Road Trip to Venice

While we were walking around Piran, a small seaside town in Slovenia, the idea of Venice, Italy got brought up. I mentioned that Venice is one place I have never been to in Italy but would love to go. Dad then shared with me that when he was a teenager his father took him to Europe and one of the places they visited was Venice. So that evening we looked into possible day boats we could take, but sadly none were going during the middle of the week. Since we still had the car we thought why not drive to Italy, which ended up working out great because it was only about a two hour drive. I was stoked to finally see the famous city of Venice, plus I would get to indulge in the most delicious gelato ever.

Venice is composed of 118 islands and is connected to the mainland by a bridge which cars, trains, buses, bikes and pedestrians cross daily. At the heart of Venice is the famous Piazza San Marco and it is here where my dad stayed several years ago. Before arriving to Piazza San Marco we took Venice’s water bus to the main square. The boat took us all along the Canal Grande and as we cruised along we watched the little islands go by us. It is so amazing to see how all of Venice’s islands are connected by pedestrian bridges. Once we arrived to the main square we took a walk around, peaked in some shops, sipped a delicious Italian espresso, ate a double cone of gelato (serving #1), and then took in the sites.

First on the list was the Basilica Di San Marco, which is really the heart of the square. The outside of the church is comprised of big symmetrical arches, tall statues of saints and vibrant yet detailed mosaics; it sort of reminded me of the Vatican. Inside the church are the remains of St. Mark, as well as beautiful gold mosaics from the 13th and 16th centuries. The décor and the amount of gold is just mind blowing, I have never seen so much gold mosaic work in my life. One might think it was all a bit excessive but in all honesty it’s absolutely beautiful. Adjoined to the Basilica is Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace). It was once the home of Venice’s mayor, but has been turned into a museum. The palace is huge and we spent a long time touring around. Some of our favorites are the columns they had on display as we first walked in. I realize this may sound strange, but each of the columns is uniquely sculpted with different themes. For example, on had different faces of women, another was of a variety of fruit baskets and so on. After we looked at all the unique columns we strolled around the square before we headed upstairs to tour the rooms. Wow, were there a lot of rooms to visit, it’s a good thing the path is set up in one direction otherwise I’m sure we would have missed several of the rooms. In almost every room there are big oil paintings, beautifully crafted wood pieces and decretive, if not painted ceilings. Two rooms we liked best are the map room and the room of four doors. The map room has two big vintage globes and then the walls were covered in old paintings and murals of a map. We took several minutes admiring the mapped walls and pointing out various countries and cities that currently exist or no longer exist; my favorite was seeing Constantinople. In the room of four doors there are paintings of biblical judgments all over the ceiling. Plus, each of the doorways is covered in beautiful green/cream marble. The smooth marble doorways clash with the dark oaky wood of the room, yet it gives the room a sense of strength and boldness. Just as you finish touring the rooms the path leads you to the Bridge of Sighs which is were all the prisoners lived. If I remember correctly, there are three maybe four levels of cells and it was fun to walk through all of them. All of the rooms have a very cold feel to them, some had graffiti left in them and the doors to enter the rooms are really small. I had to bend over to go inside; I bet it was a way to keep them from escaping really fast.

After we had finished touring the palace we rested our legs by having an early dinner at one of the restaurants off the main square. The food is nothing to rave about but the atmosphere was nice, the weather was perfect and it was a good end to the day. Just before heading back to the car, we wandered through more of the back streets of Venice walking over the bridges where we saw hand crafted gondolas go by and of course, popped into one of the many gelato shops for a double coned gelato (serving #2), yummy in my tummy!!!