Sept.4, 2013
Venice

TIRED!  But much better now at 6:30 after a 20 minute nap and a glass of prosecco!  Thanks Shawn and Russell for getting me started on that!  Sandy is off right now to apologize to our hotel clerk for "not speaking Italian better" (she's looking up how to do it in Italian in her book).  We asked for 2 glasses of prosecco and he brought us 2 bottles.  When we said no and indicated 2 glasses, he took the wine back and brought 2 plastic glasses!  We said no and he brought two empty wine glasses.  Finally Sandy gave him all her pantomime skills and we got the 2 glasses of prosecco.  So here we sit before a late dinner having prosecco and potato chips. 

We had a leisurely breakfast and walked the 1/4 mile to the Calatrava bridge.  Interesting:  it cost 4 million dollars to build, but ended up costing Venice 11 million!  Then it wasn't handicap friendly (like ANYTHING else is in Venice?) and they added a little lift caboose, like a covered ski lift, for even more money.  To make things even worse, he designed it so the steps are uneven in number and size.  All the other bridges have steps that are the same size and about the same number of steps.  The big bridge by the train terminal that we go on quite a bit is up 7, 5, 4, 4, 4, and down 4, 4, 4, 5, 7.  Safer that way. I guess it's a good thing he didn't design the Symphony Hall in Atlanta! 

We thought we'd be smart and get tickets to the Academia before we got there.  Long story short, the ticket lady gave us vaporetto tickets instead (turns out we couldn't get tickets ahead for the Academia & she misunderstood us).  I fortunately noticed they weren't right and we went back, but Sandy had thrown away the receipt the woman needed to return them.  Sandy went dumpster diving in Venice!  Wish I had a picture of that!  Finally, off to the Academia to see MANY paintings of the Madonna and Child.  Hmm.   Bellini always painted Christ with curly blond hair.  I never pictured him that way.  Then he did one painting with 5 totally RED angel heads -- what's with that? - the whole head.

The vaporetto (water bus) is still somewhat of a mystery for us.  We have to constantly check we are on the right one, but so far have done well except for the first time.  The traffic on "main street" is unbelievable!  Think downtown connector on water!  In rush hour the vaporettos are full and the local is very slow.  Also think "no air conditioning".  But the weather has been very nice and not really hot until you get to the piazzas in the sun.  Walking through the narrow alleys is cool.  The totally stone sidewalks (image, Michelangelo walked where we walked!) are easy to walk on with big flat stones in different sizes (20X8, 12X8, 10X10, etc.) -- easier than Atlanta sidewalks!  Of course its all stone walks, buildings, or water -- no earth except in the monastery garden we saw and little patches by the doors of some homes.  We hoofed it to Sans Salute church, perched on the tip of the island at the big canal intersection.  On the way we stopped for a wonderful lunch where the waiter made Sandy mad by telling us our order was wrong!  "You come here and order prosciutto!  Go to McDonald's!"  I think he meant that's like going to McDonald's in the USA.  Sandy was really insulted.  I asked him what he suggested (sardines & onions), he said "don't mind me, crazy man", I said "OK crazy man, we'll have prosciutto & melon & salad for lunch and sardines & onions for dinner!  He laughed and served us a wonderful lunch -- just what we wanted.  Then off to La Fenice (opera house) to see how they restored it after the 19th century fire.  All gold, ornate, boxes.  They were rehearsing a modern day Carmen with a Mercedes on stage.

Long enough -- off to dinner now and who knows what?  Pizza and chianti, that's what.  Tomorrow, off to the country to visit Palladio.