Venice with the Robisons

Gorgeous view of the Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge.

 

Last year’s Europe vacation must have been fun for Cara and Brian because they came back for more! The Robisons planned a dream vacation to Italy and invited us to meet them in Venice for a weekend at the very beginning of their trip. We readily agreed and a few months after making the plans, Chris’ parents booked an early spring trip to see us and also wanted to go to Italy, so after a great visit with them here we took them along to Venice with us! I went to Venice many years ago while on an Italy trip with some friends during optometry school but really felt like I enjoyed the city more this time around; due in part to now having the money to buy that bottle or wine or (3^rdcone of) gelato.

Rialto Bridge is much less crowded by night!

The Grand Canal by night as viewed from our water bus.

Cara really did some great planning for their trip, so Chris and I just went along for the ride. I can’t even express how awesome it was to catch up with them and be led from place to place, utilizing well-researched tricks on how to skip long lines, and being handed Cara’s extra phone with a previously downloaded Rick Steve’s audio guide on whatever we happened to be seeing that moment. I used to put that much effort in to trip planning, but the contrast made me realize how lackadaisical I’ve become over the past year and a half!

We weren’t sure we’d see Chris’ parents much in Venice, so said a big goodbye Friday. Saturday morning our first stop was the absolutely gorgeous St. Mark’s Basilica where we promptly ran into his parents… proving Venice really is quite small, no matter how often you seem to get lost! There was a long line to get into the Basilica, but Cara read to drop our bags off at a nearby church where we were given bag tags that allowed us to walk to the front of the line. Nice! The basilica was built in 1071 and held the body of the Apostle Mark for centuries until the 1960’s (when it was returned to Egypt?). The interior was covered by mosaics and marble, and the roof was lined with little bits of overlying gold foil that “would be equivalent to covering a football field with contact lenses.” We spent a few hours wandering around the beautifully decorated space with Rick Steve and from there took a water bus to get a birds-eye view of Venice from atop the bell tower at the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore on a small island across the lagoon.

 

St. Mark's Basilica.

 

Yeah, we skipped that long line.

Piazza San Marco.

Gondolas protected from the rain that, lucky for us, never came!  Across the water is the belltower of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore.

 

Although I wouldn’t have necessarily planned on spending time at the small church of San Giorgio Maggiore, we really enjoyed all of its paintings by Tintoretto. The paintings and sculptures were really good, and we laughed that there’s so much art in Venice that some amazing stuff gets either completely ignored by the info guides or given unceremoniously short descriptions.

Cara and Brian in front of the Church of St. Maggiore.

Tomb

Tintoretto

With a tiny church so full of big-time art, this meticulously carved wooden choir was lucky to get a one-word description in the guide (see below).

#8 (see above)

Pretty view of Venice from atop the church's belltower. 

Between seeing sights we spent time drinking coffee, eating gelato, and avoiding people.  I made the mistake of looking at something in my hands once and heard Chris say “boom” a millisecond before my right shoulder hit something so hard I spun.  Cara, Brian, and Chris were laughing so hard – apparently a waiter at one of the sidewalks cafes hadn’t been looking either and we clipped each other pretty hard.  Chris SAYS he had just enough time to verbalize the impact without being able to change our inevitable collision.  LOL.

We were rewarded for carrying umbrellas all day (80% chance of showers!) by NO rain! Lunch was at a tiny restaurant next to the fish market. We sat watching the grungy fisherman laughing, drinking white wine, and eating raw prawns. Minus the wine swirling and sushi, we could’ve been anywhere in working America watching a bunch of burly guys share a laugh and drink after a hard days’ labor. The waiter/bartender/owner took our order and strongly suggested we have the remaining delicacy (only on Saturday!) of the raw crustaceans. You’d be wrong to think a past nasty bout of salmonella poisoning would deterred me from such risky behavior… but no. They tasted like lobster covered in good olive oil and lemon. Yum.

Tasted great and the huge bonus of being fresh enough to not induce stomach rage. 

In front of Rialto Bridge.

 

Standing on the Rialto Bridge.

Chris and I tend to avoid churches, museums, and castles since (ah, the history buffs are going to cringe) they seem to run together in our memory now. That said, Venice was the perfect place to break that rule. We thoroughly enjoyed walking through the Venetian churches and admiring the works by (amongst many others): Titian, Tintoretto, Bellini, and Carpaccio, and Donatello.  Venice ruled the seas and was incredibly wealthy and powerful in the 1500’s, coinciding with the Reinessance. There’s literally so much great art from the this time that one of my favorite bits of Venice, the Frari Basilica, wasn’t even mentioned in my guidebook! 

Frari Church (with Titian's Assumption of the Virgin.)

Sunday morning we met Chris’ parents for coffee before they headed off to Rome. Then it was back to the hotel to pack up and then off to tour the Doge’s Palace next to St. Mark’s Basilica with the Robisons. The Doge’s Palace is historically where the ruler of the Republic of Venice lived and where most of Venice’s political activities were handled. The St. Mark’s Square we enjoyed to ourselves earlier that morning had become an absolute mob of people! We’re all tourists, so I’m obviously not complaining about tourism in general, but cruise ships really and truly make a huge impact on the cities in which they dock. Only smaller ships can get to Venice, and even these can let off 5000 people at once, turning the narrow streets into a solid mass of people looking to buy a gelato and snap a few photos of St. Mark’s Square before getting back to the boat.   It’s crazy that only 58,000 people live in Venice but up to 150,000 can visit in a day!  I have zero jealously for any Venetian who actually has to get to work or run errands, and read that the city is dying because so many residents are moving out.  The population has decreased by half in the last 30 years!

Early enough to be peaceful in St. Mark's Square.

Great visit with mom and dad Schmidt! 



Doge's Palace.

 

Inside Doge's Palace (downloaded from noodlesensevilla since we couldn't take photos inside!)  Check out that ceiling!

 

Looking out from the Bridge of Sighs... a criminal's last look at the city before being locked away!

 

Gorgeous view of the Venetian lagoon.

Hey Cara and Brian, let's keep up the trend... see you next year?!

We walked all day Sunday, meandering from one end of the city to the other, stopping to take photos, buy shoes (Chris, not me!) and a carnival mask, and enjoy the typical Italian delights of coffee and gelato.  We also spent an inordinate amount of time looking at seafood in the windows of restaurants since half of it was still alive and the crabs would wander out of place.   All in all, Venice was a perfect spot to spend a weekend with friends and a great way to launch both the Robisons and Schmidts into the next bit of their adventures!

PS: If you are a parent of little children I’d recommend you buy some sort of backpack for them – with its cobblestone and million bridges this city wasn’t built for strollers!