Thursday was our first full day in Venice. We booked a “Venice in a Day” tour, even though we know you really can’t do Venice in a day. Heck, we could spend a whole day on a gondola ride! (Which, for those of you who are curious, would probably run us around 1,920€)
Anyway, we meandered our way through the alleyways and streets and managed to find our way to the meeting place. This was a larger tour, so we were all equipped with goofy looking headphones (so we could all hear the guide) and we were given stickers for our shirts...maybe so we wouldn’t get lost? I’m not sure how a sticker helps that other than to identify you as a clueless tourist who has strayed from the group. I should translate the Italian on the sticker - it probably says, “Cluelessly lost tourist, return to Tour Guide Matt if found”
We started out with a history on Venice. The Romans were not interested in Venice because there wasn’t much going on over in the 118 islands. No trees, no fresh water, and not a great place to build massive palaces and fortresses since it’s, like, pretty unstable. The Pisa guys could’ve learned a thing or two from the Roman engineers who scouted out Venice.
The Venetians, however, decided to make a go of it and started building on the islands. Since there’s nothing there, everything has to be imported. The Venetians did a pretty good job, as they managed to build on unbuildable land and today they have about 70,000 visitors a day in a city of 53,000.
We were very impressed with the local shops and markets. The shops are kept very clean and the markets had an amazing array of beautiful fruits, wonderful spices, and scrumptious-looking fresh fish! All of the seafood at the market comes straight from the Adriatic Sea. We really love the vibe of Venice, and we love the fact that the markets have everything you need for a fresh, home-cooked meal. We vowed to come back and spend a week learning to cook the local dishes and drink the great wine here.
One of the interesting facts we learned on the tour is that, because the ground is unstable, the locals would jam tree trunks into the ground as close to each other (the trees, not the people) as they could. This created a dense and sturdy foundation on which they put limestone. Essentially, Venice is like an upside-down petrified forest!
We made our way to St. Mark’s Square, where they have a bell tower that used to serve as a lighthouse. I thought that was an interesting factoid. So did Sherri. So did the girls. But we also thought that we’ve been inundated with interesting factoids all along this trip, and as such, there was a spontaneous moment of unspoken silent revolt against a coordinated tour where we learn interesting factoids. Before our gondola ride, which was our next step on the guided tour, Sherri and I conspired and made an executive decision to ditch the tour. We filled the girls in. They were heartbroken……that we didn’t do it earlier. I collected all of our goofy looking headphones, returned them to the guide, assured him “it’s us, not you,” and broke from the group like a bunch of seniors after the last day of class <cue “School’s Out For Summer”>. Someone then approached me and, looking sympathetically at my tour sticker, said, “Don’t worry, I’ll return you to Matt.” I ripped the sticker off defiantly and ran to catch the gondola with the rest of the family.
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| Shortly before we played tourist hooky |
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| Not sure what this is, because we skipped out on the tour. |
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| Or this... |
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| This looks like some kind of ancient sun-clock-thingy. I bet Tour Guide Matt probably told everyone what this is. |
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"Excuse us, but have you seen some gondolas?"     |
After the gondola ride, we found a lunch place. Multiple choice guess as to what we had: A) Pizza B) Calzones C) Beer D) All of the above. Hint: D.
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| Beer me! |
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| Venetians love to have a spritz at mealtime. We tried it and we were definitely a 'no'. :P |
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| Yummy pesto! |
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| Another massive calzone - but again, mostly filled with hot air. |
During lunch, I Googled “cool things to do in Venice after rebelliously ditching your tour group” and we found a glassblowing demonstration that was only 4€ per person. We booked it and headed over there. We were all mesmerized by the demonstration. The glassblower made a vase in just a few minutes and the skill and craftsmanship was unreal. The guide (we made sure to keep a lookout for our other tour guide from the morning so that he didn’t think we were cheating on him with another guide) told us that it takes more than 15 years to get highly skilled at glassblowing. After the vase was made, the glass blower literally cut it off his glassblower-thingy™ and chucked it back into the fire!
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| So cool that he turned this out in about five minutes! |
After the demonstration they took us up to their store where they sell amazing pieces. Goblets, glasses, art, plates, bowls, you name it. Sherri and I really loved one of the sets of glasses that was painstakingly made by thinly slicing glass rods and then fusing them together. While Sherri was browsing other items, I turned the glass over to look at the cost of the set of six glasses. 847€!!!! The salesman said they are so expensive because they are very difficult to make and the artist ends up throwing several away because some are flawed after they cool. I remarked, incredulously, “these are really 847€ for the set??” He replied, “Oh, no, no.” With a relaxed sigh, I said, “Oh, good…” and before I could finish he interjected, “That’s for each glass.” Uh, beautiful glasses, but…hard pass on that. It’s a good thing that wasn’t the price of the whole set, as I would’ve been tempted.
After the glassblowing place, we found a nice shopping center that had a terrace on the top floor with an amazing view of the city. We went up there and spent some time taking pictures and enjoying the view.
Another great day wrapped up, we made our way through the long and winding roads to our apartment and started packing for our trip to Munich. The girls and I played Monopoly Deal and then went to bed for the night. We will miss Venice, but we will be back some day!
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| Secret coven of the Monopoly Dealers |
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