Friday 2 July 2003. An exciting day! We have our usual early morning stroll around Riva and then wait for the Leger coach to pick us up and away we go to spend a day in Venice.
It is a journey of two parts. Here we had just got off a water bus along the shoreline of the Venetian Lagoon. In the afternoon we would be having a swift sail on the lagoon.
However the coach has had to drop us off at the far end of the lagoon because Venice is made up of a group of islands and your standard Leger coach doesn't travel over water so well. We were dropped off here in an industrial bit, with a train of tankers chugging slowly down the side of the road. On the edge of the lake a water bus picked us up to take us onwards to Venice's main island which include's St Marks Square and basilica, the Doges Palace, the Bridge of Sighs and the Rialto Bridge.
Some of the gang waiting for the water bus to pick us up. Kell, Denise, Andy, Margaret and Miss Franny.
We walked as a large group from the water bus to St Marks Square. Our excursion included a gondola ride and so it was as well to do it first thing whilst we were all together as a group before we all split up to explore Venice independently.
In 2003 to hire a gondola was roughly seventy two pounds and they can sit up to six people. So we were to make sure we filled all the seats or we would have been charged more.
With the two of us were Kell and Denise, the chap with the crew-cut hairstyle was Terry and taking the photo was another chap who I think may have been called Jack... It's a while ago...
The Gondolier has a single long oar or paddle and stands on a board platform at the rear of the gondola on a piece of carpet to protect the board. The gondolas are expensive bits of kit and contained something like 22 different kinds of wood and several different kinds of metal. They cost something approaching the same as a top of the range car. Currrently around 40,000 Euros in 2023. We'll see the Bridge of Sighs again in a bit.
Every bridge over the canals was jammed with people watching the gondolas. Not much chance of a crafty cuddle with your partner of choice unless you are a bit of an exhibitionist... Oh wait... that's me...!
The ride on the gondola took half an hour and then we all split up once back at St Marks Square to do our own thing before meeting once again at the boat station further down the lagoon shore for our trip on the lagoon that would finish back at the coach.
We dived into the streets as the crowds in the square were such that we had no chance of waiting to go into the basilica. We found a small pizzeria. By now my Italian was improved enough to order food without having to hope the waiters spoke English! Not that Pizza Margherita is all that different in Italian but...
Venice is a great place for window shopping and art and crafts shops are everywhere. From the famous Murano glassware to carnival masks, paintings to calligraphy pens, you can't go wrong. It is not however a cheap place to pick up your souvenirs. If a bit of pottery or glassware has no price on it then it's safest to assume your pockets are not deep enough!
And occasionally a street comes to a bridge and the only thing over the bridge is the entrance to a shop!
It was getting time to start thinking about going back towards our meeting place. We hadn't looked around St Marks Square and that was a must before we had to go to meet the rest of the party. Miss Franny didn't want to look at the shops in the arcades that extend around three sides of the square, but I insisted...
She found a tea set she liked. It had no price but those glasses on the left were 80 euros each. I stifled a nervous laugh and said Oh look over there!" and neatly steered her away. "I didn't want them..." she said in an annoyed tone, whilst looking wistfully back over her shoulder...
Looking from the far end of St Marks Square back at the basilica and the free-standing bell tower or campanile. This latter stands 98.6 metres tall (323.5 feet) and is a brick tower topped with a pyramid shaped copper-covered spire atop of which is a spinning representation of the Archangel Gabriel in flight which acts as a weathervane. It stands on Roman foundations, and dates from the 12th century CE. Much work was done to it until it was rebuilt entirely in the 16th century.
After centuries of both lightning and earthquakes it collapsed in 1902. Luckily it fell away from the basilica. It was rebuilt to look exactly the same as before, though the interior was subject to more rigorous safety standards. It was opened once more in 1912.
The Doges Palace sits on the corner of the square and the lagoon. Instantly recogniseable with its pink diamond decoration. The Doges were the leaders of Venice. Before the unification of Italy Venice was a nation in its own right and an extensive one, having made its mark bringing many of the territories in the Adriatic and Mediterranean under its rule. You will still find the winged lion of Venice in many cities in the Eastern Mediterranean today from Croatia to Cyprus. The Doge was the highest authority. The word in Latin would be Dux meaning leader, the same root as the English Duke.
On the right hand side of the palace is the Bridge of Sighs. Built from 1600 CE, it was a route from the courts of the Doges Palace to the prison. The name comes from the legend that prisoners would take their last look at the outside world from its shuttered windows and sigh... Another legend is that if you kiss your sweetheart whilst passing under it in a gondola at sunset you will be granted eternal love. I'm not sure if that is meant to be with the person you just kissed or not...
For a giggle, I looked up the latest reviews of the Bridge of Sighs. These were the top three: "It's a well-known location and many people take photographs there" and "Enjoyed every bit of the sights" and my favourite: "I ordered lobster and filet steak"... Wow, you guys should really take up writing tour guides...
The annual Venice Carnival is a riot of fantastic costumes and masks and takes place late January to mid February (it ends on Shrove Tuesday). It ran for centuries untl 1797 when it was banned by the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II. It was started again in 1979.
A row of stalls between St Mark's Square and the water buses on the lagoon, offer a variety of souvenirs. We had ample time to stroll back along them on our way to the meeting place and around us we recognised some of our fellow travellers doing the same. Our guide (it was Lucille once again from Bolzano and Renon) took over the microphone on the boat and gave a really good commentary.
The temperature was well over 40 degrees centigrade. It was warm out there! After a quick tour of the lagoon the charter took us back to the industrial estate where we had left the coach. One chap got seperated from his family and we had to wait whilst he found us...
In the next article, mountains, cable cars, and an old friend from Amsterdam!
