Tuesday October 11 - Venice, Italy

We were fortunate to have a bit of a time cushion at Charles De Gaulle airport because making the transfer to our plane to Venice involved going through passport control and another security screening plus taking a shuttle bus between Terminal C, where we arrived, and Terminal F, where our flight to Venice departed. We only had an hour to change planes, so we got a bit antsy when we had used 45 minutes of the available hour and still were not at the airplane. But we ultimately did get to the plane on time (barely) and flew off to Venice. Our flight route was around the northern and eastern edge of the Alps, and the rising sun and clear sky gave us some unforgettable views of the mountains during this trip.

We arrived at Venice's airport over on the mainland and found it to be a very modern and friendly place. The airport was definitely accessible to the handicapped, in contrast to Venice itself which was anything but. From the bus stop at Piazza Roma we lugged our luggage over many steps and crossed several bridges on the way to our hotel, the "Antiche Figuren", which was located right on the Grand Canal. After stowing our luggage in our room and taking a quick shower, we just stepped out the door and followed the west side of the Grand Canal as it made a big reverse "S" through the city of Venice.

When I visited Venice in 1973, Monika and I had parked our BMW motorcycle in the Piazza Roma and walked through the city for the day. At that time Venice impressed me as a dirty, smelly wreck of a city that was sinking slowly into the lagoon. Black soot covered the buildings, the lower floor of many buildings was submerged in the dirty waters of the lagoon, and the smell of raw sewage assaulted us repeatedly during our walk. To me, Venice could not sink into the mud soon enough and I vowed never to come back.

Thirty years later, however, Venice struck me as a neat, pleasant and vibrant city that despite being centuries old managed to maintain livability for the residents while accommodating hordes of tourists. The buildings along the Grand Canal were clean and often vividly colored, the "ground" floors were always slightly above the level of the lagoon, the walkways were basically litter free, and the only time we smelled anything was at the fish market where the odor of raw fish permeated the air. You basically couldn't swing a cat without hitting a historical, architecturally unique building of some kind. We had a wonderful time on our walk and found ourselves wanting to continue wandering around the canals, bridges, piazzas, and narrow crooked alleys. On this visit, Venice was a city that really made us want to come back again soon.

What accounts for these two diametrically opposed pictures of Venice? Either the city has changed dramatically in the last 30 years, or we've changed dramatically and are now viewing it through completely different eyes. Maybe it's a little of both. Venice has, I think, really changed in three decades. While we walked around the city we saw people working everywhere on repairing the sidewalks, reconstructing the facades of buildings, and maintaining the canals and bridges. Venice really appeared to be in far better physical shape than it was 30 years ago.

Have we also changed in 30 years? Have we changed! Back in 1973 I was a Rocker with my chick on the back of BMW 750. We blasted along on the streets of Europe and had a grand time seeing it all for the first time. But I was ever so young and had no sense of history nor any sympathy with the ravages that time makes on buildings (and people).

This time around I was no longer booming down the Autostrada on a BMW (although I still have it around "just in case"). Somehow three decades slipped by while we were raising the kids and having careers, so now I'm a bit old and sagging myself and I guess that makes me far more sympathetic to old, sagging buildings. In any event, this time we had a great time wandering the back alleys of Venice and would recommend it to others.

Venice is, above all, a pedestrian's city. The famous canals are, of course, everywhere, but even they do not get you everywhere you want to go. You must at some point walk in Venice, and not only walk but also climb up and down the stairs of the innumerable bridges that cross those canals. It's no place for any wheeled vehicle, even a mountain bike would be pretty useless, but for people used to walking like ourselves Venice was a little bit o' walking heaven because every corner led to some new and intriguing sight.

The byways and alleys of Venice are really unique. Although there are many broad, open piazzas in Venice, the routes connecting them are generally narrow, crooked alleys. Some are so narrow and bordered by such tall buildings that you have a weird feeling like walking at the bottom of a slot canyon in the southwestern U.S--definitely not something for folks with claustrophobia. The narrowness also prevents you from seeing anything other than what is directly ahead of you, which makes finding your way in Venice quite challenging.

The "streets" and alleyways are also not nearly as straight as was depicted on our maps, even the fairly large scale map I bought at the tourist center for 2.50 Euro, so we had to rely on the signs posted at intersections to help us find our way. Even with our best efforts, we repeatedly made wrong turns and were trapped in blind alleys. But many of those detours gave us surprising vistas of the Grand Canal or intimate glimpses of the small, narrow side canals or some of the old palaces, so I really didn't mind the delay except that my feet were getting tired. Along our way to San Marcos Plaza we paused to split a calzone from a sidewalk delicatessen for lunch, and that kept us going a while longer.

The Plaza San Marcos was the only part of Venice that seemed not to have changed from our 1973 visit. The large and ornately decorated Saint Mark's Cathedral was standing there, and the floor of the church was still so uneven that I kept stumbling while walking around staring at the ceiling decorations. I was staring at the ceiling because pretty much the entire ceiling of the church is covered with mosaics that glisten like gold, a spectacular sight. Outside, the pigeons were still flocking around anyone who would feed them, and bird flu or no bird flu, quite a few folks did. The Doge's Palace at one side of the plaza was still there, but by this time we had been up quite a while, walked quite a ways, and were just too tired to visit it.

