Jaywalking Not Allowed

"€80,"  said the man in the flat brimmed straw hat with the striped shirt.

We were standing by one of the lesser known canals of Venice. I had done a few sketches as a gondola was tied up close by.  Claudette and I had talked about a gondola ride but thought it too expensive. I decided to see if I could get a better price.

"How about €70?" I asked.

"Eighty!" he said adamantly.

"Okay, okay, seventy-five," I said begrudgingly.

"Eighty."

"Seventy-five or nothing!"

"...seventy-five," he finally said.

I looked at Claudette.  I could see the calculator working in her head. Yes, it was a lot of money.

"It's Venice,  We'll probably never be here again," I said almost apologetically.

"You're right, we'll never have this chance again," she relented.

The gondolier helped us board his thirty-eight foot watercraft. All gondolas are black and usually have red upholstered seating much like the chairs or loveseat you would have in your living room.

The flat-bottomed boats are rather stable and actually designed to be rowed with one oar from the right side. A gondola can take six passengers for the standard fee.  Sharing is an easy way to cut the cost. However, that was not for us.

The oarsman, or gondolier, expertly maneuvered the boat into the narrow canal. Within minutes we were going under the first bridge. Tourists looked down at us and waved. There are over 400 bridges in the city. The canal we move silently down is not as wide as the gondola is long.  Although in some places there are sidewalks, many canals have nothing except the vertical masonry walls of buildings. The sky becomes a ribbon of cerulean blue outlined by the jagged rooftops. Our gondolier occasionally muttered something in a language resembling English. We thought he was describing landmarks but we didn't care. We were in the "City of Romance", in a gondola, with each other.

As we floated along the narrow ribbon of water we saw a  man and woman sitting on a window ledge three stories up with wine glasses in hand waving to us. After zig-zagging along several canals, the streets of the city, we were on the Grand Canal which runs the length of the city. Unlike the small canals we had been on this one was bustling with activity. Gondolas were in the minority of watercraft. There were vaporetti, water taxis, gondolas, and boats carrying cargo. Nothing moves throughout the city but by water. There are no wheeled vehicles. It was noisy on the Grand Canal, and the acrid odor of diesel exhaust irritated our noses. After passing under the Rialto Bridge we went back into a quiet canal, under many more bridges, and past entrances to restaurants and shops before returning to the place of our voyage's origin. It had been delightful. And, yes, at such an expensive price, I would do it again.

After returning to terra firma, or solid ground, which may be a misnomer in Venice, we wandered the narrow alleys window shopping.  Shops have everything, including clothing, leather goods, jewelry, and virtually anything else you would want. A very popular item are carnival masks. Most are made of paper mache, and many are quite elaborate. These shop windows frequently exhibit the "No Photos" sign. Could they be of copyrighted designs, or is there some other reason to disallow photos? Fortunately, we did find an uncrowded cafe for  cappuccino.   All these tiny alleyways near the Grand Canal were crowded with visitors.

Piazza San Marco is one of the most popular attractions in the city. Saint Mark's basilica is one of

the most popular in Italy, and for that reason there is always a long line for admission. We looked at the statues of the four horses above the entrance and I told Claudette about them. "Those are copies of the originals," I said.

"Where are the originals? she asked.

"It's a rather interesting story," I said, as I began my explanation. "When the Venetians ruled the waves, so to speak, or rather the Adriatic Sea and the eastern Mediterranean, they brought back the horses from Constantinople. The four bronze horses are thought to be Greek. Remember the Hippodrome in Istanbul? We were there last year.  That's where the horses were.  When Napoleon conquered Venice he took the horses to Paris. Later they were returned to St. Mark's, but those aren't the real ones," I was enjoying telling the story.

"They look real to me," she said.

"They're copies.  They discovered that air pollution  was deteriorating the bronze and moved them to the museum and made these copies," I said.

"That's quite a story, she said.

"Yep!"

We entered the basilica, passing through security where a guard searched hand bags.  There was a large sign stating that backpacks were not allowed.  It amazed me to see some people grumble and complain when the guards turned them away. Did they expect the rules to be changed for them? This cathedral is probably the best example of the Byzantine architectural influence in Italy. The vast use of mosaics is obvious. We were reminded of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. The floors are inlaid marble, and all walls are covered with polychrome religious images. It was beautiful; but, quite frankly, I think I've seen about enough fancy churches. After a while, the architecture and art seem to get repetitious.  However, Piazza San Marco and Saint Mark's Basilica are a "must see" in Venice.

