Day 3 - Saturday - Venice.
Saturday was to be our big sightseeing day, so after breakfast (yummy pastries and coffees, but also shocking banana yoghurt) we forayed out into the heat of the day. Venice was beautiful in the sunshine, with so much colour in the stalls and the modern shops, contrasting with the sepia of the buildings and the old mask and poster shops. After a little shopping, we caught a vaperetto back to St Paul's to go to the Doge's Palace. It wasn't cheap but it was well worth it. The building was gleemingly white and ornate against the blue sky and after walking around the statues and facades outside, we went inside for some serious historical education on the history of Venice.
Probably our favourite bit was one of the state rooms, which had four magnificent maps from wall to ceiling, demonstrating the then understanding of world geography. It was endlessly entertaining to try and work out the modern country boundaries and names, but we were flummoxed by the map which we knew was the Americas - how could California have moved from West Coast to East? The answer - it hadn't - the cartographer had merely mapped the Americas "upsidedown" to normal convention.
The armoury was also incredible - the horror of the weapons and the progression from simple arrows through to guns was really interesting. What I was surprised at was the size of the grip - they had such tiny hands!!!!
After that, there was quite a lot of walking around. The rest of the state rooms were amazingly opulent and heavy with old wood and secrets. All that Venetian Spy history was really interesting (the idea of a secret denounciation service, where you literally put your hand in the lion's mouth and dropped in a note to grass up your mates...)
At the other end of the scale, there was nothing secretive about the prison's under the Palace, which were bare and grim. It was easy to imagine the feeling of dread as we walked over the Bridge of Sighes from the palace into the austerity of the prison - with its low ceilings and doorways, and tiny cells.
After all that learning and looking, we were pretty exhausted and went for lunch in a little restaurant near our hotel (bruschetta which were a million miles away from tomato-on-bread), and then retreated to the hotel for some napping during the hottest part of the day. I finished "Their Fearful Symmetry", which was the perfect kind of disquietening read for Venice!
Revived, we decided to head out to some of the other islands. We went towards Lido, on a vaperetto, but found it to be horrible! It has cars, for god's sake! We got onto the next vaperetto, going towards Burano, a fishing village which is a bit like a suburb to Venice. I had perhaps underestimated the distance to Burano, and we ended up being on that vaparetto for what felt like hours, but it was quite pleasant with the sun setting and a warm breeze, plus with some really strange other commuters to keep us entertained. We reached Burano as the sun was setting, and had 15 minutes of so to take photos and to adore the tiny little paintbox fishing village, where every house was painted a different colour! (reminded me of Cobh!). After some exploring (such tiny canals!) we stopped in an unpretentious restaurant for some of the best calamari of the trip (and great pasta too!). And by picking a more direct vaperetto on the way home, it didn't take us an age to get back! We walked through a less touristy bit of Venice (yes, there is such a place!) to get back to the hotel and fell into bed feeling like we'd had quite a lot of Venice experience.
Probably our favourite bit was one of the state rooms, which had four magnificent maps from wall to ceiling, demonstrating the then understanding of world geography. It was endlessly entertaining to try and work out the modern country boundaries and names, but we were flummoxed by the map which we knew was the Americas - how could California have moved from West Coast to East? The answer - it hadn't - the cartographer had merely mapped the Americas "upsidedown" to normal convention.
The armoury was also incredible - the horror of the weapons and the progression from simple arrows through to guns was really interesting. What I was surprised at was the size of the grip - they had such tiny hands!!!!
After that, there was quite a lot of walking around. The rest of the state rooms were amazingly opulent and heavy with old wood and secrets. All that Venetian Spy history was really interesting (the idea of a secret denounciation service, where you literally put your hand in the lion's mouth and dropped in a note to grass up your mates...)
At the other end of the scale, there was nothing secretive about the prison's under the Palace, which were bare and grim. It was easy to imagine the feeling of dread as we walked over the Bridge of Sighes from the palace into the austerity of the prison - with its low ceilings and doorways, and tiny cells.
After all that learning and looking, we were pretty exhausted and went for lunch in a little restaurant near our hotel (bruschetta which were a million miles away from tomato-on-bread), and then retreated to the hotel for some napping during the hottest part of the day. I finished "Their Fearful Symmetry", which was the perfect kind of disquietening read for Venice!
Revived, we decided to head out to some of the other islands. We went towards Lido, on a vaperetto, but found it to be horrible! It has cars, for god's sake! We got onto the next vaperetto, going towards Burano, a fishing village which is a bit like a suburb to Venice. I had perhaps underestimated the distance to Burano, and we ended up being on that vaparetto for what felt like hours, but it was quite pleasant with the sun setting and a warm breeze, plus with some really strange other commuters to keep us entertained. We reached Burano as the sun was setting, and had 15 minutes of so to take photos and to adore the tiny little paintbox fishing village, where every house was painted a different colour! (reminded me of Cobh!). After some exploring (such tiny canals!) we stopped in an unpretentious restaurant for some of the best calamari of the trip (and great pasta too!). And by picking a more direct vaperetto on the way home, it didn't take us an age to get back! We walked through a less touristy bit of Venice (yes, there is such a place!) to get back to the hotel and fell into bed feeling like we'd had quite a lot of Venice experience.