Day III - Venice - Piazza San Marco

Thursday, 30 June, 2011 - I know, I know, you're thinking glass blowing and fountain pens are nice and all, but what about St. Mark's Basilica? What about the Doge's Palace?? Well we had saved the best for last my friends. Early Thursday we woke up to try and beat the tourist crowds to San Marco Square. Our plan was to get our luggage up to the train station to store in the lockers (which they didn't have - but they did have a luggage station where they charged by the item, thus I carried the paintings I'd purchased around with me for the rest of the day so as not to pay €30), grab a pastry, and - dare I say it? - take the vaporetto sans pass back to the square. Check, check, and check.

We made it to the basilica before the lines got absurd, only having to wait five minutes before we got inside. Oh. My gosh. And I thought Vienna was opulent. The entire inside of the basilica is gold mosaic with vibrant figures depicting religious figures and scenes (as one would only expect), also mosaic. Unfortunately we were a) ushered through a roped-off path which toured the perimeter of the basilica and had a constant stream of gawkers and admirers flowing through, making it difficult to stop, and b) no pictures allowed inside. However, I've pilfered one from Sights and Culture just because you have to have a visual of it:

I think I could have spent over an hour in there between the nave and everything on the main floor and the upper level museum where you could get a closer view of the domes and a plethora of relics on display. Easily my favorite were the four horses of St. Mark (also called the Triumphal Quadriga); the originals, which may be from as early as the 4th century BC and have been in Venice since the mid 13th century (minus a trip to Paris thanks to Napoleon), were housed inside and replicas had replaced them outside overlooking San Marco Square.

We headed to the Doge's Palace - the large Gothic building next to the basilica that everyone recognizes when they see pictures of Venice, this very building in fact:

Although the crowds around San Marco Square were building, we only had to wait in line for about ten minutes to get into the Doge's Palace. I wasn't sure what to expect from it, but the place was immense and very informative. Again, of course, no pictures were allowed inside, which is a shame because the rooms - mostly the Doge's apartments and reception rooms - were remarkable. Many of the rooms had carved wooden ceilings with gilding against various colored backgrounds, Lombardy-style fireplaces, elaborate coats of arms, sculptures, and friezes with putti and allusions to the feats of each Doge. The Doge, derived from Latin's Dux, was the highest political position in Venice. Once elected, he held the position for life, although he had no executive, legislative, or decision-making power. Nor was he allowed to represent the city. Essentially he was a figure-head, although public business was paralyzed when he died until a new Doge was elected. Gee, great position to have.

The most spectacular room in the palace was the Sala del Maggiore Consiglio, or the Hall of the Great Council. This hall, situated on the corner of the pier and the square, is 117 feet long, 82 feet wide, and 50 feet tall. Think of it this way: a professional-sized basketball court is 94 feet by 50 feet. And the most amazing part? It's completely free of internal support columns. Apparently the almost 10,000 square foot ceiling is actually an upside down boat with the deck as the ceiling and the ribbing rising high above, unseen from the hall, much like cathedrals. Light pours in through seven large lancet windows which unfortunately make it a little difficult to see the oil paintings of the first 76 doges... minus Marino Faliero. This senile fellow, the 55th doge, only held the title from 1354-1355 because it was discovered that he was plotting a coup and planned on declaring himself prince (why he wouldn't aim for king, I'm not certain). So he was beheaded and his portrait in the Hall of the Great Council is represented by a black vail.

A little more about the Doge's Palace (if your eyes are starting to glaze over or you're contemplating checking your Facebook go ahead and skip to the next paragraph): The construction started in the 9th century, though it was then a fortified building, and wasn't stripped of this fortification and turned into an elegant building until the 12th century. There was a fire in 1483, again in 1574, and yet again in 1577. The other noteworthy part of the palace is the Scala dei Giganti, the Giant's Staircase. Completed in 1565, the newly appointed doges were crowned here overlooked by two colossal marble statues of Mars and Neptune.

Mars and Neptune - symbols of military and naval might

Oh, okay, and a few more pictures of the Doge's Palace:

Chapel connected to Saint Marks Basilica in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace

Two-storied loggia in the Doge's Palace courtyard

The 16th century Golden Staircase to the Doge's Apartments

It was past 3:00 by the time we finished touring the two must-sees of Venice (we started at 10:00), so we left the San Marco Square area to find a place to get lunch, then did some more random-side-street wanderings. We came across a store that Dylan really liked and knew about, Fabriano Boutique, and the woman inside was incredibly informative and chatted with us about Venice's history for about twenty minutes. After some more wandering I also for the 'investment piece' of my dreams at ArtisticMurano by Mauro Bonaventura.

