Venice is beautiful, sunny but slightly chilly....gorgeous weather. The boat is a speedboat, wow...we hop aboard and soon we are off. Venice has a marked waterway with buoys bordering the path; we pass several ACTV boats heading to the mainland and the airport. The Belgian couple are very friendly and have been here before and we chat as the boat courses across the water. Soon we are in the famous Grand Canal and look in awe at the buildings bordering the canal, I have to say they look better in movies...in real life most of them look quite decrepit, you can see the toll the water has taken on the structures, most are undergoing repair work or are in serious need of some repairs. We pass some gondolas in the water with the ubiquitous gondoliers in their trademark costumes. The boat ride takes around 30 minutes to reach our destination.
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| Gondolas tied up with Rialto Bridge in the background |
The boatman decides to drop us first at the Rialto Bridge; we are all excited at our first look of the famous bridge. He gives us a map showing the path we have to take to reach our hotel – the Scandanavia. I had a handbag and a large strolley suitcase weighing around 11Kgs and Mansi had a backpack and a large strolley suitcase again with over 10 kg in weight. I had an empty back pack in my suitcase which I intended to use on our day trips. We lug our suitcases across the staircase adjoining the Rialto Bridge and Mansi discovers that the handle of her strolley is stuck and she can’t open it...oho, after multiple pulls I try and lo it opens...we decide not to push it back in as its difficult to pick up her huge American tourister suitcase. We are lost on reaching the first plaza with a statue, as our map shows the streets but they don't match where we are. We can't figure out which street to take as there are many going in all directions.
We ask a couple of shop keepers and are guided all over the place and land up going down a couple of wrong streets....finally we back track to the plaza and are lucky to meet a shop keeper who comes out of his shop to show us the small narrow alley we should have taken.
After voicing our thanks we meander down the dark looking alley which soon opens up to a bridge, we make our way across and down the road to another plaza....again we are stumped...go straight or take one of the turns. Now we are told to keep going till we hit the Co-op store, so off we go with luggage in tow down the road, it’s around 10-15 minutes of walking when we finally spot the supermarket Co-op on a corner and head down the lane which again looks kind of narrow. Another bridge and just across the bridge is a huge plaza with a church on one corner and several cafes surrounding the plaza. We can spot our hotel right in the centre across the plaza...finally.
We are both hungry, having had our last meal on board the plane several hours earlier. Luckily for us they let us check in early, it’s just going on 11. The hotel building looks quite old but is well maintained and nicely furnished, there is a dining room just to the left of the entrance lobby. Our room is on the second floor, no lift, the bellboy lugs the suitcases upstairs and we follow. The room is beautiful, not too big with bright yellow walls, wooden furniture, a nice clean and modern bathroom and two huge windows opening into the back alleys of Venice.
We immediately plonk our passports and other travel documents into the safe and decide to take a shower and rest a bit before we head out. I am tired after lugging my luggage through the streets of Venice. Of course the shower doesn’t seem to run any hot water, I try both taps no luck, then realize I don’t know how to call the reception desk, there is no data sheet in the room. Looking outside in the corridor I spot a woman cleaning one of the neighbouring rooms, she comes in and asks me to wait a while and suddenly we have hot water. It just takes me a while to adjust the water pressure as the shower is new. After my shower I look around for water bottles to find none in our room; we aren’t carrying any except the empty bottle I carried from Mumbai to refill. There are water glasses in the bathroom so we presume the tap water has to be potable. I just fill my bottle with it and carry it for us to drink. Attired in light sweaters as it’s a bit chilly even in the afternoon we head off for our first attraction.
We have booked a St Marks Basilica tour with their official website and have to meet with the tour guide by 1.30pm. We decide to grab something to eat like a sandwich and walk to St Marks Square. We head back the way we came as we had spotted some nice cafes on our way in, choose our sandwiches, bacon and cheese for me, veg for Mansi and a couple of tarts which look delicious in the case. The shopkeeper asks us if we want to sit and we think why not, Mansi picks out a table for us and I go in to pay. She says its 36 Euros and I almost faint, our items shouldn’t cost more than 10-12 Euros so why so much...to sit and eat apparently...it’s almost 3 times the cost of the food!
I rush out and tell Mansi collect our things, we will walk and eat. Come back in, pay 12.76 Euros and pick up the heated sandwiches and tarts in paper bags. Walking down the street we realize its cumbersome managing our bags and trying to eat...so we walk towards our hotel and sit on the chairs and tables set outside and finally manage to eat our food. I pop in and ask our concierge on the quickest way to reach St Marks Basilica and he tells me it’s just 10 minutes away. We follow his instructions and walk around the church across the bridge and down the alleys to find streets with markings on them showing the way to Rialto and St Marks Square ....so simple...these are all over Venice, making navigation much simpler. If you are lost just keep walking till you find one of these signs on a building and make your way to something you recognize.
