Chasing the sun, Mon, 13 Sep 2021 | written by Jemma
Jemma and Simon with Ania, Michał at a City, Museum, Temple, UNESCO site in Europe, Italy

Day 1

First day in Venice! We left the van at a carpark on the mainland and took the bus to Venice – this seemed to be the best option for us, as parking is really limited and expensibe on the island. After some delicious croissant and coffee breakfast at the bank of a canal, we walked to Gallerie dell’Accademia in Dorsoduro. I really like this part of Venice – it felt a bit more relaxed and less touristy.

On the way we saw a rubbish-truck-boat, which was quite interesting. It’s something you kind of know, but then it hits you when you see it: there are no cars in Venice. No motorcycles not even bikes. It’s all boat or walking. That includes rubbish disposal, ambulance and police, and any transport. We saw people packing some music equipment on a boat, presumably for a gig. They needed a boat with a pulley for that. I’m scared to think how people move home here! We thought about that as we bought a couple of peaches from another boat that was a fruit market stall.

Gallerie dell’Accademia was pretty great. The exhibition started with lots of Easter boring 18th century neoclassical paintings, but the upper floor had lots of renaissance art which was much more interesting. There were lots of Tintoretto paintings, a few Titians, plus three by Bosch, which I found particularly exciting.

We went to a little supermarket to buy a cheese, olive bread and a couple of apples to eat on the side of the canal, whilst dipping our feet into the water. Truly, this is the best way to dine in Venice!

Next we visited Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, which was built as a thanks for the fact that the plague went away. As we later learned, the plague killed a quarter of Venice’s population twice, in the 16th and 17th centuries. Both times they were quick to recognise the danger and impose very strict quarantine, and had things reasonably under control. And then both times the merchants successfully lobbied the government to ease restrictions because they are bad for commerce, which led to a quarter of population dying. Sounds familiar? By the way, the word quarantine comes from Venice – they imposed a forty day isolation: quarant-ine.

We strolled about to the edge of the island, bought some gelato, and enjoyed exploring the small streets as we made our way to the Peggy Guggenheim collection. It was really refreshing to see some modern art! And the palazzo which houses the museum is really beautiful, and had a Grand Canal entrance by which we could hang out.

We wanted to take it a bit more easy today, so instead of more sightseeing, we took a boat over to Giudecca. We walked around the island a bit and stopped on the bank for some spritzes. The view of Venice was incredible! By the way, we are very much enjoying the fact that a spritz is cheaper than beer here.

Afterwards, we caught another boat to San Giorgio and visited the monastery. We headed up to the bell tower for an amazing view of Venice and the surrounding islands. Then we watched the sunset behind Santa Maria della Salute – it was pretty magical!

Back to Venice, we walked through Piazza San Marco to see the palace and basilica at night. We also found that the bars on the Piazza sell a spritz for 20 Euro. We didn’t stay to check how much they charge for an avocado toast.

Then we enjoyed another windy walk through the beautiful streets to catch the bus back to the mainland. There, we found a surprisingly good and cheap bar which looked pretty basic, but served great pizza and even better tiramisu, and slept on the parking lot next to it.

Day 2

We woke up pretty early today – feeling refreshed and ready for more culture! We took a round-about route from the Venice bus station to San Marco piazza, which included getting lost in a very long and thin street with a dead end. We crossed over the grand canal via the Ponte di Rialto.

This was the day of the two biggest tourist attractions in Venice: Palazzo Dulce and Basilica di San Macro! We were pretty horrified when we arrived at the piazza and saw massive queues for the palace, basilica and the bell tower. Begrudgingly, we joined the queue for the palace ticket office, annoyed that we hadn’t managed to buy tickets from the website. The queue took an hour – but eventually we got in and it was definitely worth the wait! The palace is immense and the interiors were amazing. So much Tintoretto and Veronese! The walls and ceilings are covered in paintings. The Chamber of the Great Council is ridiculously impressive – at 53 x 25 metres, this single room takes up a whole side of the palace, and it houses the world’s longest canvas painting, Il Paradiso by Tintoretto. The palace visit also led us through the Bridge of Sighs, to follow the route criminals would have taken from the court room, into the prison.

To be honest, we didn’t really like the palace so much. It’s imposing, intense, it crushes you with its awesomeness, power and wealth. It’s just too much, everything says: behold the power of the Republic! Pretty tiring pretty soon.

It’s also really interesting that all of this was created at the time when Venice was already in decline and way past the height of it’s power. But maybe that’s only more of a reason to display?