I say 'investment piece' because while I was considering the red/gold horse at the glass blowing demonstration, the shop owner had termed the other horse he was trying to sell me on an 'investment piece' - a piece of art that I would have for a lifetime. Sadly this chess set is €3000, but I WANT IT!! I'm thinking in five years maybe I'll make this purchase. Apparently you can specify exactly how you want the pieces - all red or black, all white or clear, or black with red accents (crown, pitchfork, et.), white with clear accents (halo and wings), or vice versa. I actually like it just about how it is, except I think I'd want the angel's wings to also be clear. Or perhaps clear bodies with white wings might look neat. Or if he could do clear parts with flecks of gold in them... Or if I don't end up getting it for myself any time soon, Melynn has  offered to chip in and get it as my wedding gift! I guess I need to be in a relationship before I can start thinking about that, haha. We'll see which of the paths to my eventual ownership of this chess set comes first!

It was starting to approach our train departure (luckily within half an hour of each other), so we found a place for a light dinner after our late lunch, and although it was a sorta hole-in-the-wall gimmicky looking place with lots of Coke adds and other such things (i.e. not at all authentic-looking) it turned out to be great pasta. With one last look at the captivating canals we returned back to Venezia Santa Lucia Station, picked up our bags, and headed our separate ways.

I took an overnight train back to Vienna (I got a little more sleep than I did on the train to Copenhagen!) and unlocked the front door a few hours before the next hotel guest was to arrive at the house.

I would like to point out, too, that I really enjoyed travelling with Dylan and wish we would have had a chance to go to some other places. Because he was studying Palladian architecture, he was full of fascinating tidbits and a source of vast architectural information. Well, it might also help that he just really likes architecture. For instance, he pointed out the winged lion of Saint Mark, also the symbol of Venice, all over the city, and explained that if it was erected in a time of peace, the lion held an open book, but in times of war the book was closed.

The Winged Lion of Saint Mark (and Venice)

I have to say, though, that as much as I loved Venice - it was wholly charming and pleasant and mystical with devils, angles, and nymphs looking silently on from every hollow in every building - I don't think that I would want to live there for any extended period of time; I think that the charm would wear off really quickly. There's really nowhere to run or workout, the only restaurants are Italian (we didn't happen across a single 'foreign' food place despite it being such an epicenter of trade and cultures), there didn't seem to be any grocery stores, and the only things to do or occupations to have were tourist-based. I'm actually really glad I didn't study abroad at Casa Artom (not that it would have been an option as I hardly know Italian...). I'm also now fascinated by the history of this city and how it was built and will be reading into it, hopefully soon. Dylan suggested a book, Venice: Pure City, by Peter Ackroyd, who also wrote a book on London's history which Dylan really liked. I think that's currently the 14th book in my queue of books to read sooner rather than later.

Okay, so I don't think I would want to live there, but Venice is absolutely a must-see destination with the reflections in the water, the phenomenal display of colors, the mixed architectural styles, and the mystical intrigue of this city! I'll be back (and not just to get that chess set). As usual, because my words will never do justice to what I saw, a few final pictures to convince you of how fascinating this city truly is:

Details of the façade of Saint Mark's Basilica

Map of Venice dating from... long long ago. The city hasn't changed.

Detail from the roof of the Doge's Palace Chapel, St. Mark's Campanile, and a dome of St. Mark's Basilica

Sunset over Venice. Fino alla prossima volta... (Until next time...)

Day II - Venice and Murano Island

Wednesday, 29 June, 2011 - After breakfast at a pastry shop around the corner from where we were staying, Dylan and I thought it logical to start the day at San Marco Square. That didn't actually work out so well. By the time we got there by way of the Rialto Bridge, the oldest bridge to span the Grand Canal, the square was swarming with people and the lines to get in to both St. Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace were endless (well, they merged with the crowd so it was actually difficult to tell, but I'm sure it would have been a few hour's wait for each of them). Granted, I don't think we got there before 10:30 because we lingered quite a bit on the way there with window shopping and poking into various shops, but neither of us were keen to wait in that heat. 

Thus we shifted gears a bit and decided to get a 24 hour Vaporetto (water bus) pass. Dylan really wanted to check out San Giorgio as the façade (and possibly interior) are by Palladio. It's just across the water from San Marco Square so we thought it would be a quick boat ride, but we managed to get on the boat going the opposite direction. This turned out to be a pleasant mistake, though, as we took the hour long "scenic route" to San Giorgio which wound up the Grand Canal and out around west of Venice before coming to the port that was five minutes from where we started.

 View of where we started (San Marco Square) from where we were going (San Giorgio) - i.e. not a one hour trip

Santa Maria della Salute

Rialto Bridge

Ca d'Oro

Fondaco dei Turchi - old Turkish traders' warehouse turned Natural History Museum

I forgot how much I enjoy being on the water, relaxing to the motion of the boat and letting the slight headwind tease through my hair and keep me cooled off despite the summer heat. It also seemed like a pretty efficient way to see some of the main sights of Venice as many prominent buildings were on the old trading canal. I really should have expected as much, but I was shocked at how many boats were squeezing past each other and slipping through open spaces; it really was like a busy highway on water, even if the pictures don't portray that. 

