Venice

We had some issues getting to Venice. There had been weather delays in Newark, NJ for the past several days. The flight from Kansas City to Newark had been canceled the previous two days. We got on the plane, but after they closed the door but before the plane pushed back, the pilot announced a three hour delay due to approaching thunderstorms in Newark. We all got off and waited.

We boarded a second time after the first delay and made it to the end of the runway before we were ground stopped and delayed again. We taxied back and got off. One of the pilots timed out, so they looked for another pilot and 45 minutes later they canceled the flight.

We got rebooked to Denver, Munich, Zurich and Venice, with two of those flights delayed 30 minutes. We arrived at the hotel 10 hours later than originally planned at 8 pm. At least many restaurants were still open. We shared a pizza.

We slept in a bit in the morning, but got out by 9 am for breakfast at a bakery.

We then walked 2 km over to the Doge’s Palace for the Hidden Treasure’s tour at 11 am. Navigating in Venice is interesting as the streets wind every which way and there are numerous canals that you need to find a bridge to get over. Apple and Google maps aren’t always right, but actually do pretty well.

We crossed the Rialto Bridge on the way there and back to our hotel.

Walking over was a good way to get a feel for Venice, passing by all the little shops and squares. It’s easy to get lost if you don’t have a good map. Venice was quite clean, there was very little litter in the parts of the city we walked. There were lots of fancy mask shops, are masked balls popular yet?

We didn’t have time for a Gondola ride, but did see quite a few of them.

The Doge’s private church was built towards the end of the decline of Venice, so there wasn’t much money to be spent on it. So things that normally would be real stone or brass are painted wood. But the ceiling is still impressive.

The palace also had the meeting rooms for the elected officials.

The Doge palace tour lasted one hour, and then we toured the rest of the palace on our own.

The palace, really the judicial rooms in the palace, are connected to the prison by the Bridge of Sighs.

We found a cafe a few blocks off the main square that wasn’t busy for lunch. It was run by a Chinese family, but they served Italian food. We split a salad and some tortellini carbonara.

Then we waited in line for St. Mark’s Basilica for 30 minutes as we didn’t get skip the line tickets ahead of time. There was a short line at the skip the line entrance.

The walls and ceilings are covered in glittery golden mosaics, 8000 sq meters (nearly 2 acres). These mosaics are made of real gold and glass. The Basilica is big enough that the humidity in the air causes haze in photos.

The floors aso have mosaics.

We paid extra for the altar area tour which includes the Pala d’Oro and the museum tour.

The museum has some mosaics that were uncovered during some restorations.

The museum also has the four horses of St. Marks. These are the originals, there are replicas outside.

After exiting St. Mark’s we ate some gelato (pistachio, dark chocolate and peanut butter) and got some dark chocolate bars at Venchi.

Donna thought very highly of the pistachio, as it was a fairly strong flavor.

Tomorrow is our transfer to Ravenna where we get on the ship.