A solid touristy day

Venice, Sunday June 14th

We woke up in Venice to a warm and sunny day. Sunday was intended to be a touristy day --there were about 5 places we were looking to check out: San Marco's Basilica, the Doge's Palace, the Correr Museum, the Friari, and possibly Accademia - an art museum.

Heres a little history to help make sense of everything. Venetian merchants stole the remains of St. Mark from Alexandria in the 9th century. The remains are in a tomb under the altar at the Basilica. This holy relic put Venice on the map -- and most venetian artwork in the Doge featured St. Mark, usually in the form of a lion.

There was quite a line for the Basilica so we went through the Doge's palace first. The tour took us through the beautifully decorated palace--each Doge seemed to have commissioned additional artwork during his reign, most of which were painted directly to the walls or ceiling. The majority of works had religious overtones, featuring the doge as one of the minor subjects --kneeling near Mary or somewhere near Jesus, with St. Mark hanging out somewhere in the picture. The rooms were not furnished, as each royal family took their belongings with them after their tenure. The rooms themselves were enormous, and many overlooked a large open courtyard. It seemed that the palace was less of a "home", and more of an executive and judicial building. For instance, there was an enormous senate room, judiciary waiting rooms, judiciary rooms for different types of crimes --similar to how law is broken down today. The paintings in these rooms were intended to both intimidate criminals and give the law enforcers a sense of power by portraying Venetians in the same pictures as the Virgin Mary, Jesus & the saints. The last part of the tour took us through the prisons in the basement. we must have gone through 3 floors of them, which was pretty repetitive, because once you see one cell, you've seen them all. This part of the tour also took you over the "Bridge of Sighs", named for how prisoners sighed as they crossed this bridge into the prison, taking their last look at Venice & daylight before serving their sentence. As a tourist, this was very underwhelming. You were on the bridge and over it before you even realized it. I'm not sure we ever even saw the bridge from the outside due to some construction in the surrounding buildings. If we did see it, I couldn't tell you what it looked like.


After the palace, we walked the streets for awhile and picked up some huge pizza slices at a small shop along the street. You get an enormous slice on some wax paper for $2euro. And its really, really good. Some additional wandering took us to some gelato, of which we partook, of course. Our destination was the Friari, a church that has Titian's Assumption as the main alterpiece, Donatello's Virgin with Child sculpture in the nave next to it, as well as a collection of many other Venetian works from the 15th and 16th centuries--in an environment in which they were intended for. At the other end of the church were a few tombs. One, called the Canton featured a pyramid with doors at the center leading to the crypt. Below it, larger than life statues climbed the marble steps, their robes and clothing draping over the steps. Very cool.

To complete our Venice tourism, we made our way over to Accademia. Here we saw more Assumptions, Coronations, Crucifixions, Pietas, you name it, than I care to see again for awhile. (although I'm sure it will continue in Rome & Florence). After awhile, it all starts to blur together as one artist after another tries to depict the same scenes, each with their own flair. The musuem took you through time, showing these sorts of images as artistic styles progressed from the 14th to 17th century. It contained many Bellini's, Titian's, and plenty of other Venetian masters. As the centuries passed, the art changed from pure portraits, to portraits with background scenery, to scenery with various scenes scattered throughout.

We were pretty beat after the Accademia, and we headed back to the hotel to refresh for dinner. We ate at the restaurant just next door to the restaurant we ate at the night before. Similar pricing --though this place didn't really have a "house" wine. Instead, they had $9 or $10euro 1 liter bottles--still pretty cheap for wine bought at a restaurant. After the huge meal the night before, we all tuned it down a bit for this meal. I had a calzone with mushrooms, ham, & cheese. Despite being slightly burnt on top (covered up by tomato sauce), it was really good. Step aside Ledos. Can't remember what the other guys had, but overall it was a great meal. Once again, we were all pretty wiped out by the time dinner was over, but we managed to walk out to St. Mark's Square where Kev and Joe had some gelato (I don't know where they fit it) before we called it a night.