After the trip out, which threatened to lull me into a little cat nap, we took a moment to admire Palladio's innovative façade which he adapted from that of a classical temple to one of a Christian church. When we walked into San Giorgio, the first thing I noticed was a large pipe emerging from the center of the dome. Maintenance?

Likely not. Near the entrance, though, there was a table set up with postcards, really large booklets, and an explanatory sign. This was part of the Venice Biennale, a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place every two years, on odd years. This vent is part of an exhibition called "Ascension" by Anish Kapoor and is "a site-specific installation that materializes the paradox of the column of smoke: a vortex of white smoke rises from a circular base placed at the intersection between the transept and the nave of the magnificent Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore..." We also read that there were demonstrations of this exhibition on Wednesdays, among other days, and it would be in about an hour. Perhaps worth lingering for. Dylan had also heard that the campanile offered one of the best views of Venice, so we wanted to climb that, but the guard was out to lunch. Thus we admired the basilica, the choir stalls in particular, which were carved in walnut by Flemish artist Albert van den Brulle in 1598, before also going to see what we could find on the tiny island for lunch.

After lunch we still had some time to spare before the bell tower opened again and the Ascension exhibition, so we wandered around the island a little and discovered a tapestry museum which also happened to have free entrance that day. It was surprisingly extensive with things woven as early as the 15th century to some that were woven just a few years ago.

The Siege of Jerusalem, c. 1480

 Mappa, 1978

Above the road east toward Taibique, El Hierro. 15 minutes. 2002

We then went back to San Giorgio expecting to see this Ascension in full swing, but nothing was happening. A few people seemed to be waiting around expectantly, but no one knew anything useful. So we went to go up the campanile and the guard informed us that there was no ascension today because they were doing work on it. Shame. It would have looked something like this:

But the view from the bell tower certainly still made the trip over worthwhile.

 When we got back to San Marco Square (the five minute version of the trip), I admittedly got caught up looking at all of the stalls lined up along the water where stands and umbrellas were set up with vendors selling things to eager tourists. I was really only interested in the paintings that were being sold; after getting the horse in Nürnberg I decided it would be really neat to actively continue to collect a piece of artwork wherever I travelled (assuming I found something worth buying). After all, I already had some watercolors from Vienna and a Monet-esque oil from Brussels from last summer. Even if these paintings aren't going to be worth millions one day when the artist dies and people realize how talented he was, I just like the idea of having these to hang (when I finally live anywhere with a little more permanence). I had decided I didn't necessarily want to collect the 'typical tourist' paintings with scenes that everyone recognizes from whatever city I was in, but I did end up getting two oils despite them being definitively Venice.

We then decided to go out to Murano Island and see if we could watch some glass blowing. After analyzing the map I decided that the first port would get us closest to the Museo Vetrario, the antique glass museum, where I figured they might be able to point us in the right direction or perhaps have a demonstration there. As soon as we got off the boat a man came up and asked if we were there to see live glass blowing and directed us to a nearby building. Perfect! I've always wanted to see glass blown in person. The gaffer was going to do two demonstrations: first, a vase which he blew

 And, even more fascinating, not that I'm biased or anything, he then made a horse using a different technique where he had a solid glob of molten glass and literally pulled the horse into being out of the glob with tongs, not ever blowing into it. As he shaped limbs the main body of the glass kept shifting and sagging so he had to almost constantly spin the rod to keep the center balanced.

We were of course then ushered into their shop where I was tempted by the neatest horse, clear with a transparent red core with gold flecks around the outside of the core and streaks of gold in the mane and tail. As I was contemplating him one of the shop keepers came up and started trying to sell me on it. After a while of conversing with him and discussing the merits of buying a piece of art that I would have for life, he took me upstairs to the real gallery. Rather than looking at something that was about two hands (for you horse people, no pun intended) tall, he now had me looking at a horse that was about as big as my laptop screen. And that was one of the smallest items in there. We went back and forth for a long time and I really had zero intention of buying as 1) I liked the coloring and movement of the horse downstairs better and 2) I didn't have €2,600 to spare. However he was telling me all sorts of fascinating information about the glass blowing process, so I admit to egging him on a bit and seemingly considering. He finally even brought the price down to 40% of the original price plus offered to ship it home for me for free. He really was not prepared to take "no" for an answer, but I finally made it clear to him that even if I decided to buy it I at least wanted to think about it overnight. That appeased him just enough so we bid our adieus. It was tempting, but as we boarded the boat back to Venice we stopped at the other little ports on Murano and along the way we saw at least five other furnaces that advertised live glass blowing, and those were just the ones right on the water. I realized that we hadn't gone to The Glass Blowing Demonstration but simply a live glass blowing. I decided if I wanted to make a purchase that significant then at the very least I would want to spend the day on the island and go through all the shops and see all of my options. And right then I wasn't really dying to make a purchase that significant. It also made me wonder, if after half an hour of talking to this guy he was willing to sell the horse at 60% off, how much was it really worth? I always have trouble determining such things. So back to Venice we cruised.

