2011 Med Cruise – Day 12 – Disembarkation and A Day In Venice
We had opted for the disembarkation time of 8:45 a.m.; this meant we didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn, but gave us plenty of time in Venice. We had packed our big suitcases the night before and they had been picked up some time in the middle of the night.
Disembarkation was very easy – we went down to the gangplank when our group was called and had our key cards scanned One More Time. Sigh.
Found our luggage immediately and before we knew it, we were lurching around the towards the ticket counter to buy our waterbus tickets to Piazza San Marco. Fortunately, the ticket counter and the waterbus loading dock were not far.
For the first time on this trip, the weather was not blazing hot – it was actually a bit chilly, cloudy and we felt rain drops! So odd.
Twenty minutes later, we watched as Piazza San Marco came into view. It’s a glorious sight every single time. Never gets boring. And then there we were, dealing with the reality of how to deal with our luggage in Venice.
The main problem is that we only had a small clue as to where our hotel was. I knew it was right behind the Doge’s palace in the Piazza, but that’s about it. I had printed off Google walking directions the day before, but the maps were not clear and I was pretty convinced the directions would not help. Plus, no matter where the hotel was, there was a 99.99% chance that somewhere between where we were and where the hotel was there would be a bridge with steps.
After mulling over the options, we decided the best thing to do would be to hire a porter with a huge hand truck. This required euro cash. Andy went off to find an ATM to withdraw the cash. Once he was back, the porter was hired for 25 euro. He gave an impressive performance pushing his loaded hand cart up the steps of the little bridge (yep, of course there was one). And then a right turn, left turn, and there we were. All of 5 minutes, but well worth every cent of the 25 euros. Any other scheme would have taken us forever.
We waited about a half hour for our room to be ready, so we were able to drop off our luggage and find the map of Venice that I had bought before we left. Maps are only moderately helpful in Venice, but at least it would tell us if we were going in the general correct direction.
First we had to memorize how to get back to the hotel from the Piazza San Marco, so we could get back later.
With that done, we headed in the general direction of the old Jewish quarter. The path was basically a counter clockwise circle around the city.
One of the standard souvenirs in Venice are the Carnival masks. Most of the stores have the same variation on a theme. However two weeks ago, we had seen a store than had animal faces for the masks. As I’ve mentioned before, I collect elephants; the hunt was now on to find an elephant mask. Back two weeks ago, we only had enough time to visit one store that of course had just sold its last elephant mask. The clerk at that store had given us a brochure that showed the other stores in the chain that might still have a mask for me. Our goal was to find all the other stores listed in the brochure to see if we could find the elusive elephant mask. So, our general path towards the Jewish quarter included all 4 stores.
We visited 2 of 4 stores pretty quickly – Andy did a marvelous job of navigating the streets of Venice. Neither store had an elephant. We continued on our way.
We stopped to visit a museum called “Ca’Doro” – 3 floors of Byzantine artwork mixed in with the work of a modern artist. The Byzantine stuff was very good; the modern stuff – not so much.
We stopped to have lunch along this big (for Venice) street called Nova Strada. It reminded us of Las Ramblas in Barcelona. We were pretty sure we had not found this street the last time we were in Venice in 1999. It was fun to watch the people go by, and there were shops everywhere. We had sandwiches for lunch and they were actually pretty good. Our experience with food in Italy has not been so great in the past.
After lunch, we continued on our hunt for the elephant mask. At the 4th and final store in the chain – VOILA! There it was! It’s just perfect – I will post a photo of it when I do the “Stuff we bought” blog. Of course it’s fragile, and getting it home is going to be a challenge.
We wandered again in the general direction of the Jewish quarter. Along the way we stopped to have our now traditional gelato and sit on a bench in the middle of a random campo.
Like many other times, we managed to stumble across it by seeing street signs (in Hebrew, a subtle hint).
We realized a bit late that today was Tisha B’Av, a day of commemorating a long list of horrible things that have happened to the Jewish people in the last 3000 years, including the destruction of both Temples, the banishment from Spain in 1492, and the beginning of the Holocaust. We were not sure what shops might be open, though Tisha B’av is not a “day of rest” and has no restrictions on what you can or cannot do - other than not eat. Tisha B’Av is a full fast day. Obviously, Andy I and I don’t observe it.
Once we arrived in the Jewish quarter (Campo di Gheto Nuovo – “New Ghetto Square”), we saw that some food places were closed an others (even kosher ones were open). All the shops were open though, which was great for us. We spent a chunk of change in the Gheto Nuovo – we bought 2 more Venetian glass Kiddush cups (we think it was the same shop we visited in 1999) and a signed lithograph from a local artist, among other things.
After bought a drink at the café in the campo, watching the people go by. We visited the two Holocaust memorials in the campo. We thought about taking the tour of the synagogue, but we would have had to wait another half hour, and we could see there were endless steps. Never mind.
So now we were on our way back. The idea was to follow the signs pointing towards the Rialto bridge and along the way find a restaurant to have dinner.
Dinner took a couple of hours; after all, we are in Italy and meal time runs on Italian time. Eventually we were back on the trek to Piazza San Marco by following the street signs. We wandered through some pretty narrow streets for a bit, but we did find and cross the Rialto Bridge and a short time later popped out into the Piazza San Marco – once again, from some random spot that we’ve never popped out of before.
So now we’re back at the hotel and utilizing the FREE wifi internet access, though it requires us to sit in the lobby of the hotel. I checked into our flight (USAir messed with our seat assignments again, good grief)
Tomorrow we’ll be getting up at 6:30 to begin the long schlep home. But, before we go to bed tonight we have to figure out How To Pack All This Stuff And Not Pay Overweight Bag Fees.
Probably won’t be back online till Thursday night, when I get home from work. Yikes! What a thought!
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