21Apr2009: Day 330: Venezia (Venice)

We actually got Makenna to eat a bit of toast this morning and I finally had some cereal; first time in over a week. It was this granola with chocolate bits and it was really good. The only thing I didn’t like was that for some reason, they don’t seem to keep their milk cold over here. It’s the second hotel that I’ve found that just keeps it sitting out. Not that it’s sour but I really like cold milk with my cereal.

We drove to the train station which was near the hotel, and took it into Venice. Makenna was a real “treat” on the train as usual. What was a treat though was that there truly are no cars or motorcycles on the roads in Venice—which was a very nice change! It looks a lot like you see on tv – lots of gondolas and canals everywhere. There are also a lot of other motor boats as that’s how people get around quickly. Plus, a lot of them are “taxis.” We did a lot of walking and we were already exhausted from not getting enough sleep. We stopped into a church which was small but very picturesque with frescos and other paintings. They wouldn’t let you take any pictures inside as it said that a church is for worship not a museum. So all I have is this picture from the outside.

We kept walking on and found another church with the same rule. It’s a shame in that it would be nice to have a picture memory of the beautiful artwork inside on the ceilings. These churches also seemed to have a lot of medallion hangings which was something new.

After grabbing a bite to eat and stopping at various places along the way to take pictures and video, we made it to St. Marks square. This is the most famous area of Venice due to St. Marks church. Once you got past the guy who insists that all backpacks be checked in (in fact, a lot of the places we went to in the square required that we checked in our backpack,) the church itself is free to go into, but every other little aspect costs money.

We paid to go into the treasury which was very small compared to some of the others we’ve seen but it had some interesting artefacts. Mostly different bones encased in various types of containers. I just don’t get why someone would want to save the jaw bone, leg bone, piece of a spine, a tooth, a hand, part of the skull, etc., of a dead priest or saint, or who even knows whom. All I could think is that they can always have a piece of that person or maybe so that they can worship the remains? I’m clueless here. Chris paid 2 Euro to see a screen with gold and jewels and a whole bunch of saints on it. I forget what they call this type of screen but it’s usually behind the altar. I took the opportunity to sit. I forgot to mention that with all the walking, my foot is getting a few blisters and a callous. We then finished walking through the rest of the church, of which again, no pictures could be taken. I was way too tired to attempt the bell tower. We walked around the plaza a bit and decided to go into the Doge’s Palace (aka Palazzo Ducale di Venezia,) which is a gothic Palace.

For many, many years, the Doge's Palace had three basic functions: as the Doge residence, the seat of government, and as the palace of justice. This was where some of the most important decisions for Venice's, and even Europe's destiny were taken. The Doge was a guy who ruled the area of Venice in old times and it took over 800 years to build this palace to what it is today. He had a bunch of advisors who would come and meet and decide on policy and justice. All I could think of was how people in power have way too much money. This place was huge and it had a lot of rooms that had wall paintings, and ceiling paintings. There wasn’t much furniture left in the rooms so it was mostly looking at the paintings and the fireplaces which were very ornate in some cases with marble and statues on them.

Makenna was still asleep, as she fell asleep just before St. Mark’s church, and unfortunately this place had tons of steps that we had to keep carrying the cart up and down. By the last 15-20 minutes, we were just ready to leave and forget seeing the rest. The last 10 minutes was just seeing the prisons below the palace which were many. They must have had a lot of prisoners at some point with all the cells that they had.

We foraged on to another museum after as the ticket we bought for the Doge’s Palace was good for five museums. This museum had some old books, and some more sculptures, pictures, and busts. We only had an hour before it closed and we did a quick walk through anyways as we were hoping to make it an early night. I was hoping we were going to find the four horses or the quadrangle here that was the spoils from a war with Constantinople, but I guess that was in a section off the church that we missed.

We went back out to the plaza and let Makenna run around. This plaza is filled with pigeon’s who will eat out of your hands and sit on your arms if you have food. It was funny and neat to see this but all I could think about was, I hope they don’t decide to relieve themselves while they’re on your arms and hands. I was hoping to get a film of Makenna chasing the birds but she of course didn’t want to do it as soon as I got the camera out.

We took one of the water taxi’s back to the train station. When we first got on the boat, there were two sides that were going on two different routes. We couldn’t figure out how the boat was going to split in half to do this. Come to find out, we weren’t on the boat taking us; we were on a floating dock. We felt pretty dumb as Chris was trying to ask people how it worked. I was glad we got on the boat that only took three stops to get to the train station. Chris wished we had gotten on the slower one as it would’ve taken us more through Venice instead of the back waterways and he could’ve gotten more video.

Before hoping on the train, Makenna was playing in the train station and she liked the photo booth that you can go into to take silly pictures. She thought the seat was a wheel and kept “driving.” You could hear her say, “Come on stupid thing” as she tried turning the seat/wheel. Makenna was much better on the train ride back as she got to run around on the train for a bit before it left and then she had her own seat some of the time which she jumped on. She also had a pen and paper to write with and when I asked her to do something like move over to be with us, she said, “In a minute, just a second.” It seems as though she’s now picked up another saying of mine that I’m sure to hear for many years to come.

We found a nice restaurant after getting back and it made me long for the days of having a babysitter. Just to sit and eat a nice meal in a nice restaurant without the crying, whining, and general mischievousness of a kid. She decided she didn’t want to eat her noodles with mushrooms and sauce that we got her and would rather walk around and lift up her shirt for everyone to see her belly. Not to mention lick the chair and spit at me. I made her sit in her chair and she proceeded to scream really loud.

I took her out and made her sit outside on a chair for two minutes. Part way through she started yelling, “tell me sorry,” as a way to get out of her two minutes quicker. I still made her sit there, and since it took us a few tries to get the full two minutes we were out there for just about 10. Before we went back in, I told her she had to either sit in her chair, or sit with mommy or daddy. It was as if a light switch went off. She came back, sat down and didn’t hesitate to eat her dinner. She realized that it tasted pretty good as she usually does with much coercion.

Well, needless to say, we didn’t get an early night as we had hoped. We did decide to skip another day in Venice and have decided to head up to Innsbruck, Austria tomorrow. Not that there wasn’t more to see in Venice, but it’s more for the atmosphere than the things they have in our opinion. Plus, I didn’t mention all the steps you have to go up and down in Venice as you are constantly walking over this or that bridge.