Venice

Venice

I attended a Benvenuti class for spouses. It’s basically  a 3 day welcome to Italy class that the Army Community service supports. Day 1 of class was spent in the classroom, meeting new people, enjoying an authentic Italian meal made by our instructor and planning out the trips for the next two days. For the second day, our instructor had a choice of Verona or Venice, either way it was going to be HOT. Thankfully she chose Venice since I had already visited Verona extensively when we got lost in that fair city. So we met early the next day, took the bus to the train station and hopped on the train to Venice. It was about 10 euro for a roundtrip ticket on the not so fast train. There are two trains, one that is nonstop to Venice and another one which takes about an hour since it makes a stop at every station. I did enjoy the train ride and at our first station, we saw the famous Orient Express. It was long and blue and seemed so mysterious. It was on its way to London and headed to Venice to pick up its passengers. But the cost, for a week on the Orient express, was 6000 – 10000 euros!  Wow!! I’ll be saving my money for that trip. We arrived at Venice around 9am, found the clean bathroom that only cost 70 cent euro, and headed into the city.

When we exited the train station my senses overloaded. The beautiful site of the waterway, the excessive  heat slapping you in the face, the smell of the city and the sounds of the many visitors was AMAZING! We bought our ticket for the water taxi, which we used on the way back to the station, and headed off towards Rialto Square. When our instructor said “Adiamo” she was off!  Julia was a woman on a mission to glide smoothly through the winding streets of Venice. A glide she did, quickly. But I am glad she knew the city because I would have been lost in the first 5 steps! Not knowing the history of the town or the significance of Rialto Square was a mistake on my part. I am sure I would have wandered through the city without seeing some of these wonderful landmarks and sights.

As we wandered the streets I took in all the sights, the wonderful shops, the gondolas moving along the waterways as we walked over the bridge, the smell of fresh bread baking, and the delivery guys with their carts shouting “PERMESSO” in a sing song way as they passed. As we hurried past many shops I vowed to return to partake in the shopping again soon. We followed the signs to Rialto bridge and stopped for a few moments to view our surrounding areas and partake in some good photo ops. We then came upon the open air market, unlike any market I have attended yet in Italy. Under the roof tops, near the water, the seafood vendors sold their fish. They brought inventory right from the boats that docked inches away from you. I recognized maybe half of the seafood, the rest was a wonderous lot.  Then we moved on to the fruit and vegetable stands that lured you in with the wonderful colors and promise of sweet delight when you bit into a once a year harvested zucchini plum. Which, by the way, was a sweet as it promised. The beautiful array of colors from the pepper bushels was amazing, arranged like a small flower bouquet of peppers. We peered into the meat and cheese shops, salami, prosciutto and pepperoni, hanging all around. The smells the permeated the piazza awoke the senses, urging you to partake in sampling and the art of buying. We rounded the corner and found the clothing and wares market. A small fountain sat in the middle of the square where free flowing water offered you an opportunity to fill your bottle. A music and opera hall lay at one end and the vendors lined the streets.

We made our way to our lunch destination and were greeted by wonderful young Italian men that spoke wonderful English as we perfected our choppy Italian since our Benevenuti instructor made us order in Italian. I had a pizza with artichoke, zucchini and mushrooms, different, but delicioso! Our wonderful waiter even provided us with a little bite of tart filled with pureed eggplant. Um that was not so tasty. After lunch we headed to St Marks Square. Now, not really knowing what I was in store for, or the importance of St mark’s Square, you can say I was IMPRESSED by what I saw. The Basilica was breathtaking. The frescoes on the front of the church were beyond beautiful and then four horsemen that sat atop the Basilica were daunting and omnipresent. As I turned around I saw the statue of the lion holding a bible, the symbol of the Venetian republic and another statue, that of St Theodore. This spot, according to history is where executions used to take place. The Toree Dell’Orologio the clock tower since the mid 14^th century, overshadowed the square and when the clock bells struck, a figurine like statue came out and hit the bells until it retreated back inside the tower. The ‘Torre dell'Orologio' was built between 1496 and 1499 to hold the large blue clock with golden decorations to represent the signs of the zodiac.  The clock indicates the time, as 24 hour time, as well as solar and lunar phases used to calculate the tide, in order to know when it was favourable to set sail. Down the center and to the sides of the piazza you will find restaurants with musicians playing outside. It was at this very moment, as I took in the sights, sounds, and smells, something clicked in my head and I thought to myself, “Damn, I’m here, I’m actually in Venice.” I can’t even begin to describe that feeling but I can say that realization opened my eyes to the rest of my journey here in Italy. We took the water taxi back to the train station and headed home. It was a whirlwind of a day but a whirlwind I won’t soon forget.