After leaving the piazza we thought we would like to see the island of Morano, famous for its blown glass manufacturing. We decided to walk to a vaporetti stop opposite the Grand Canal on the Venetian lagoon. It was an interesting walk along the back canals as opposed to backstreets. We stopped at a small shop and bought an apple each. All produce is priced by the kilogram and sold by weight. The narrow sidewalks were deserted as we ventured far from tourist attractions. Here we found small piazzas call campis.  Colorful laundry hung overhead to dry. Students were hanging out at the University of Venice. Eventually we made our way to the vaporetti stop and boarded it for Morano, 1.5 kilometers away. We passed the cemetery island on the way and were soon at the pier of Morano.

The first thing you see is shops selling ornamental glass. Virtually anything you can imagine is crafted in glass. We entered one of the showrooms. (I thought the factory was in the back of the showroom.) There was a beautiful display of ornamental glass.  We noticed well dressed men in business suits sort of "attaching themselves" to customers and ushering them to a waiting boat. It wasn't hard to figure out what was going on. Customers would be transported to the factory for a glassblowing demonstration and then the salesmen would put the pressure on to buy.  Needless to say, that wasn't our cup of tea, and we just continued to window shop. One thing we found were some beautiful meringue puffs in a bakery shop window. We bought two and consumed them with an €,80 bottle of water. This was quite cheap.  We've found in Europe that the farther you are from a tourist attraction the cheaper the bottled water.  In Venice the price range seemed to be between €,80 and €4. Morano is a city of canals as well, and we strolled along window shopping. We had some lunch at a waterfront cafe. I had lasagna and Claudette tried the gnocchi. In Italy  the food is vaguely similar to its American counterpart. We were back in Venice and at Piazza San Marco by twilight time.

The piazza at night is almost a magical place. People peer into shop windows at jewelry, clothing, leather goods, and the ever-present masks.  The brilliantly decorated masks, some non-human appearing, stare back sans eyes. The crowds move slowly.  It seems that all people are represented

here.  The young; hugging, touching, kissing, and the older; many reliving their youth. We walked slowly absorbing the ambiance. We heard the sound of a piano accompanied by a cello. The musicians played under a canopy surrounded by tables decked with white tablecloths and flickering candles. On the opposite of the piazza another band was playing slow jazz with a lot of brass.  Children chased each other in the waning light, and Pakistani peddlers threw baseball-like objects into the night sky where they would glow in multi-colors before returning to earth. We found a bench from which to people watch for a bit.

We caught the Number 1 vaporetti back to the island of Lido and our hotel. Of course there was that stop at the gelato stand for a cool treat. Gelato, like hotel rooms, is less expensive on Lido.

It had been a good day, and we were ready for a good night's sleep. Fortunately, the singer at the bar down below had a good voice. I guess it's good to fall asleep with a crescent moon beaming through the window and the sound a singer accompanied by a guitar wafting through the night.

We slept late.  Eight o'clock is late for us. We had breakfast at the hotel, brioche and cappuccino. Breakfast was included with  the price of the room.  I was excited about visiting the Italian Naval Museum. My wife is fortunate to get to visit many aircraft, automotive, naval, and technology museums. But then, I get to see a lot of Shakespeare and such. Museo Storico Navale is located in Campo St. Biagio in  a building that was once a grainery. The museum was created after WWI and is near the Arsenale, the famous Venetian shipyard. In the forty-two rooms on the three floors of the museum Italian naval history is represented. Venice controlled the eastern Mediterranean and Adriatic sea and at one time had over 3000 ships and a shipyard that could produce one ship per day! There are  literally hundreds of ship models representing watercraft through the centuries. Cannon are there from the earliest to WWII vintage. A ship requiring 130 oarsmen is represented in model form. But the two-man submarine from WWII is an original. There 

is one room dedicated to the vessel most often associated with Venice, the gondola. I could have stayed in the museum all day. It takes a bit longer when you have to translate display captions. The museum is quite similar to the Spanish Naval Museum in Madrid. Both are owned by the respective navies.

We walked the city the rest of the day and took a cruise on the Grand Canal at night. Many of the buildings are illuminated at night. It was a warm night, and we sat back on the fantail of the boat.

It was a good visit to Venice.  Like other attractions it was crowded with tourists, even in the "off" season.  But I had seen Piazza San Marco and the basilica and taken a gondola ride with a woman who puts up with all my eccentricities.