CREEPY!

My favorite work in the museum was by Giovanni Bellini, 1475.  Madonna Enthroned Adoring the Sleeping Child.  After all the pietas, this came full circle for me and loved his arm hanging down.  I'm currently wondering if all my baby crazies lately have come from this picture.  Seriously.

Giorgione's La Tempesta, 1508 (aka the reason we came to the Accademia).  I was surprised at the small scale of this painting which is focused primarily on the Venetian landscape and no longer the constant tale of Mary and Jesus.  There is nothing definitive about the story this picture relates.  Art historians have discovered that Giorgione originally painted another female nude where the soldier stands, and many speculate that the woman is a Gypsy.  The real scene is the landscape.  I love the colors, and I love seeing work that I've studied in person.

The Procession in St. Mark's Square, by Bellini, showing a miracle of the relic of the true cross.

Francesco Hayez, 1815, a temporary exhibition with advertisements plastered all over the city.

St. Mark's Square in the daytime is slightly less charming than the nighttime, by maybe a thousand.

We tried a new gelato stop, and decided that Venchi was definitely the best gelato we had in Italy.  Dessert in the afternoon=the definition of vacation.

Next up, meeting up with the group for a gondola ride.  As Kristen mentioned, "We pretty much threw romance out the window when we decided to ride six in the gondola."  Yep.  It was comical and ok.  You do the gondola in Venice, though, right?!  And we scored one of the best pictures of the trip on that ride.

A 7-star hotel in Venice where George Clooney was married.

Knee-to-knee romance:

We scored much better ambiance at the intimate Enoteca Ai Artisti, and enjoyed our final real dinner of the trip, finishing the night off briefly enjoying the orchestras.

The next morning started early again, with a water taxi and car service to get to church.  When Brady met the driver, he was confused.  "I thought you would be old," the man told him. "Old people go to church."  Perfect!  He cracked us up, trashing on Venice and Italy in general and basically wishing he was American.  He told us proudly that he even knows a lot of American idioms.

How lucky for us to travel with four of our favorite people.

The ward provided us with headphones and an American missionary translated the service.  The choir sang one of Kate's favorite church songs, "Gethsemane," in English.  We met warm members who tried communicating with us in Italian.  We listened hard to the Bishop speak to see if we could detect his "obviously Roman accent."  (Nope.)  There were hardly any kids present, and the ones there kept getting stink eye from the local members.  Attending church in another country is certainly a unique experience, even if I dozed for 40% of the service.

Ang and Paul ran off to a Pharmacy where they were told she probably needed to take Ibuprofin (you know, for PNEUMONIA, you just down a few anti-inflammatories!).  We ate mediocre pizza on the waterfront before getting lost in Venice--specifically called out on our itinerary but unintentional--and ended up cutting it close to get back to the hotel.  

Kristen: "Well, we got lost in Venice!"

We gathered our bags and took a water taxi to the train station.  It was lovely to see Venice by water again, and I thought as we were leaving that I was glad to visit this museum on water, where locals are sadly a dying breed.  This is a one-and-done stop for me, but I will never forget hearing Harry Potter music fly off the violins and swaying to the music at nearly midnight in the square.  Sigh.  

The way home was long and drawn out, and trip #2 is always easier to plan than trip #1 to any vacation destination.  I would never stack that much travel together again.  We took a 5 hour, broken A/C train ride back to Rome, hired an Uber to get us to the hotel, ate dinner at 10:30pm in the hotel restaurant, and woke up at 3:20am to depart on 31 hours of plane/airport travel to arrive back in Kauai.  My favorite moment that night was watching Brady wash his underwear in the sink, then call the front desk for an iron, which he used at nearly 1am to dry them.  International travel is like pregnancy--you have to put a lot of space between trips to forget how cumbersome it is and want to do it again.  

Ciao, Italy!  Ciao, Paul, Angela, Cory and Kristen!