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Saturday 9th. June 2012 - Venice
It rained a few times overnight and in the morning the sky was grey.
We left the hotel just after 9:00am. Davide had arranged a small bus
(€6.00
extra) to take us to Milan to catch the fast train to Venice. The
forecast for Milan was for some heavy showers but we didn't experience
any. We arrived
in Milan at 10:30am, bought some food for lunch at the supermarket in
the station. Our train left at 11:35am and we arrived in Venice at
2:10pm. The hotel was within close walking distance of the railway
station but just as we arrived within 50 metres of the door at 2:30pm
there was a downpour. The Hotel Villa Rosa was located down a couple of
urine scented allies. We were on the ground floor which was a bonus as
the hotel had no lift. Only some rooms were air conditioned and we had
to ask at reception for the controller for the air conditioner.
At 3:15pm Davide took us on an orientation walk of Venice which ended up
in St. Mark's Square. We wandered around the square and took photos and
noted that the same part of St. Mark's Basilica was shrouded in
scaffolding as was when we were here two years ago. By 4:00pm the clouds
had vanished and Venice was bathed in sunlight.
At about 5:30pm we followed the map and the signs and found our way back
to the hotel by 6:00pm
As usual Venice was packed with people making walking quickly difficult.
We all went out to dinner at a restaurant in the Jewish quarter.
Sunday 10th. June 2012 - Venice
We had breakfast at the hotel (€5.00
each) and set off to join our tour of the Islands of Murano, Burano and
Torcello. The tour left at 9:30am and we thought that by leaving the
hotel at 8:30am we would have plenty of time. However we became lost in
the labyrinth of allies somewhere near the Rialto Bridge and caught the
ferry with only seconds to spare. It was overcast and so the photos were
not the brightest.
We had a 40 minute stop at Murano (Photos below). It was only just time
to watch the glass blowing demonstration, buy some glassware and take a
few photos. I was about to buy two small glass roosters when a salesman
talked me into not buying the apprentice's work but to buy a rooster made by
one of the Master's for €50.00.
The next stop was Torcello (Photos below).
I'm still not quite sure why this island was included in the itinerary.
Two minutes further on by ferry we came to
Burano (Photos below). We had a 45 minute stop, which was not long
enough. All the buildings are brightly coloured but unfortunately the
sun was hidden behind the clouds and so the full splendor of the bright
facades wasn't reflected in the photos.
The tour ended back San Marco
at 1:30pm. We had some lunch and made our way back to the hotel,
arriving at about 3:00pm. At 6:00pm we had a meeting with the tour
leader for the next leg, Marco, and the only other member on this leg,
Terry from Melbourne. We met at a local Restaurant for the final
dinner at about 8:30pm. The total bill came to €411.00
of which €42.00
was ours.
The Group on this leg of the
tour:-
Intrepid Leader - Davide from Albania
Neil & Heather from Sydney (Accountant)
Louise from Sydney (Works for Australia Post)
Marilyn from Sydney (Manages a golf club)
Carmen from Brisbane, but living in London (physiotherapist)
Kate from the Gold Coast (works in admin in a hospital)
Rhianne from Brisbane (works in sales for a shipping company) |
Monday 11th. June 2012 - Venice
We left the group that we had been traveling with and had a free day
in Venice. We bought two 12 hour passes for the vaperetto (2 x €18.00)
and immediately caught one from the railway station port to St mark's
Square. A single trip in one direction only is €7.00.
We
had paid a euro each online for the "skip the line" tickets for St.
Mark's Basilica. We showed the
paper print out and were almost instantly inside. It was very dark and
quite uninviting. The mosaic floors were beautiful but the overall mood
of the place was somber. Our allocated time was only 10 minutes (9:45am-
9:55am more than enough time) and when we walked out the "skip the line"
queue had grown to about 100 metres long.
After this we boarded the vaparetto again and did a trip up and down the
Grand Canal from St Mark's Square to the railway station and back. We
arrived just in time to join our prebooked tour of the "Dark side of the
Doge's Palace." This tour showed us the rooms where the most powerful
person in Venice worked in a tiny office supervising the thousands of
secrets being tabulated. His equivalent wage today would have been €600,000
pa. Three copies of each document were made and the collection is second
only to those kept in the Vatican. Venice worked on a system of dropping
anonymous notes into special letter boxes if you thought someone was
committing an offence and the authorities would investigate it.
We were shown the various cells and interrogation rooms including the
cells in which Cassonova was imprisoned and eventually escaped from. We
were shown the attics where the structures supporting the huge ceilings
below were. They included huge cedar beams, criss crossed with supports,
so that the rooms below did not require columns to support the ornate
ceilings.
Finally we had a look at these huge ornate rooms and they were grand!.
We then crossed over the Bridge of Sighs into the prison and back again.
We finally left and had some lunch at about 1:30pm
We then caught the vaporetto again and sailed out to the island of
Murano and then onto Burano to take some more pictures as the sun was
now shining, making it an ideal photo opportunity.
We finally arrived back at the hotel just after 6:30pm and prepared for
the welcoming dinner with Marco and Terry for 7:15pm. Our traveling
group is now three of us plus Marco the leader from Intrepid.
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