Venice - The Sinking City

On Friday Sarah took us all to Venice for a day trip. We drove until we hit Mestre, which is the city right before you cross over onto the island itself. We parked there and took the train into the city. Parking in actual Venice is highway robbery (I sound like my mother). Anyway, as we left the train station we stopped by the Gheto Vechio first, but that’s a little sad so I’ll start this entry with the family on the Rialto Bridge:

A sunny day in Venice, who knew! For those of you who have been to Venice before, you know there’s a main canal that runs through the city called the Grand Canal (or Canal Grande). There are only three bridges that cross the Grand Canal, and the Rialto Bridge is one of them. We worked our way through the crowds to get a good shot. Because the weather was nice it seemed like twice as many people were out, so we used our elbows.

As we made our way to the Gheto Vechio we stopped by a few markets to check out the local fare:

He was schooling us on all the different types of veggies and plants - not my area of expertise.

And here is a shot of the Venetian housewives hanging their laundry. They actually live here so it's not so abnormal to them:

And then all the yummy cookies:

Then we make it to the Gheto Vechio finally. I keep harping on this because of its history. It’s considered to be the first ghetto in the world and also the best kept. At one time, Venetian Jews were confined to a walled area of the city and made to wear red or yellow marks sewn onto their clothing to identify them as Jewish. They’ve torn down much of the walls, but you can still see a little bit of it in this picture:

It’s crazy to walk through this area and look at the small passageways that used to be closed at night. The funny thing was that the Jews were accountants and dealt with all of the Venetian money during the day, and then at night they would be led into this area and these huge doors would close behind them and lock. It gives me claustrophobia just thinking about it.

At this point we were ready for some food. I’m still loving the fact that Dad wanted to get the full effect of each Italian city - because of this we got to eat in Piazza San Marco. Here we are waiting for our ridiculously expensive tiny little sandwiches:

That’s the Basilica di San Marco in the background. When you come to Europe you see a lot of churches, but this one seriously stands out from the rest (save for St. Peter’s in Rome). It’s called the Church of Gold (Chiesa d’Oro) because it’s completely covered in gold mosaic. All of the artwork you see on the front of the church is made by combining tiny little specks of gold in different colors. It’s one of the most richly embellished churches in the world.

When I came here the first time Sarah and I walked through the tiny rooms inside the basilica that house religious relics from as far back as you can go. We were trying to find the oldest thing in there, and I think I remember some of the communion cups dating back to the B.C. era.

While we ate outside we were serenaded by a lovely jazz band:

I felt like we should be in a dark club somewhere in NYC, but it went well with the wine :).

After lunch we walked down to the end of the Piazza San Marco to catch a water taxi back to the train station. Here we are standing there with San Giorgio Maggiore in the background:

This church was actually designed by Palladio (for those of you who just read the Vicenza entry). I’ve heard that if you visit this church you can take the elevator to the top for an amazing view of the island of Venice, the lagoon and the Doge’s Palace across the water. You basically cannot go anywhere in this city without enjoying a good view of something...

So now we come to my favorite part of the Venice trip, the water taxi. I know everyone comes to Venice thinking they need to take one of the gondolas, but those things are crazy expensive. Like 65 euro a person at the cheapest. So a 6.50 euro water taxi down the same Grand Canal works for me. If you can make your way to the front of the taxi, like we did:

then you can see the best views of the canal. The first time I did this I took about 50 pictures of random buildings, got home and had no idea what it was I’d snapped. But it’s so pretty!

Right before we left Ryan picked up a traditional Venetian mask for one of his friends (don’t ask me why that would be something a boy would want). Here he is making sure it fit:

Isn’t it just like David Bowie in the Labyrinth?? Ok now I just realized why he bought it…