Soon we were in St Marks Square along with it seemed like thousands of others with the same idea. My first view of the square is its size, it’s one of the biggest and most beautiful open spaces I have ever seen and can understand why it’s called “Europe’s Drawing Room”.
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| St Marks Square with the Doges Palace |
We quickly spot our contact at the desk next to the entrance, very convenient. She told us our guide was running a little late so we would have to wait and it was just us on this particular tour. She asked Mansi to drop off her backpack at the Left Luggage counter building across the square, so we did that. He told us it’s free for only an hour, after that they charge.
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| St Marks Basilica with the "Fake"horses on display |
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| St Marks Basilica |
St Marks Basilica is a beautiful structure on the outside; it’s huge and dominates one end of the square with the Doge’s Palace on the opposite side and the campanile on one corner just across from the Basilica. There were hordes of tourists taking pictures with the Basilica in the background and of the square.
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| Doges Palace |
Standing just off from the entrance we chatted with the guide who pointed out interesting attractions like the St Marks clock just to the left of the Basilica in the clock tower. It’s a beautiful astronomical clock which has two bronze figures of shepherds who ring the bell with hammers at noon every day; sadly we missed watching that spectacle on both the days we were in Venice. Entrance to the Basilica is free but you can only spend around 10-15 minutes inside and there is usually a huge queue winding its way down the square, where waiting period can be anything from 30 minutes upwards. We could see a hundred or so queued up already. Entrance to the museum, the treasury and other parts of the basilica are ticketed and getting one online is far easier than picking one up on arrival.
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| St Marks Clock Tower which rings at noon everyday |
We headed into the Basilica with our guide who took us straight up the staircase to the first floor and into the Museum. From there we stood overlooking the chapel as she explained the history of the Basilica, the beautiful mosaics on the cupola and how we could identify the various works done by famous painters. She took us through the mosaic studio explaining the process used for restoration of the mosaics and the meaning behind the famous mosaics displayed in the museum. Then we went to the Sala Dei Banchetti which holds the antique fabrics collection of the museum, she explained the various frescoes on display and the various Flemish tapestries on display. We viewed the five carpets of the Doges which are still amazing, made of silk and brocade with colourful embroidery of gold and silver. All of these showcase the wealth of Venice to this day.
Then we went on to view the glorious St Marks Horses, these four horses are made of some mysterious alloy of copper and were supposedly stolen by the Venetians from Constantinople, the ones on the outside of the Basilica are reproductions. To this day the original look magnificent!
I can only imagine the trouble taken to transport these massive figures all the way to Venice. Sadly photography is not permitted inside the basilica so you have to visit Venice, to view these beautiful objects.
We then wandered around a bit on our own onto the balcony and took amazing pictures of the square, the bay with the isle on the opposite side and the Piazzetta with the two columns on both sides one having the lion of Venice and the other the patron saint of Venice – St Theodore. Our guide had told us to visit the island opposite the Square – it’s called San Giorgia Maggiore and has a church with a bell tower (campanile) from where we can get some gorgeous views of Venice.
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| Piazetta with the Lion of Venice and St Theodore from the first floor of St Marks Basilica |
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| St Marks Basilica Facade |
Mansi wanted to go up to the St Marks Campanile and I decided to rest a bit on one of the brick seats of the loggetta at the base of the campanile. I enjoyed just taking in the plaza and the various groups of tourists who were from all over the world. There were some married couples in their wedding finery taking pictures in front of the Basilica including some from South East Asia with parents and grandparents in tow. They did get some amused glances from others in the square.
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| St Marks Campanile (Bell Tower) |
She returned a bit later with amazing pictures from the bell tower and we decided to venture along the pier. We took a vaporetto across to San Giorgia Maggiore island which has a bautiful white stone church, we took the lift to the bell tower and proceeded to take some panoramic pictures of Venice and the lagoon. Everyone in the tower was doing the same....soon we tired of the views and headed back down.
All relaxed we decided to head back to the mainland and walk back towards Rialto for dinner, we chose a restaurant close to our hotel for dinner, they had a cute little garden restaurant at the back with tiny clustered tables most of which were filled with tourists. Since it was quite chilly we decided to have some red wine for dinner and split the table wine carafe between us, I had chicken pasta and Mansi chose a vegetarian version. The serving was huge and they gave us bread to nibble with the meal. We wandered around a bit and had our first gelato, chocolate for me. I was feeling tired and it wasn’t even dark yet, just around 8pm. Mansi decided to walk back to St. Marks Square to take some pictures of the square as it grew dark. I headed back to the hotel to rest and wait for her as we had just one key to our room, an old fashioned metal one at that.
She came back a few hours later with wonderful stories of dancing couples, romantic music and lights in the cafes in the square, with some memorable moments captured on film and in her heart. She lost her way on her return but was guided to the hotel by a kind old Venetian resident. I promised her I would accompany her tomorrow to take in the plaza at sunset.
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