Venice: Day 1

Long ago, in Venice, our story continues. It was 2006 and it was our 10th anniversary. See the first entry here.

Originally emailed 6/13/06:
This is going to be a multi-part adventure, since there are way too many pics to send all in one email. On the bright side, I'll narrate! Unfortunately, since I'm not a blogger*, I didn't take pictures of all the food and gelato that we ate and every single solitary thing that we saw. I just took pics of almost everything.

Be prepared, my chickens!

So we flew a looooong time. We went from Denver to Frankfurt, from Frankfurt to Munich and from Munich to Venice. That last part? I kicked myself for not having my camera in my hands for the small trip over the Italian Alps! They were beautiful. We landed in Venice in the late afternoon, falling asleep on our feet, but thrilled to be in Italy at last. We took the bus from the airport to the vaporetto station and then to our hotel. You've already seen those pics, so I won't bore you again. We were tired, so we napped and ate something, I can't remember it as being spectacular. We had gelato at Michielangelos, right near Hotel Rialto and it was fantastic! I quite literally regretted getting gelato from any other location. We ordered gelato from a place called the American Bar (BIG MISTAKE! Alert! Do not eat at any place with American in the name unless you're in the States!) and it was so bad I asked Eric if I could turn the gelato in and get a good one from our favorite location. He agreed, of course. Ten years of marriage teaches one to not mess with the gelato experience!

Anyway, the first full day of being in Italy, we saw stuff like this:

What's that, you say? Why...it's Piazza San Marco! Did I hear a "Lemme see it again!"?

This time with bell tower! Yes, that is St. Mark's Basilica. In which No Pictures Are Allowed, so we'll have to make do with the outside of it. It was built in the 11th century and looks gooood for it's age, doesn't it? The floors were beyond compare. The gold, marble, paint and plaster lavished on this building are mind boggling. The bell tower is the Campanile di San Marco. It replaced a shorter lighthouse that crumbled into a pile of bricks in 1902, a thousand years after it was built. Those Italians - they build to last! We failed to take the tour up into it and instead, kept on walking.

Artsy shot of flags. Venice's flag, with the lion.

Italy's flag on the left.

I need a wide angle lens to avoid distortion! The domes are beautiful! The art put into just the outside of the building is crazy.

Hey, look! Tourists! Oh...nevermind. See those things those folks are sitting on? Those are wooden platforms and metal stands that they go on. Venice floods about 100 times a YEAR, so they have these platforms that they lay out everywhere to let people get around to all the fabulous touristy places they need to go. Surely you didn't think a little thing like flooding would stop the crowds from visiting, did you?

Here are some more shots while we waited in line to go inside.

Notice that the clock tower is completely covered for refurbishment. Sadness! The clock is lovely!

Nice lamp posts!

A detail above the entrance.
Will you look at the marble? It was beautiful! They used all different kinds all over the place!

Artsy flag shot! I love this place!

After we finished with the square, we went to the Doge's palace next door. However, you'll have to wait for that story tomorrow. It's late!

- Hatchet, from two years ago.

* I wasn't blogging as of June of 2006. It was two months later that I started, after being prompted by Val and Misty. Funny that. Also what is very interesting to me now is that I would love to have seen the food we'd eaten, just to remember the places we went. Some of the food was fabulous, some...a lot less than fabulous.

It's also very interesting to note how my writing "voice" has changed over time. In some ways, distinctly, in others not so much. I still get crazy for gelato, Italy and photography.

I'm also sad to say that I've forgotten a lot of what we saw. I'll have to break out my guides to remember.