Buongiorno al mare e Venezia!

Another uneventful day at sea has passed – we took advantage of no tours or events onboard and slept in until about 10:30. A good breakfast and excellent workouts followed, and then a little relaxation around the ship until the late afternoon. We played a bit of mini golf and shuffle board on the top deck, until it was too windy to continue, and then got ready for the evening show and dinner. Tonight’s show was a singing/comedy performance by Jordan Bennet, the star of Les Miserables, which was absolutely wonderful. After the show we went up to the lounge to participate in the karaoke competition but unfortunately were unable to get Momma D on the list – next time!
The next morning, our tour of Venice began at 8:30, but we all got up early to sit on our balcony and watch as our ship cruised through the canals to the port. It is absolutely breathtaking and wonderful, and definitely surpasses all explanations of how awesome Venice is and any pictures we have seen. So then our tour began with a boat ride to a small island across from St. Mark’s Square to see the church of San Giorgo Maggiore – absolutely beautiful. Then our boat shuttle took us to the island of Murano, made famous by the beautiful glass that is created there. We got to see two master craftsmen at work in the factory, and then toured the showrooms. I have never seen such beautiful pieces in my life, and for such a price! We contemplated a couple of chandeliers for about 250,000 Euros each (not to mention the outrageous current exchange rate), and Mum had her eye on a couple of glass bowls and dolphins that would go wonderfully in our living room. Unfortunately each piece costs more than 4 years of tuition at UofR, so we proceeded to what they called the “tourist shop” and bought some more reasonably priced and smaller pieces for some friends and as souvenirs. Then we climbed back on the boat and made our way to the Grand Canal where we disembarked to walk to a small pier, where we all boarded gondolas, and had a pleasant ride through some small canals to see houses and hotels, and back down the Grand Canal to finish it off. Marco our gondolier, strongly resembled a pirate, and spent the whole 25 minute ride yelling back and forth with the other gondoliers in our little parade of gondolas. I tried to pick up on what they were saying, and apparently one of the other gondoliers had just gotten out of jail, and this was the main topic of conversation as we tried to enjoy this supposedly romantic tradition. It was pretty cool though and no visit to Venice is complete without a gondola ride, yelling or not.
So then we opted out of transferring back to the boat so early since we are in port for 2 days, and asked our tour guide, beautiful Adriana, for a good local place to eat. She suggested we find Ristorante San Trovaso which was sort of on the way to St. Mark’s Square. So we meandered through the tiny streets, across some bridges, and with the combined power of three brains and three sets of eyes, we finally found this tiny out of the way place that probably hardly ever sees tourists. It was absolutely delicious – we had fish soup (which is more like a bowl of shrimp, clams, oysters, crab, and scampi in a tiny amount of broth), meaty lasagna, oyster spaghetti, shrimp and clam linguini, and some delicious meat dish. Needless to say we were stuffed, and for a decent price got to enjoy a traditional Venetian meal. After this we managed to find our way to the Piazza San Marco, which is the only Piazza in all of Venice – they only have small piazzas, which they call campo, or camponelli. We did some wandering checking out the vendors and souvenirs, and other glass shops. Some friends had recommended that we find Harry’s Bar and have a bellini, so after asking about 5 people where the heck this place was, we finally found it, a little hole in the wall place that seats about 30 people if that, and ordered a bellini. It was, in my opinion, overpriced, small, and very interesting. I couldn’t begin to tell you what was in it, but it was a pinkish purplish color, had a hint of champagne maybe, and some kind of fruit juice was evident by the pulp left in the glass. No idea. So then, having missed our rendezvous with our dinner friends (meeting up in St Mark’s Square is impossible), we went to investigate another suggestions, the Danieli Hotel which was supposed to have a wonderful piano bar. Just our kind of entertainment! Upon entering however we realized we were not properly dressed, and decided to make our way back to the ship for dinner and a long nap.
Our next day in Venice started at 8:45 with our guide, Patrizia, taking us through the Doges’ Palace. A Doge is like a Duke of Venice, and so this is where the seat of power lived during the times of the Venetian Republic. We got to see some marvelous rooms and paintings by Tintoretto and Veronese, walk up the golden staircase, see the Great Council Chamber, and cross the Bridge of Sighs. Then finishing in the palace, we were supposed to have a tour of the grand cathedral of St. Mark’s, but of course it was Sunday so it was “closed.” So instead we decided to again leave our tour group and got to attend high mass at 10:30am. It was absolutely glorious. The cathedral is beautiful, with incredible mosaics covering the entire ceiling and walls, old paintings and statues. It was just phenomenal. The choir they had was unbelievably good, and I’m sure the great acoustics of the building didn’t hurt them. Everything was in Italian of course, but a little sister at the front provided us with an English translation of the readings of the day and listing of the songs. I attempted to translate a bit of the homily which was given by one of the 8 priests they had present, but with the echoing and the priest’s fast speaking it was pretty impossible. So then after mass we did a little more wandering around, all bought traditional Venetian masks, a painting by a local artist, and returned to the ship in time for our 2pm departure. Watching from the upper deck as we left the lagoon was awesome – the views from about a hundred feet up are pretty good!
That night, after refreshing naps, we made our way to the entertainment theater where we anticipated a “comedy show”, which I took to mean that a comedian would be there doing a little stand-up, which is always entertaining. Instead, it was this guy who looked like Einstein with the big white hair, named Zietwig or something, and it was more of a slap stick performance – although he was a very talented musician and ended up playing some impressive pieces in between falling off his bench, playing with his toes, laying inside the piano and playing backwards, and the like. Not really my cup of tea, but hearing Claire de Lune is always pleasant. After dinner and a dinner group photo of all of us in our Venetian mask finery, Dad and I made our way to the casino where I ended up being a bit of a bad luck charm, but still a good time!
Tomorrow we venture to our only non-Italian port of call, Duprovnik, Croatia. Buon Viaggio!