Venice the final day
Well the bags are packed and my Venetian event is coming to an end. However I still had one last great day here. Yesterday I visited the inside of the Basillica,nother utterly amazing building; the outside is pretty excellent, the inside is just another world. Again they did nto allow photographs insde and you can really see why they would not want anything damaged by a flash. (Though go here and click on the Virtual tour: http://www.basilicasanmarco.it/BSMjesusFlashEng.bsm) . The only slight downside being it was very crowded (the whole fo Venice was apcked yesterday), I suppose I will just have to come abck when ti is little quieter, damn :) Then in the afternoon they had the parade of the gondolas past the Rialto down the Grand Canal. It was very spectacular to see all the gondolas and the other boats (I presume some of which are the equivalent of the Lord Mayors carriage in London and other boats of state) in precession with all the sailors dressed up ( far to good toruin with a bad seamen joke... though more of that later :)
Then ti was back to San Marco to see the last round of the costume a parade (the final is tonight), not everyone in costume was in the competition in fact only a fraction.You thought I might be getting bored with it now, but you would be wrong. The costumes keep getting better, and the themes even more interesting. There were a couple of global warming ones , A Noah with the ark (rather literal) and a lady with her Venetian costume as an ice berg and a polar bear oh ner gloves and hat; they got a very loud cheer (I am guessing if you live here rising sea levels is a very big issue, I note they have no cars in Venice :) but there were other great ones, the lady who managed to weave a little cardboard theatre into her hair (or at least the wig she was wearing) wit the costume having pictures of theatre scenes, I will give a full run down when I upload the photos (I think I have 5000 to go through or so).
Then in the evening there were marching bands, cheerleaders, baton twirlers, clowns everything you would expect at a carnival and then a massive pyrotechnic display; followed by DJs and by this time there were all sorts of costumes. I would say 90% of people were wearing masks and around 15% were in full Venetian costume(taking a wide view on this, form period dress to Harlequins, to carnival costumes) and another15% in some sort of other costume: chain gangs (messy in a big crowd though), ghostbusters, Mexican bandits, somebody came with there shower (inventfulness was everything), mickey and minnie mouse, etc.
Right i have to sign off now and grab some breakfast and then the boat to the airport. I have to say i really want to come back near year and i cannot believe there are very many on my friend list who would nto enjoy this. Anyway i will write up quite a lot more about the whole trip when i get back (and uploaded the rest of the photos).
Then ti was back to San Marco to see the last round of the costume a parade (the final is tonight), not everyone in costume was in the competition in fact only a fraction.You thought I might be getting bored with it now, but you would be wrong. The costumes keep getting better, and the themes even more interesting. There were a couple of global warming ones , A Noah with the ark (rather literal) and a lady with her Venetian costume as an ice berg and a polar bear oh ner gloves and hat; they got a very loud cheer (I am guessing if you live here rising sea levels is a very big issue, I note they have no cars in Venice :) but there were other great ones, the lady who managed to weave a little cardboard theatre into her hair (or at least the wig she was wearing) wit the costume having pictures of theatre scenes, I will give a full run down when I upload the photos (I think I have 5000 to go through or so).
Then in the evening there were marching bands, cheerleaders, baton twirlers, clowns everything you would expect at a carnival and then a massive pyrotechnic display; followed by DJs and by this time there were all sorts of costumes. I would say 90% of people were wearing masks and around 15% were in full Venetian costume(taking a wide view on this, form period dress to Harlequins, to carnival costumes) and another15% in some sort of other costume: chain gangs (messy in a big crowd though), ghostbusters, Mexican bandits, somebody came with there shower (inventfulness was everything), mickey and minnie mouse, etc.
Right i have to sign off now and grab some breakfast and then the boat to the airport. I have to say i really want to come back near year and i cannot believe there are very many on my friend list who would nto enjoy this. Anyway i will write up quite a lot more about the whole trip when i get back (and uploaded the rest of the photos).