Final Two Days in Venice

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent wandering through Venice, seeing things we had yet to see but with no set agenda or time table. Tuesday's main objective was to do the walk from the Rialto Bridge to Frari Church and see both the inside of the church and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco next door.  On Monday we had bought a 72-hour vaporetto pass to give us the freedom to travel - but on Tuesday, we did the entire day on foot!  If only I had known that would be the case...



We made sandwiches at home and brought them into Venice to have a picnic - my favorite kind of lunch.  We found a store on a little square and had lunch there.  Then continued walking all the way to the Rialto Bridge only to come back in the same direction following Rick Steve's walking tour from the Rialto to the Frari Church, talking us through the fish and fruit market along the way.  Two interesting sites on our walk (besides the girls' favorite candy store) were the steps supported by a marble hunchback leading to a pillar where each day at noon someone would read aloud the daily news from the doge and the sign on the wall by the fish market indicating the minimum size a fish must be to be sold.  (The handwritten part on the bottom referring to penis length was added a later date :-)). 

No trip to Venice is complete without a trip to their favorite
candy store!

The walk ended at the Scuola di San Rocco - sometimes known as Tintoretto's Sistine Chapel. The over 50 paintings on the walls and ceilings reflect this painters personal vision of Christian history.  He was a famous painter in his time but always chose to life in his old Venice neighborhood and did this work practically for free.  The whole project is overwhelmingly massive - he covered 8,500 square feet, compared to the 5,700 square feet of the Sistine Chapel.   I am really glad we got to see it.  We then went inside the Frari Church, a rare Gothic church in Venice, where the great art is hanging where it was designed to be seen, rather in a museum.  


 We were scheduled to have dinner that night in Treviso with the work group again, but everyone decided they were too tired (except us) and cancelled.  Jim had driven to Milan for meetings and was later getting home than he anticipated. The girls went out to get us all pizza and when Jim got home after 9, we ate our pizza while watching Pizza Pizza (ie Mystic Pizza). Did you know that Matt Damon (or as we call him Jason Bourne) was in that movie??  

Wednesday was our final day to make our way to the Treviso train station and wander Venice.  We decided to splurge and get first class train tickets (4.30 euro vs. 2.85 euro) into Venice, but the extra $2 didn't seem to make any difference.  It all seems like luck of the draw which train cars come through...and most have been quite nice even in second class.  The only thing left on my really-want-to-see list was Ca'Rezzonico.  

We made good use of our vaporetto passes by taking our homemade sandwiches back out to the island of Murano - perhaps my favorite place in Venice.  The direct boat from the train station takes under 20 minutes to get to Murano, and for some reason when we got on the boat, we were literally one of about 10 people on it.  Rather than standing toe to toe with tourists on the boat as we had grown accustomed to doing, we had the entire deck to ourselves!  Venice had seemed less crowded this week than prior weeks, but this was very unusual, and very nice! 

To augment our picnic we went into the island's only grocery store and got some chips and milk.  (I am sure I couldn't live on an island with only one grocery store).  We poked in some shops but decided against buying the thing that had motivated our trip to Murano in the first place - a tree that the girls had found and thought I might like (and they were right!). Both girls wanted a Venetian mask as a souvenir and were down to the last day to buy one - Julia found hers in one of the glass shops.   I don't think I would ever get tired of looking at Murano glass but we had to leave if we were to see anything else.  We took the boat back to the first stop in Venice and got off to walk to a vaporetto stop on the other side of the island that would take us more quickly to our Ca'Rezzonico destination...but the walk across the island is not as straight forward as it sounds and while some may say we were "lost" I would say we were exploring, and had the experience of having all of Venice to ourselves (until we turned the corner and found all the people again).  By the time we got to a vaporetto stop (back at the Rialto Bridge again) and Rachel found her souvenir mask we realized that Ca' Rezzonico was closing in about 10 minutes.  So, we ended up leaving some of Venice to be seen on a future trip.  Actually, much of Venice...there is a lot to see!

Murano Glass Sculpture

Not exactly sure where we are, but at least we are all alone

Rachel's mask 

Dad and Daughter Glass Makers

On the way back to the train station, I stopped in the store that sells the water glasses that the restaurnant we went to on Sunday night uses and found that it is a family operation...dad and brother are the artists designing the glass and sister and mom work the shop.  The daughter was lovely to talk to and answered my questions about what it was like to grow up in a place mobbed with tourists (she liked it - found it very cosmopolitan).  Although she can no longer afford to live right in Venice herself (a problem for the younger generation) her family still lives a few blocks from the store.  I loved buying my water glasses directly from them, and am really glad I didn't meet them until the last day in Venice - who knows how much I'd be coming home with if I had met them sooner.

Rachel wasn't feeling well when we got home so Jim and Julia went for a father/daughter dinner, but Rachel soon felt better and we went and found them and wandered the city.  We discovered a place the makes fresh juice (we got a delicious carrot, orange, and apple juice blend) right next to a place with incredible gelato.  I wonder how  many times we will visit those two places before we leave?   Treviso is a lively town at night - even though it was already 10:30 when we found Jim and Julia at dinner, we walked through the live music in the university area and the ballroom dancing on the fish market island, before heading home.