Venice, Italy - Day 53 and 54

Early this morning, our ship arrived in Venice, passing Piazza San Marco and the Doge’s Palace. We docked at San Basilio on the Guidecca Canal which is a little bit closer to the main part of town compared to where the other cruise ships dock.

Right down the street was a vaporetto stop, so we caught the public water taxi and headed towards the Doge’s Palace. What an incredible place. The rooms are immense and we enjoyed the rich commentary our audio guide provided. On the outside of the palace, the Bridge of Sighs which connects the palace to the prisons is covered in a billboard since it is under restoration. However, as part of the tour, you actually get to go inside the bridge and cross over to the prisons.

We headed out of the palace to go to the Basilica San Marco but quickly changed our minds when we saw the immense line for tickets. We decided instead to wander the narrow shopping streets on our way over to the Rialto Bridge. The amount of tourists in this city is overwhelming! I think that at least seven cruise ships were docked plus the thousands of people who come in on land tours. Once at the bridge, we shouldered our way to the edge, took the requisite photos and got out of there. We rented a private water taxi to take us the island of Murano. It was beautiful and peaceful navigating the narrow canals going under little bridges in a highly varnished wood boat.

We docked in Murano at the Signoretti glass factory where we were shown how the Murano glass is made. Then they take you up to the glass showrooms where it looks like an aircraft carrier filled with the most wonderful colors and shapes of glass. Jeff bought a horse, of course, and then we headed to the main streets of Murano to stroll the narrow streets perched alongside a canal.

After catching a water taxi back to Piazza San Marco, we sat in the piazza at Caffe Florian having pastry and cappuccino while watching the tourists and pigeons pass by. There was a little band playing schmaltzy Italian songs and when we got our bill it included a 6 euro charge each for music!

We headed out of the piazza to stroll over to the opera house. The area around La Fenice is filled with nice stores and you could get lost for hours if you didn’t have a set plan. We slowly found our way across the hard-to-find pedestrian bridges to get us off San Marco Island and onto the Dorsoduro where our ship was docked. We were successful and collapsed in our staterooms for the day. We were supposed to head back out for dinner in the city but our legs just won’t move, so we ate on the ship and went to bed early.

It was a wonderful day but the competition for space at the main attractions is extremely draining.

The next day we went to Ca’ Rezzonico, a Baroque palace with ceiling frescoes by Tiepolo, which now houses Venice’s 18th century period pieces collected from all over the city. The furniture and porcelain was incredible as were the views on to the Grand Canal. There was a city-wide regatta going on through the Grand Canal, so getting across the canal was problematic since no water taxis were running and there are only a few pedestrian bridges which were quite far away. An old Italian man took pity on us as we waited for the water taxi and he kept saying “no, no, no.” We finally realized that there would be no water taxi but noticed that up the canal, you could cross by public gondola. This requires a whole bunch of people walking on to a narrow gondola, most of us standing up, and being propelled across the Grand Canal rocking from side-to-side from the wake of other boats. It worked and no one got wet or fell out. We had lunch at a little café and then headed back to the ship since we were sailing at 2:00pm. As we left Venice, our cruise ship passed Piazza San Marco out its way out to sea giving another memorable view of the city.

While this is a remarkable city, I’m not sure we would ever purposefully come back because of the extreme overcrowding. But it is beautiful and should be experienced at least once in your life.