Day 28: Venezia … of Vaporettos, vaulting ceilings and gondolas, gondolas and gondolas!

Sun shining and train tickets in hand we hurried through breakfast this morning to ensure that we were at the station in plenty of time for our fast train to Venice. I was very excited at the possibility of seeing this city of canals and majestic buildings and knew that it would be a fun day ahead. The Trenitalia high speed train gets up to speeds of in excess of 250kmph as it wends its way north, initially through a series of very long tunnels and then beyond the rolling Tuscan hills onto the flat of north eastern  Italy and across the causeway style bridge in Venice, Santa  Lucia.

Stepping out of the railway station I couldn’t believe my eyes. No seedy rundown buildings not grey and drab as has been the case near many of the major railway stations we have visited in Europe. Not here in Venice… out of the train, into a piazza swarming with tourists and there before my very eyes, the Grand Canal! Wow, pinch me… I am in Venice! We stopped at the tourist information booth to collect our tickets to allow us 12 hours of transport on the Vaporettos or Water buses... perhaps best described as small ferries ( for my pilgrim friends, strangely not a lot smaller than our little ‘boat’ across the Aegean!!!) These are the mainstay of transport in Venice as everything is done by water or on foot, so one of the first things that struck me was that you are not so likely to get mown down by a kamikaze cab driver or cyclist in Venice, because every block or two you have to negotiate the stairs to go up and over a bridge crossing yet another canal. 

Our first stop was the Jewish ghetto, established in the 1500’s when Jewish residents were denied the right of freedom in the city and were contained in the ghetto by night curfews and not allowed to belong to the trade guilds. This paints a terrible picture of anti-Semitism, part of the Jewish story for so long. The ghetto is tiny: entry is gained through a small insignificant laneway opening and beyond that there is a winding street which opens into a piazza which contains no fewer than 5 synagogues, representing Italian Jewry, German Jewry and Ashkenazi and Sephardi groups. There are two monuments mounted on the walls of the piazza: one marks the final train that left the ghetto bound for the death camps and it tells the name of the residents of the ghetto who perished during WWII. The other is a general Holocaust memorial cast in bronze images, and with barbed wire above it. Even in the bright sunshine, there is a somber feeling at these monuments … they tell a devastating story of man’s inhumanity to man and I am taken back in my mind to the day in Dachau two years earlier when the sky had cried. Overwhelming. That the Jewish people continue to maintain their story in the face of such adversity is remarkable and as I reflect I look across the square to see an orthodox Jewish man standing in tallit in the doorway of his store, and the physical reminder of faith displayed in the prayer shawl says it all.  We paused for a quick coffee in a kosher café in the ghetto before heading off to find our water bus and our first trip, should I say cruise, on the Grand Canal.

We were heading in the direction of St Mark’s Square, and Chris was quite excited as we passed under the Rialto Bridge. It was of this bridge that was the painting that had hung on the wall of his parent’s place and it brought back lots of memories of home. As we cruised along we noticed the huge variation in upkeep of the properties: some of them in serious need of paint and some of them simply stunning. Arriving at Salute, we were interested in the church which was right at the stop so we disembarked for a closer look. This was a baroque church, smallish, but with lovely paintings on the walls and an exquisitely carved high altar. It was another peaceful little oasis in a bustling city and we noted that mass was on at 4pm this arvo with Organ vespers from 3.30pm. We filed that thought away for future reference and boarded the vaporetto for St Mark’s Square. 

I knew that St Mark’s square was big, as did Chris, but neither of us realized the extent of it, nor the intricate beauty of the work that adorns the church and the adjoining palace. What a place and it was bustling with people. We were drawn to watch the clock in the square that strikes on the hour… unfortunately 1pm is not as interesting a chime but still it was very beautiful.   A wander around one side of the square revealed a little laneway and we followed it to find a small restaurant and bar where we share a Capriossa pizza, topped with ham, olives, mushrooms, mozzarella and baby artichokes… Yum. Then a wander to find a Venetian geleteria. Didn’t have to look far for that either. Double yum. Having wandered the perimeter of the square and listened to the musicians playing in front of some of the posh restaurants it was time to visit the church. St Mark’s has the most amazing mosaics I have seen in my time in Europe. It rivals Hagia Sophia! Every available upper surface is covered. I wished that I could have taken photographs of these mosaics as they were beautiful, but they will be etched in my mind forever, What was also amazing about the church was the “roller-coaster” that was the floor. Problems with flooding and subsidence in Venice have caused incredibly uneven flooring which needed to be covered by matting for safety! You have to wonder about the long term viability of such a project. 

We wandered further along the waterfront on this bright sunny day, doing a spot of shopping and people watching. It was a magical day. We saw the Bridge of Sighs that connects the palace with the prison and along the waterfront we saw gondolas gondolas gondolas and MORE gondolas!!! Monty Python fans will know exactly what I mean when I say their writing team must have been to Venice. We were not tempted to ride.. having seen a water ambulance fly past us at high speed while we were on the vaporetta and having been tossed in its wake we didn’t fancy the thought of potentially ending up in the drink!! But they were beautiful to watch and the gondoliers bedecked in their navy and white or red and white striped shirts looked sooooo Venetian and they must be super fit!!!

We decided to go back to Mass at Santa Maria Salute… or the church of St Mary of Good Health. It seemed like a highly appropriate place to attend Mass for us at present and it was an intimate affair with only about 10 of us in the congregation. Mass was proceeded by Organ vespers, and the beautiful music transported my weary self to another place. Mass over, we hopped back on the waterbus to Rialto, but decided to swap there as this particular vaporetto had a real problem and was making a shocking noise and smell!! We went all the way back to the railway before finding somewhere for dinner. As we had not yet sampled genuine Italian spaghetti and gnocchi we shared 4 cheese gnocchi and pesto spaghetti!! Yum. And you don’t get any prizes for guessing what was for dessert. Yummy gelato of course! A mooch around the laneways and shops and it was time to board the train back to Florence and to sit and reflect on what a fabulous time we had shared in vivacious Venezia!!! We even caught a Venitian sunset on the way back to Tuscany. What a bonus.