The Merchants of Venice Get their Pound of Flesh

View from the Rialto Bridge
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Mmm - well we paid the price for our social activities of the previous night when we had to wake on Tuesday for a quick breakfast and yet another mad dash for the train - this time to Venezia [Venice].  The train was quite grody but we managed a few minutes of much-needed sleep.  Arriving in Venice was an experience all by itself as the train heads out from the mainland over a causeway to the inner city proper - and already you get a sense of how different it is from anything else you have experienced.

St Marks by night
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Emerging from the train station is fantastic as you immediately sight your first canals, gondolas, water-busses and churches in the first glimpses of the city.  We decided to walk to our hotel instead of taking a water-bus [saving the €6 each and savouring the twisted alleys and streets that snake through the canal system], and despite the very good map supplied by Toni and Chantal we got lost!  I think that there is no avoiding it in Venice - since even the best maps miss out some smaller alleys and the abbreviations take a lot of getting used to - they must haver about 7 different words for street or lane and unlike the rest of Italy have only one piazza [St. Marks] and all the rest are Campos!

Venice is Perfect...Pity about the Venetians!

Piazza San Marco by night
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We finally reached our hotel [see review] about 45 minutes later - and our backs were starting to object to the weight of our packs. Located almost next to the fresh fish market and a stones throw from the Rialto Bridge it was a good location once found. Whilst checking in we met a fellow lodger [Welcome to the Blog Romany] originally from the UK but now living and working in Japan.  We tried to have a quick drink together at one of the many cafes lining the Canale Grande but were very rudely thrown out when the waiter discovered we wanted some drinks and only one meal - he became the embodiment of our general experience of Venetians.

The Canale Grande with 'parked' gondola´s by night
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I think my own impressions of Venice were poorly influenced by the worst part of the city - Venetians!  I am sure that there are a few very nice locals, but we never met any of them.  It really seems that the further North we have moved the ruder the Italians have become - and Venetians take the cake!  Add to this the fact that it is far and away the most expensive city we have yet visited [Gondola rides are €80 for 45 minutes!], and it is a recipe for some serious resentment.  The merchants of Venice deserve their Shakespearean reputation!

A gondola race for charity
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We did find another option [wine bar around the corner] and spent a nice hour or so chatting about Japanese travel options.  Dinner was a deep dish pizza slice each and then back to the Rialto at night - stunning views.  Then on to St. Marco square to listen to the amazing strains of operatic music floating out of the different restaurants on the square, and to marvel at the gentle rocking of gondolas berthed for the night on the Canale Grande.  Venice at night is superb.

Gondoleros - is this what they are called?
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Wednesday saw us heading back to St. Marks in the morning.  En route we stopped on the Rialto to watch a frantic gondola race in aid of AIDS charities which was an unexpected bonus.  At the square we fed the very tame pigeons and then took the full audio tour of the Doge's Palace.  It was a very long tour but really interesting - the power of the Doge's was actually really limited. Another highlight was learning about the connection between St Mark and Venice [some Venetian merchants smuggled his mortal remains out of Alexandria in a pork barrel] and the strained relations between Venice and the Vatican over time.  The one thing you really notice is how many committees the Venetians set up - from the Senate to the Council of Ten, the Grand Council, and even the Council of Ships Captains the Doge's Palace is filled with council rooms!  Other highlights included the armoury, the Bridge of Sighs [named for the sighs of condemned prisoners crossing it to the jail] and the jail itself [Side note - the Audio guide is actually quite macabre telling you to 'Have Fun searching for the notes carved by the prisoners into the cell walls'!].

Venetian 'streets'
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After lunch we headed into St. Marks itself [free entry but make sure that you have no backpacks, handbags, or large camera bags - leave them at the free baggage drop around the corner].  Not quite as grandiose as St. Peter's it is nonetheless very impressive.  We chose not to pay the extra to fees to enter the Treasury and the Museum since we were quite tired of antiquities by this stage.  Note: the Museum pass you buy to get into the Doge's Palace does NOT allow free entry into these areas].  I had the misfortune to plonk myself down onto someone's old chewing gum along the canal and we spent the next hour locating a chemist to get some solvent to get it off my only pair of long pants!  The evening was spent at a local Internet spot trying to research our next moves, writing the Blog and a few postcards.

Feeding the pigeons at St Mark's square
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Thursday was our 'wandering aimlessly in Venice' day.  We had planned to take a trip to either Murano [site of the famous glass blowing factories] or Burano [lace and coloured houses] but decided we need some more relaxed time since Venice had been quite stressful.  Instead we wandered through one of the few truly residential areas of the city, got caught up in a local film set [which we only realised when everyone around us was dressed in clothes from the 20's], walked to the 'Seaside' and then through the Jewish Ghetto.  It was by far the most fun we had in Venice, cost nothing, and was perfect.  Every corner was a discovery - we even found a large green park which we thought was impossible in a city in which every dry spot has buildings!  We found another Internet Cafe' and, with the help of the tourist office in Bergamo, found our next destination and accommodation [much to our relief since we left the next day!].  To celebrate we went back to a nice supermarket we had found, bought a great dinner of bread rolls, Italian meats, mozzarella, olives, mature cheese and tomatoes.  To wash it down we sampled a bottle of the local pink speciality cocktail - Bellini. Our location - an out of the way private jetty on the Canale Grande with the sun setting behind the city skyline...perfect end to a perfect day!  We even stopped on the way back to the hotel to listen to a guitar busker whilst nibbling on Nuttella Crepes.