Il Viaggio di Marco a Italia

Ahhh, Venice

25 Luglio 2005
Monday (lunedi') was a travel day. We returned our rental car (sounds easy huh?) and took the train from Firenze to Venezia. I dropped off Dana and Megan at the train station so they wouldn't have to carry their bags to the train station. Oops. The rental car return is three blocks away, but down the wrong way on a one way street. So, 35 frustrating minutes later, I'm finally walking to the train station after getting the tour of Florence's pedestrian district in my car.

We arrived in Venice and checked into the hotel. Dana did all the work getting us from the train station to the hotel: maps, valporetto (water taxi) tickets, navigating the streets of Venice. She did a great job. Then we went to dinner. Now it was Megan's turn to find the dinner locale. I picked the restaurant, a cute little hole-in-the-wall called Vino Vino. Of course, it was nowhere near the hotel so she had a bit of navigating to do as well. Unfortunately, we hit the No dinner in Italy between 2:00-6:30pm rule. Silly Americans trying to eat in the middle of the day.

So we ended up at a pizzeria just off the Grand Canal. I really wanted a nice dinner, but at least we had a nice view of the Santa Maria Della Salute
and the Grand Canal

After dinner, we wondered around the many shops of Venice. Venice is known for its shopping: lace, Murano glass, silk, and leather, and of course, women's purses.


A Tie Shop In Venice (note the reflection of St's Mark's Square)

A Lace Shop In Venice (note the reflection of St's Mark's Square)
We spent three days in Venice wondering around looking at all the sites. Dana and Megan went to the beach one day. I went off to the Il Biennale - a contemporay art show that happens once every two years. It's like a World's Fair with each country setting up a pavillion of art. The art was a bit modern but it was fun to see it all. The show actually spans the entire city (some of the art is very large), so we were constantly seeing examples of it as we walked around.

In one pavillion was an exhibit called "Treehouse And A Ten Minute Video".


The video was an Israeli man converting the treehouse into furniture. This is the last frame of it. You can see the man sleeping in the bunk.

I got up and ran 7-8 miles around Venice both mornings we were there. I did see lots of bridges but no Julia Roberts. If you don't get this, you need to go rent Everyone Says I Love You - a hysterically funny, very well-done romantic comedy. Don't let Woody Allen throw you. He's quite palatable in this one and gets quite a bit of help from Julia Roberts, Goldie Hawn, Alan Alda, and a host of others.

This cracks me up. St Mark is the patron saint of Venice. Seems the Venetians went to Alexandria in 828 and stole his body from there because they needed a patron saint. Then they proceeded to build a huge basilica in his honor and put him in it. Lastly, they filled the city with the symbol of St. Mark (the winged lion). There are over 200 images of lions in and around St. Mark's square and countless more lions around the city.

Dante spent some time in Venice. His bust adourns the Arsenale in Venice. I'm not sure why. In his honour, I am now reading The Inferno. Quite the uplifting book.

Dana and Megan left on Thursday, 28 Luglio 2005 from Marco Polo airport in Venice and I hopped on a bus, and then a train and headed for Torino to visit some contra dancing friends there for the weekend.

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