Our plans today had to change a bit as early last week while we were in Rome, Adrienne received an email cancelling one of our activities.
We had booked an early morning walking tour with a local photographer which would double as a bit of a photography lesson and take us to some of the lesser known photogenic spots. Adrienne had found this ages ago and the guy’s website and TripAdvisor rated it highly. I might be wrong but I am a bit sceptical that he was double booked or had something else come up or a better offer and that’s why he cancelled. Adrienne emailed him a while before our trip about payment. He emailed back to say not to worry “just in case we needed to cancel”. Then came his email last week that he injured himself and would not be able to get around easily with all the bridges and steps and therefore would have to cancel.
Oh well, it turned out to be a very cloudy day anyway and so we made our own plans.
Off on a gondola ride
With the weather forecast for the next few days indicating it will be getting worse – and most likely wet – we decided to tick off Adrienne’s “bucket list” items for Venice.
So first thing we booked a gondola ride. We were collected from our hotel and had to walk across another canal boat which was making deliveries at the dock to get onto it. For 35 minutes or so, we weaved in and out of the small canals in a U shape from our hotel, out to the grand canal – which was petty choppy when we got there – and back under the Bridge of Sighs to be dropped near our hotel again.
It was “high tide” so the water level in the canals meant our gondolier had to duck a lot under the bridges and at one point we had to slide all our weight to one side so the point of the boat wouldn’t scrape the bridge – looking at the bottom of some of the bridges, quite a few had ! And many of the buildings we passed had the water lapping at their steps ! We have also noticed in lots of places the raised walkways they put down when the “aqua alte” comes were out and ready for when the high water came.
Our gondolier was a friendly guy and pointed out a few features to us – the house where Marco Polo’s family lived, the only Greek Orthodox church in Venice (there are apparently 118 churches in Venice – this Greek Orthodox one, a Protestant one and all the rest Catholic). We will also feature in many happy snaps and videos all over the world now as at every bridge we went under, there were numerous people taking shots or our gondola !
Rialto Bridge
After being dropped off, we did another of Adrienne’s walking tours heading over to, and across, the Rialto Bridge to the canal near the railway station where we would board a special vaparetto (water bus) tour which would take us around most of the grand canal and back to St Marks near our hotel. When we got to St Marks, we actually went on across the main canal to St Giorgio Maggiore. This church has a bell tower you can take a lift to the top in and get a grand view of Venice. It was excellent as it really gave you a better layout and perspective of the island and surrounding area which you just don’t get from being on the ground.
Looking back to the crowds in St Marks Square from St Giogio Maggiore
From here we took a normal vaparetto back across the main canal to St Marks and set about finding a nice little place for lunch. It was very cold today – Adrienne had to buy a scarf (any excuse you say ?) and I ended up buying a long sleeve polo as I only had a short sleeved shirt. Most of the tourists were rugged up in heavy coats and jackets. With the cold weather, all the outside seating at the restaurants was available but the insides were full. We ended up finding a place called the Conco D’oro where we could get a seat inside and it was a good day for a hot pasta – Adrienne had lasagna and I had spaghetti carbonara – both very yummy !
After lunch we headed back toward the grand canal, but in a different direction, to the Academia Bridge. If you have seen pictures of the canals of Venice it is pretty likely one of those has been along the canal from this bridge to the dome of Santa Maria del Salute.
Most expensive coffee EVER !
Then it was back to St Marks Square for another of Adrienne’s must do’s – sit in a cafe on the square, watch the crowds in the square and listen to the orchestra play. There are about 4 cafes which have their tables set out on the edge of the square and also have an orchestra playing to their customers – as well as everyone else in the square of course. But for the privilege of actually sitting at a table you pay a fortune for a cup of coffee – 20 Euro for a hot chocolate and an espresso coffee – oh and they throw in half a glass of water ! AND we got a dud orchestra – in the half hour or so we sat (I was getting my money worth !) we only got 2 songs from our orchestra while the next one along seemed to get a whole concert worth ! Luckily we could hear them as well ! I must admit it was amusing watching the crowd as you could see and hear the following played out in various languages – male/female partner waving a map in front of the other and pointing vigourously – not quite shouting but close – something like ” I told you we should have gone this way !! Why didn’t you listen !! Now we are back where we started !! Sound familiar ?
The coffee spot opposition
After our entertainment we headed back to the hotel but first ventured a bit beyond it into new territory to see if we could spot somewhere cosy for dinner. We found a little place where the guy tried to coax us in straight away but we asked him if we could book for 7.30. He took our name, said he would go inside and write it down, informed us they would get very busy – I think he may have doubted us coming back as they seem to spend a lot of their time trying to get the passing trade in to their establishments and get a lot of “we’ll come back later”. But we did go back and he greeted us as long lost friends and he did have a card on a table for us and we had a very tasty meal. When we had been their he had pointed out the fresh porcini mushrooms he had and he said he could do them any way we liked so we got him to do a mushroom risotto and it was excellent. We also shared bruschetta again – we hadn’t seen it as much in the northern parts – and it too, done with herbs and olives, was also excellent.
Night time on the waterfront
We wandered down to the grand canal again to get some night shots before heading back. Our turn down service had been and left us lollies and a little card with tomorrow’s weather forecast – wet I’m afraid so we will be doing the museums to keep out of the rain, but probably with all the other tourists with the same idea !
I have finally been able to add more recent pictures in Skydrive as well tonight.