Venice, 6/21/04
As it turns out, the rain was a freak thing, and it was a really nice day in Venice today, which more or less enabled me to go see a whole lot of stuff, which, actually, is a problem, because my ticket to Ravenna is for the 23rd, which means the 22nd may or may not be exceedingly boring. We'll see.
The morning started by a trip down to the hotel desk, where I asked the clerk if, incidentally, I was going to get my passport back at some point. No, he says, only if you check out. Ok, whatever, Italy's kind of screwy like that I guess, but whatever.
So I went out, wandered, and took some pictures. I also got hella lost, because Venice streets are...bad. They're exceedinly narrow, for one thing, since you can't drive or bike on the island. They're also exceedingly complex, twisting and turning and doing strange, strange stuff, like maybe following the canal for a bit, or crossing the canal only to end at the door to somebody's house. There are, fortunately, signposts that lead one to the main parts of town, which sort of get you there after a fashion. I could, of course, have taken the vaporetto water bus service, but no. I'm stubborn, and I couldn't make the damn ticket machine work. So I walked.
Eventually, I wandered into St. Mark's Square, too. The top bit of it, where you can't really see much. So I'm sitting there at this fountain eating a couple of croissants I picked up that were filled with some orange stuff, wondering where I am. It dawns on me eventually that the big place next to me, the one with the scaffolding and some big signs, is probably St. Mark's Basilica. Sure enough, there I was in the place I had set out to go. Fabulous sort of place, too. St. Mark's is on one side, along with the Doge's Palace, which is way, way less cool than anything in the entire square, including the Campanile bell tower, which is a hella ugly brick thing. Opposite all that, on the other three sides of the square, are big long collonaded buildings, mostly shops and the like, though one has a couple of museums.
I went to the hella ugly brick thing first, because it's one of the highest things in the city, and I wanted some skyline shots. And I got them, after waiting in a few lines. That done, I went over to the Correr Museum, which has a whole bunch of really old Venetian stuff. Funny how that works. It also has a lot of really old Rennaisance artwork, which raises a problem I'll talk about later.
The Correr having been done, and that ticket giving me admission to the Doge's Palace as well, we can all guess where I went next. Another fabulous place, the Doge's Palace, though it doesn't look it from the outside. Inside, though, is another story. Whole damn thing is just carpeted in Rennaisance art. Almost literally - the walls and ceilings are essentially solid in it, including a single room that holds something like 2,000 people and looks like it could comfortably hold most of, say, Monroe High School. There's also a nice big prison out back, complete with dark, damp cells with three and a half feet high doors.
So that was the Doge's Palace. Next up, I pondered St. Mark's, but the lines to get in are exceedingly long, and you can't take backpacks in, which is one of those oddities of Venice tourism - you must check your bag somewhere before going in. The problem, of course, is that the bag check for St. Mark's is on some street around the corner, and it's really really really hard to find. So hard to find, in fact, that I got lost again, and went back and had a drink before trying again. I finally found it, and went in.
And, uh, wow. Words pretty much fail to describe the place. I've seen a lot of places on this trip, but for sheer spectacular splendor, nothing beats St. Mark's so far. Marble floors in an array of geometric designs, with marble columns holding up massive domed ceilings in the Byzantine style. Speaking of the Byzantine style, the ceiling, domes, you name it, are all covered in either Byzantine or Byzantine style mosaics. Big gold ones. And I'm thinking unless I go see the Hagia Sophia, or unless Ravenna is way cooler than I thought it was, that's pretty much the final word on Byzantine mosaics. Some of them actually ARE Byzantine, incidentally, along with a certain four horses on the front enterance and a certain statue of four tetrachs built into the wall, not to mention a very big chunk of the church treasury. It's what comes of launching the 4th Crusade, not on heretics, but on the richest city in all Christendom - Constantinople. Looted glory it may be, but still. Still.
So, having gaped in awe, I went to get my bag back. And got lost finding the bag check again. Yes, it really IS that hard to find. The lesson here is to not take your bag anywhere. Carry your map. Or don't, since you'll pretty much be ok anyway. After finally finding the place again, I decided some ice cream was in order, so I got some, and life was good.
And then, having taken a much needed rest at the same fountain I originally sat down on, because it was about 3 when I sat down and I had been going since like 10, I got up at 4 and decided to go home, because I couldn't think of much to do in an hour that I could find. So I got myself lost again, which meant I got back to the hotel about 5. Exhausted, I opened the door to find...an empty room. It's situations like this why the word fuck was invented, among others. Fearing the worst, I went down to the office to find out what was up.
You will, at this point, remember the conversation I had with the clerk that morning. Yeah, I didn't either. As it turns out, he thought I was checking out, and so, well, checked me out. Fortunately, the other clerk sorted things out, got me my luggage back, and got me my room again. He also gave me back my passport, so, like, what the fuck was up with the other clerk? I have no idea.
All of this having been said, I'm having a bit of trouble with Venice. I mean, it's a really cool place, once you get past the prices. Unfortunately, it's cool in a totally unfortunate way - lots of Rennaisance art and things, which is cool to look at for about an hour before your brain explodes as you go into overload. And pretty much I've done everything I can find in the guidebooks than didn't involve Rennaisance art, and some of the things that did. I got lost for like 2 hours, just like they said to. About the only thing I haven't done is go down the Grand Canal in a boat, and that only takes about an hour. And I'm sort of here for another day. We all sense the problem, here, I hope. Yeah. We'll see what comes of that. I MIGHT go see Ravenna a bit early and spend 2 days, but Ravenna isn't exactly worth two days EITHER. So we'll see.
Posted by Dwip at June 22, 2004 9:44 AM