Day Three (Afternoon/Night Three, actually)—October 2, 2007
Venice is actually made up of several small islands huddled closely together. The Venetian Lagoon receives some of its water from the Adriatic Sea, but it also receives a lot of other things, since basically its an open sewer, and has been for hundreds and hundreds of years. Evidently there have been recent efforts to clean up the lagoon, since it really didn’t smell as bad as I thought it would. It’s probably no dirtier than any other recreational lake in these here United States, but it certainly has a more exotic pedigree, what with being associated with Venice and all.
It was mid to late afternoon by the time we got to the docks for our Authentic Venetian Gondola Ride. But not just an Authentic Venetian Gondola Ride, a Serenaded Authentic Venetian Gondola Ride.
Yes, “Volare” was played again.
Now, a part of my past that I’m not too proud of includes working for a number of years at Disneyland, and it has changed me in…certain ways. Some scars just don’t heal, after all, and the more touristy something is the more it tends to make my soul twitch.
So, we are talking about not only a touristy gondola ride, but a super-touristy serenaded gondola ride.
My Mom was tickled pink by the whole idea.
Each gondola could hold 6 passengers, plus the gondolier, and we ended up in the first gondola. The singing gondolier and accordion player ended up in either the second or third gondola. The gondolas were spaced apart far enough that we couldn’t hear the music all the time, but those snippets of “Volare” came through loud and clear.
Before climbing into the gondola, cameras were passed around because, you know, gondolas! This was a pure tourist moment, so a picture naturally must be taken. My idea was to take a picture of the woman taking the picture of me and my Mom as she was taking our picture, but everybody was aghast at the very thought. I thought it would have made for an interesting picture, but since I don’t have Mr. Fantastic’s rubber arms I couldn’t take the kind of picture I wanted myself…pah.
Now, as mentioned above, I have a bit of a Disneyland past, and that’s kind of what the gondola ride reminded me of; kind of a bit like the Pirates of the Caribbean, except, you know, without the pirates and stuff. What I mean is the vibe I got was of the kind of craftsmanship Disneyland would have put into a gondola ride if they had a gondola ride. The ride did bring back a bit of that old sense of wonder I had before Disneyland tore it out of me, but at the back of my mind I couldn’t help myself and it was all I could do to keep from saying something about how you couldn’t even feel the underwater track the gondola was riding along.
While riding along, you could see how the Venetians who actually live in Venice pretty much have to move around (personal little power boats). As it was late afternoon, Venetians were probably going home for the night, so this was probably the equivalent of rush hour. So, gondolas aren’t the only watercraft in Venice’s smaller canals, and we learned firsthand just how tricky it could be to squeeze past some of these other boats in the smaller canals. At one point there was a boat tied off, blocking more than half of the canal we were in. Words were passed between our gondolier and some of the guys on that boat, but they couldn’t move it and we couldn't back up. So, our gondolier had no choice but to slooooooowly squeeeeeeeeeze past the boat…he did an admirable job of it, too. Once we made it past this bottleneck, we were pretty much on our way into the Grand Canal. This portion of the Grand Canal looked about as wide as the portion of the Ohio River I can see from outside my office.
We ended our gondola ride at a small pier, and the look of glowing happiness on my Mom’s face as she finally got her gondola ride…man, I should’ve taken a picture. And the fact that we didn’t fall into the Venetian Lagoon…well, that brought a look of glowing happiness to my face.
Now, I have short little arms to compliment my short little legs, and some of the alleyways we walked down on our way to St. Mark’s Square were really no wider than my arm span. I know spaces seem a lot smaller in the Old Country...no, scratch that. Spaces are a lot smaller there, since a lot more has to be fit in.
During our mini-walking tour to St. Mark’s Square, we got a chance to see the outside of La Fenice opera house as well as one of Venice’s four or so leaning towers (they don’t lean as badly as Pisa’s…I think Pisa’s leans over about 5 meters whereas Venice’s lean over 2 to 3 meters). While we didn’t get a chance to go inside La Fenice, you could hear a soprano and tenor practicing…quite nice.
But, finally, we ended up in the deep black tourist heart of Venice known as St. Mark’s Square.
One word: Pigeons.
Another word: Whoa.
St. Mark’s Square was fairly empty when we saw it (it was late afternoon/early evening by this time…not far off from twilight), but you could still see the sun shining on St. Mark’s Basilica, the Byzantine behemoth of Venice. As I didn’t have my handy dandy compass with me, I can only say that St. Mark’s Basilica was directly in front of me; the Campanile was just to the left and in front of St. Mark’s Basilica; and the Doge’s Palace was just to the left of St. Mark’s Basilica, with the Venetian Lagoon off to the far right of everything. (Yes, I know that doesn’t paint a very clear geographic picture, but I was still twitterpated from jetlag and a touch of a hangover.)
Battling our way through the pigeon horde, we ended up at an open air café facing the Doge’s Palace. (I do believe an instrumental version of “Volare” was playing.) This is where we would be having an apéritif of either a pinot bianco or merlot (both Venetian regional wines) or any soft drink of your choice…as I was still slightly hungover I opted for a Coke Lite. I kind of wish I’d tried one of the wines, though, since practically everybody who tried them said they were absolutely delicious.
We had a brief rest stop at this café before we were scheduled for our water taxi ride on the Grand Canal, so we had just a little time to take a quick look around St. Mark’s Square. While sitting at the café, the Doge’s Palace was directly in front of us, St. Mark’s Basilica was to our left, the Campanile was to our left and across from St. Mark’s Basilica, and the Grand Canal was directly to our right. Also directly to our right were two tall columns. One is St. Mark’s Tower, and the other is St. Theodore’s Tower. St. Mark’s Tower is topped by a winged lion; St. Mark is Venice’s patron saint, and the lion is associated with him, so several building façades in Venice feature winged lions. St. Theodore’s Tower features St. Theodore standing on top of a crocodile (man, there has to be an easier way to get alligator-skin boots). I don’t think we were told St. Theodore’s story, but, man, he was crushing a big ol’ croc under his feet, so I thought his tower was a lot more impressive than St. Mark’s (and, no, size doesn’t matter).
As it was getting dark, it was time for our water taxi ride along the Grand Canal (which would take us back to our bus). It was an open air water taxi, but it was already a little too dark by the time we reached (and passed under) the Rialto Bridge. I didn’t get a decent picture of the Rialto Bridge, and our tour schedule didn’t leave time for a trip to it.
We ended the night with another pasta dinner at the hotel, and another night of solid sleep was in store for me, with only the occasional feeling of being tossed about by waves (I’ve never been good at getting my sea legs).
Venice photos, baby; dig ‘em.
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