Venice Sightseeing

Somehow we didn't make it to more than 2 museums and didn't even get to see the inside of the Piazza San Marco, but we did see some great things in Venice. I was so taken by walking the back streets that I guess I found them as interesting as any museum could have been. We did go into the Doge's Palace on Piazza San Marco. The doge was the head political and religious personage of Venice, thought to speak directly to God. The palace is built to impress. The ceilings and walls of many rooms are painted in elaborate religious frescoes or paintings of naval battles among galleons. Gold trim was everywhere along with marble fireplaces elaborately carved and many plaster flourishes. At the end of the tour of the palace you go through a couple rooms of arms and armor before you descend into the jails. The “Bridge of Sighs” which I had always heard of as having something to do with lovers, was actually an enclosed bridge prisoners crossed from which they could catch a glimpse of the outdoors (see photo) and it was said you could hear their sighs from outside.

After a restorative cup of espresso we took a boat out to Murano, about a 20 minute ride. Murano is the place to go to see the artistic side of Murano glass works. You can tour the furnaces and visit galleries of art glass. There really is an amazing variety of glass from sculptures to chandeliers to tiny glass animals to jewelry and vases. The jewelry is pretty reasonable priced, but larger pieces are expensive and would be very difficult to get home anyway! There is a small glass museum on Murano which is worth a visit, although several rooms were undergoing renovation while we were there.

I also took a short stroll through Venice's Ghetto Novo, the area to which Venice's Jews were restricted to living before WWII. It happened to be Yom Kippur and there were lots of families and small children out on the main square. Apparently the Lubavitcher (spelling?) from NYC have recently immigrated to Italy and taken over many of the kosher restaurants, but most of the residents are not as Orthodox.

On Saturday morning we walked down to the fish market to take in the impressive array of fish and shellfish. Most stands have swordfish, tuna, salmon (from British Columbia), shrimp (local and from Turkey), razor clams, mussels, octopus, cuttlefish, eels, squid, sea bass, flounder and several other fish. We then went to the Dorsoduro neighborhood where I wanted to stroll through Peggy Guggenheim's sculpture garden. The guidebook had said it was free, but turns out you do need a ticket even to see the garden and we weren't up for doing a whole museum visit. So we wandered around Dordsoduro some looking at the art in the windows of the many galleries and admiring the view of the Giudecca canal. The monstrous cruise ship that Jake has posted a photo of came up that canal.

Back to the B&B to pick up our luggage and catch the train to Florence and our 12 days in Tuscany!