During the rest of the afternoon we headed back to our hotel by heading west over the Grand Canal and then working our way north through a maze of canals and alleys. We were quite hot, tired and weary by the time we chanced upon the Vivaldi Museum, where I saw unoccupied chairs inside the cool, dark display area and gratefully plopped myself down for a rest. They were, of course, playing some of Vivaldi's classical music in the background, and that helped me relax while I rested my aching feet for a few minutes. After recuperating a bit, we looked at the fascinating collection of odd musical instruments used by the girls in the orphanage where Vivaldi taught to perform his work, and then limped back the final stretch to our hotel.

The Antiche Figuren Hotel was a nice 3-star hotel, and our room had a good view of the Grand Canal if we leaned out of our bedroom windows a bit! The interior furnishings were quite nice, if anything, too nice for the likes of me. I tend to prefer simple, basic accommodations. I mean, when I was very young and traveling for the first time, I stopped at a Motel 6 for the night rather than a Motel 8 because I thought it would be $2.00 cheaper! Please don't get me wrong; I'm a big fan of indoor plumbing. As I know very well from our primitive camping experiences, life without flush toilets would simply be the pits! I have valued our trips in our new camping trailer at least in part due to its possession of a modern, if tiny, bathroom. But in my view our hotel room was unnecessarily luxurious. Inside the bathroom beside the commode was an extra porcelain fixture that I suppose was an Italian version of a bidet, but I honestly couldn't see how or why one would use the thing. So if more than 2 stars simply means you get more and more odd fixtures in the bathroom, then a 4 or 5 star hotel is probably wasted on me.

It was about 2 o'clock when we got back to the hotel and were told that Monika's sister was in her room next to ours. Monika called the room, whereupon Helga answered and told her that she had a big surprise. It turned out Helga and Jim had been at the same Vivaldi museum where we had rested our weary feet, and she had gone ahead and bought two tickets for a concert that evening. It was a chamber music concert by a small Venetian ensemble that Helga had previously heard and enjoyed in Columbus, Georgia. Jim did not feel like going, but Helga had thought that Monika would enjoy it, which was right on the money. Now at this point Monika had been awake for about 24 hours, but a concert in a small former church in Venice was too good for her to pass up.

Since it was still a little early for dinner, the four of us decided to do some more sightseeing. Helga in particular was interested in a modern art museum, which we found in one of the old restored palaces along the west bank of the Grand Canal. The museum did not specialize in any one artist but rather had one or two pictures of some of the more famous artists like Chaugin, Klee, and Kadinski, and miscellaneous Italian masters. But in addition to the paintings and sculpture, the rooms themselves were fascinating. The ceiling in each room was decorated differently, and many of the walls had large murals or intricate woodcarving. Similarly, the floors in each room had different intricate patterns of inlaid marble. Interestingly enough, the floors were not level, but looked more like waves and we occasionally staggered while walking across them. I guess this was caused by the stress on the architecture from the uneven base caused by slowly settling into the lagoon.

By now it was time for dinner and we hastened back to the hotel, were Heinke and Gustl were already waiting for us. They all had been in Venice already for 2 days and had discovered a small pizza restaurant close to the hotel. Our pizza that evening was indeed delicious with a very thin crust topped with interesting strips of ham, mushrooms, and cheese. The restaurant offered 35 varieties of toppings and the other couples each tried something new. We sat, munched and chatted until it was time to get back to the hotel were Monika and Helga had to change for the concert while I just collapsed into bed.

Monika's evening:

While Bob settled into a very comfortable bed (it was now about 30 hours since I had last seen one), I put on somewhat more formal clothes and Helga and I were off. The concert did not start until 9 o'clock. The folks had bought 3-day passes for unlimited use on the taxi boats that run up and down the Grand Canal, so Jim gave me his pass and Helga and I headed across a bridge to the boat stop. I enjoyed riding on one of the "waterbuses" that cruise up and down the Grand Canal on a regular schedule. It was interesting to float past the palaces on the Grand Canal since they all had their main entrances oriented toward the canal and one could really appreciate the grandeur of these structures.

The concert itself was in a small former church, so our eyes could rest on lovely murals while listening to beautiful music by Vivaldi, Mozart, and Bach. The ensemble was quite small: 4 Violins, 1 Viola, 1 Cello, 1 Bass, and 1 Cembalo. Interestingly, when they played Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" in the first part of the concert, each of the violinists took the solo in one of the concerti and the other three switched between first and second violin parts. All 8 were outstanding virtuosi so it was true pleasure listening to them, and I did not fall asleep even when I closed my eyes to better be able to listen. At the end we even got an encore of a small piece featuring the bass as the soloist, the first time I had truly appreciated the virtuoso playing of a bass. It reminded me of Tuby the Tuba, an old record we have where a friendly little tuba finally gets to play a melody line in an orchestra.

After the concert we quickly caught another waterbus that took us back to the Grand Canal stop across from our hotel. One unique feature of this hotel was that all the lights in the room including the bathroom lights worked only if the keycard that opened the door was placed in a slot next to the door. When the card was inserted then all of the lights would come on at once. Since I did not want to disturb Bob, I kept the lights off, undressing and brushing my teeth in the dark, and quickly went to bed.

Bob's night:

In any case, the beds were quite comfortable and we both had a great night's sleep. I had started earlier than Monika but of course my biorhythms popped me awake at 3 a.m. and I couldn't get back to sleep for a while. Since it was a beautiful night, I spent some time watching boats passing on the Grand Canal and was surprised to see the passenger ferries still running in the middle of the night. Don't those folks ever sleep? As the night was still quite warm, I was even tempted to get up and wander around the city, but finally settled for turning in for another few hours of sleep as we had a big day ahead of us. .