In the wee small hours of the morning...

Well, I am writing this as we wait to leave for the airport here in Venice. The shuttle boat to the airport leaves the main square (Piazza del San Marco) at 4:00 AM in order for us to get to the airport in time to catch our flight. At first, we thought that we would turn in early so that we would have plenty of rest to get up in time to get to the dock. Then, we thought we could just stay at the pub closest to our hotel until about 2:00, then go back to the room, shower, pack, and be on our way, but they decided to close at 12:30 tonight (I have a feeling that Italy must have lost their soccer match tonight, otherwise, I am sure people would be out and about). So, all of that to say that we stayed at the bar until about 12:30, and then I am going to blog for a little bit to stay awake, while Leah sleeps for an hour or two before we get up to catch the shuttle. Part of my reluctance to go to sleep also has to do with the mosquitoes in our hotel room. I think because of the rain, we have had an inordinate amount of mosquitoes in our room here in Venice, and they have feasted on me (for some reason, Leah has gone most of the way without getting bitten too often). They wake me up as the buzz by my ears during the evening, and I wake up with multiple bites on any part of me that wasn’t under the covers for the entire evening.

Despite the mosquitoes, we have had a wonderful time here in Venice. I think Leah posted some pictures of the rain we have had today, but it really hasn’t gotten in the way of our visit too much. The umbrellas we bought our second day in Rome came in really handy yet again. I think we got each umbrella for 5 euros, which I thought was a little spendy at the time, but that may have been the best 10 euros we spent the whole trip.

Yesterday, we spent most of our time here in Venice just feeling things out and trying to figure out where we needed to be and what we needed to see. Venice is very confusing if you have a specific place to be at a specific time – it is just a maze of roads and canals. On top of that, the buildings are tall enough that you can’t see over the top to figure out where you are in relation to certain landmarks. I would think that you would need to live here for several weeks (if not months) if you really wanted to understand the layout of the city here in Venice. Thankfully, we were able to find a main route to the Rialto Bridge on one side of our hotel and another main route to Piazza del San Marco on the other side of our hotel, and that was about as much as we needed for the majority of our stay here. There were a few times where we wandered off those main routes, but it was fairly easy to get back to a place where we could find our way back.
First thing this morning, we went to the Doge’s palace (Palazzo Ducale), which is really the building that was used as the model for the outside of The Venetian Hotel & Casino is Las Vegas. As with many of the royal residences we have seen over the last few days, this was extremely impressive. However, different from most of the palaces we have seen here, this one was actually used for most (if not all) of the government happenings of the time in addition to housing the Doge of Venice. At the height of the Republic of Venice, they were not only concerned with their responsibility to religion, but also to the more secular knowledge of the time. You can tell that this place is very different than any of the other places we have seen to date here in Italy in that respect. That being said, the palace still had a special door for the Doge to enter St Mark’s Basilica, and his own chapel there.

Speaking of San Marco’s Basilica, we were able to visit that a little later this afternoon. Along with most of the rest of Venice, it was very different from most of the rest of the churches we have seen on this trip, but still very beautiful. Instead of being decorated with Frescoes and larger-than-life sculptures, the Basilica was dominated by beautiful mosaics. Both on the ceilings and the walls, you would find mosaics comprised mostly of gold tiles that just shone in the afternoon light that entered from the few openings in the back of the Basilica. We were also able to see the treasury of the church, which included many treasures collected in the name of the church during the time when Venice ruled much of the trading industry in this part of the world, but maybe the most impressive part of the Basilica was the Pala D’Oro (golden alterpiece). This sat right behind the remains of St. Mark himself, and is a reflection of how wealthy the republic of Venice truly was in its heyday. It was probably 4 feet wide by 5-8 feet long, and it was made completely of gold and jewels. It is one of those things that if someone made a replica, you would probably dismiss their effort as being too over-the-top to be believable.

In between the Palazzo Ducale and St. Mark’s basilica, we visited the Scuola San Rocco, on Jennifer Barbour’s suggestion, and it was definitely worth the trip. This Scuola is billed as “Tintoretto’s Sistine Chapel”, and is definitely worth that label. It is amazing to see not only the technical work he put into actually painting every canvas for this particular scuola, but also the thought that he put into what he would paint and the placement of each painting. It seems like it was fairly rare for a single artist to paint every work of art in a single church, but this scuola was the exception. It is fairly awe-inspiring to think of his vision and how it seemed like he had the whole thing planned out even before he put a drop of paint on the first canvas. While you may get differing opinions on the Sistine Chapel and how it compares to Tintoretto’s work in this scuola from Leah and I, this work was extremely impressive and worth seeing (thanks, Jennifer).

After all of our sight-seeing, we took some time to go back to our room and rest a little bit (and get eaten by mosquitoes) before we headed out for the evening. After getting up and around, we decided to go on the obligatory gondola ride here in Venice. While this was extremely expensive, and something that we would likely not do again if we returned to Venice, it was something we enjoyed more than we thought we would and are definitely glad that we did it. It came down to the fact that we just didn’t know that we would ever have the chance again, so we decided to just do it. Our gondolier was supposedly a 5th generation gondolier and had bee doing it for 15 years, despite not looking much older than Leah or myself (although that is getting less and less difficult to say these days). After that, we went to a café called “The Florian”, which is the oldest Café on the Piazza del San Marco, and has had numerous famous patrons (or so we’re told). While it was extremely expensive, it was fun to think about how many people had sat there before us drinking the same espresso we were, and looking out over the square.

I know we have used this word several times in posting these blog entries, but Venice has been an extremely surreal experience. Mostly when just standing in Piazza del San Marco, it felt like we were in a movie or painting, or something even more grandiose. It is hard to believe that you are actually experiencing so many of these things that you have seen or heard about through other means. I wonder if it will be different the second time around, but for now, this entire trip has been just one amazement after another.

It is hard to believe that we will be heading home in a couple of hours, but as much fun as we have had, I think we are ready to come home. If nothing else, it will be good for us to get some regular rest so that we aren’t always dragging at the end of the day, but it will also be nice to get home and see our dogs and all that is normal to us. I also start a new job when I get back (still at HP in Boise) that I am really looking forward to, so I am sure that will present many new challenges for us.

Thank you for following along with us as we made our way through Italy. We hope to keep this blog up to date with whatever else is going on in our lives in the future (although I doubt we will update it as frequently as we have over the last couple of weeks), so please feel free to stay up to date with what is going on in our lives (if that is something you really want).

Arrivederci!
Kris & Leah