It was starting to get on in the evening by the time we got back and Dylan and I were both eager to take a gander in that little fountain pen shop we'd seen the night before, so with fingers crossed that it was still open we headed towards my big X on the map. Lo and behold, success! After much debating and comparing of pens, both glass and wooden, I ended up with two wooden Bortoletti ones, one of which I had in mind as a gift, a stick of wax to seal letters, and two stamps, one with my initials (only BW, not BMW, sadly) and one with a horse - I'm a sucker, I know. There was also a pad of gold that the shop owner used to accent the seals, highlighting the letters/horse, and though he was sold out of those he thought he might get more on the morrow. We left, satisfied, to go get dinner at a great pizza place in a square a little north of where we were staying, then called it a night after wandering around a while longer.

Day I - Venice

Tuesday, 28 June, 2011 - Ah, Venice! The romantic City of Water, City of Bridges, and City of Masks. How could I not make a little excursion to Venice when I was already in Austria for the summer? Besides,  the house was going to feel really empty with Andrew gone so I wanted to have something to distract me. Yes, Venice would do, thank you very much. 

We had stayed up all night before his flight Tuesday because the taxi was going to get us at 4:30am, and I headed straight to the train station after I saw him off post checking in for his flight. The way down was half train half bus, but wasn't all too bad and a scenic route; some of the landscape in southern Austria/northern Italy looks a little similar to Colorado. Unfortunately I missed the 6:29 train by five minutes (to be honest I wasn't expecting to make it at all, though I was disappointed to see I had been so close) so I had to wait until 8:29 for the next train; I think that was the hardest part. 

When I got there I made my way to St. Lucia Station, oddly not where we were let off the bus, to go rendezvous with Dylan. Background: Dylan was in my German and bridge (the game, not the structures that span the canals in Venice) classes this spring and we happened to be bridge partners one day when both of ours were MIA. I learned that he had a grant to study Palladian architecture for two months in a town about an hour from Venice, so we had decided to keep in touch and try and do some travelling together. We navigated through the narrow streets and found our room, then decided to head over to Casa Artom. I had been in touch with the house director to attempt to stay there, but he said they weren't allowing guests. I asked if we could come by and see it, and luckily he was going to be in town the day we got in and said we could drop by. The house is phenomenal! It's spacious, well appointed, and right on the Grand Canal. It was still about half an hour until 7:00 and Dylan informed me that most restaurants don't open before then, so we decided to kill a little time by checking out the view from Punta della Dogana, a museum with a point that juts out at the end of the Grand Canal which offers a picturesque (though what isn't picturesque in Venice?) panorama that includes San Marco Square and San Giorgio Maggiore across the water. We wandered back along the canal to a little restaurant that had been recommended to us, had some good Italian food, then continued to roam at random. We came across a particularly narrow alley that looked a little questionable, it being dusk and all, but I had an urge to go down it anyway.

It lead us to a little antique-looking hole-in-the-wall type store that was filled with fountain pens, quills, stationary, notebooks, wax seals, and other writing paraphernalia.

poor picture (it looked better on the camera), but at least it gives an idea of the shop

It was closed for the evening, but we both really wanted to return the next day, so I figured out where we were on the map and marked it off. We also checked out San Marco Square which I thought was surprisingly crowded (more so than the pictures let on) for dusk on a Tuesday night. It was pleasant walking through as the square was lined with restaurants, most of which had a live musician or small ensemble.

We started to make our way back to the room after that, but we were accosted along the way by a woman speaking rapid Italian who blocked our path. We backed away alarmed, but she switched to English and asked us why we weren't inside the Accademia Gallery. We realized then that we were next to the fine art museum and it just so happened that it was open late that night with free entrance. Seeing as we had planned on going in anyway this seemed like an opportunity not to pass up. It was mostly Italian Renaissance works including some from Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini. Ring a bell? Fellow North Carolinians, if you have ever visited the Biltmore, you've seen Pellegrini's work. George Vanderbilt bought the his ceiling fresco, The Chariot of Aurora, from Venice's Pisani Palace. We saw about 90% of the museum before they closed for the evening. All and all not a bad end to our first day, though I was definitely exhausted by that point and ready for a good night's sleep.