Day 2 Venice

Woke up and headed into Venice, which is a town that formed on a series of mangrove islands in a massive bay shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire. Venice, known to everyone as the city of love, (Casa Nova’s hometown where he seduced Nuns) served as Italy’s major sea route connecting the Middle East & the Orient with north & central Europe. Known for centuries as the most prosperous city of Europe, he amount of trade $$$ that moved through this port over the Middle Ages was enough to make even its most well traveled son Marco Polo’s head spin.

As the city is made up of a little over 100 some different islands, this is the reason for its various canals. Traditionally Venice has rarely been under Italian authority, having actually belonged to the Eastern Roman Empire, and also prided itself on being a functioning democracy modeled after Rome’s old republic up until the formation of the Italian State. The city was hit hard by the Black Death of the 13^th century, and never really recovered to its former glory once the age of Exploration & the New World had discovered faster and more profitable trade routes around the world.

Venice property which is limited tends to be very extremely expensive to live on, so many of its inhabitants show up on boats in the morning, open their shops and then leave the city by sunset. Our guide told us there are like 60,000 human inhabitants, and something like 200,000 pigeons, which are seemingly everywhere, in fact they are so tame that they land on your arm or hand expecting a hand out. Here we see them landing on my students who started to feed them, causing a virtual pigeon storm to ensue.

This poor little girl got totally mobbed by a flock of hungry pigeons. Once they see that you have food, they swarm. This dude also got mobbed, so I thought I'd put his pic in too.

We took a 30 minute shuttle ride out to the islands from the mainland. The boat company got its signals crossed and Theo almost blew a gasket trying to convince the Italians that it was a paperwork mistake. Theo prevailed and we got another boat otherwise we would have seen Venice from a very long distance. Theo (Greek) later informed us that overall dealings with Italian bureaucracy is what makes him crazy sometimes. Just another shot of Gondola workers sweating in the hot sun.

We had the entire day to walk the streets, bridges and stroll along canals which availed interesting crooks and side streets with various shops. Some of the kids went on Gondola rides, 6 per boat at 20 Euro each. Some of us opted not to do this, but instead took pics of the kids going up and down the canals.

After viewing a glass making shop an EF tours cooperative, which of course made the obligatory gift shop stop, we were getting pretty hungry so we found a great sidewalk café where Stacie, Meer and I all sat down and enjoyed a nice lunch. Meer got Pizza, which seemed quite soggy but tasted ok, while Stacie and I had some pretty decent Pesto and a glass of wine.

Our walking tour was something of a failure, as the portable speaker/microphone devices that most guides use (Called ‘whisper’s) failed to transmit, so we were unable to hear half of what the guide was telling us. When we told her to speak louder or turn around, she all but ignored us. (We gave her a poor evaluation of course)

Doges Palace (Doge = Duke) was simply amazing, and fully displayed this city's wealth empire, which stretched from Constantinople and highly benefited from the looting and seizing of treasures during the Crusade years. The Doges' palace contained a massive armory, where room after room of paintings, tapestries, weapons (seen here) were simply overwhelming. The Dungeon area was pretty spooky, which was connected by the 'Bridge of Sighs' now being renovated, and didn't allow for a good picture I'm afraid.

Other highlights was strolling in the Plaza San Marco (Big open space), viewing the massive clock (reconstructed in the past 100 yrs due to an earthquake which toppled the original) the multi-domed St. Marks Basilica, Bridge of Sighs, and a massive bell tower which gave me the chance to get some great panoramic views around the city.

By sunset, our ferry showed up 1 hr late, but not after the kids got to put their feet in the Adriatic off the peer. Rode back to the hotel to rest up after a very busy (walking) day.