To our delight, when we left the palace the queue for the basilica was pretty short – it must have been lunchtime – so we didn’t have to wait long for this after all. This church is absolutely unbelievable! It’s also doing with gold and shows off wealth, but somehow does it with much more style. It was built very much at the height of Venice’s power and shows a great deal of Byzantine influence. Both the exterior and the interior are highly decorated with mosaics, the best of which are the ones in the entrance to the basilica and depict the stages of the creation story. There is also a pretty nice museum that houses some amazing tapestries, and the original four horses which the Venetians had plundered from Byzantium after they diverted the 4th crusade against their former masters. Simon got super excited, because they have a three-stringed double bass there, on which Domenico Dragonetti played. We could also visit the upper levels of the church and got a great view of the piazza. I wouldn’t recommend the audio tour though –  7 euros, not very informative, and the not in the correct order.

The weirdest thing in the basilica was the ridiculously richly decorated altarpiece. You have to pay extra to see it, and it is very much extra. It basically looks like the Doge said to the artists: how much money can you pack into five square metres? I mean, you could outfit the crown’s of all kings and princes of the world with the gold and gems from that piece. It’s not even particularly beautiful, it’s just one big show off: Venice truly had the biggest dick. And it’s golden.

At 5pm we were ready for a very late lunch, and had a little picnic on a bench by the palace. Actually, it was a breakfast, since we skipped that before after having eaten way too much pizza last night. Then we wandered to the royal gardens to fill for a bit.

Later we walked over to Canneregio, the north district of Venice. We saw a couple churches on the way and were hoping to find a nice cafe out of the touristy area, as I wanted an ice coffee, but we couldn’t find anything. Lots of restaurants but really few places for just drinks. But we did find a hospital on the coast with ambulance boats parked outside.

We walked back a bit more centrally but then everywhere became really expensive and quite busy. Eventually, we found a bar for cocktails next to a fish market. Exhausted from all the walking, we headed back to the mainland and to the airbnb we had booked (in Maestra), to give us a little break from sleeping in the van.

Day 3

Today was a bit of a quiet day. Simon and I were back to working. Although I had finished my tasks by about 3pm, it felt too late to travel into Venice, as the museums would be closing soon and I think I was in need of some rest from all the walking and culture-overload. I used the rest of the afternoon to catch up on the journal enteries for the last couple of days.

The airbnb we are staying in really sucks. We chose this as it’s located on the mainland for parking the Baron, and it is close to the bus route going to Venice. It is also one of the more affordable places at 42 euros per night for a room. It is a flat in a really basic multi, but it is decorated in the most tacky fake-Venetian style, with red and gold rooms and caraval masks on the walls. Each room in the flat is separately rented, so we only have a small space for the two of us, and it is on the side of a busy road! It seems this is representative of accommodation in and around Venice – expensive and shabby.

To add to this ridiculous airbnb… When we got back from Venice last night, we managed to lock ourselves out of the room. I hadn’t realised that the bedroom door locks automatically, so I let it close behind us when we were outside the room. And as we were about to take a shower, we were only wearing towels, and of course we didn’t have a phone with us to contact our host. In a state of panic, I started crying and Simon started bashing the door, which caused a split in the laminated layer covering the door. We then realised that there were other guests in the room next door to us, so we were able to borrow their phone to contact the host. It turns out there is a space key in a cupboard in the flat, so we were able to let ourselves back in. Simon managed to fix the door and disguise the crack, but then the next day he got the key stuck in the lock causing it to break, which required the host to come and fix. The host didn’t say anythng about the crack though, so we think we have gotten anyway with it.

In the evening we went to the town centre of Maestra. Where we are staying is really built-up and industrial, but the town centre is actually quite nice. We drank a couple of spritzes at a bar on the main piazza, then wandered around with some more delicious gelato.

Day 4

I went to Venice for a solo visit in the morning, as Simon had lots of work to do and my job is a joke. I went to the Ca’Pesaro modern gallery in Villagio Eden. This gallery is fantastic – it’s quite small, but it has a really great collection of late 19th and early 20th century artworks, including Judith-II by Gustav Klilmt, a print by Edward Munch and multiple scultpures by Auguste Rodin. I even felt compelled to draw the face of Judith – it was pretty exciting to see, as I love Klimt and it’s been over 10 years since I saw Judith-I in Vienne. I sat in the cafe which was open to the canal, and worked on my drawing whilst drinking a cappucino.

After the gallery, I headed to San Marco’s piazza to meet with Simon at the Correr museum. The entrance fee for this museum was included in the ticket for Palazzo Ducale, so we were pleased to still be able to us this ticket two days later. The musuem comprises exhibits with the sculptures by Antonio Canova, some Roman statues, models of the Dodge’s ships, a library, and some goldy, tacky 18th century interiors.

At this time, Ania and Michal also arrived in Venice! We met up with them by Ponte di Rialto and walked around the nearby area. We noticed that all the towers in Venice seem to be slightly leaning, maybe they are sinking! Unfortunately, this is when the weather turned and it began to pour with rain. Simon and I had really wanted to find a restaurant with outdoor seating by the Grande Canal, but it was raining so heavily that we didn’t to walk around for long looking for a place to eat. We decided to go to a seafood restaurant right by the fish market where we tried Venetian-style cuttlefish with polenta, which was pretty tasty. After the restaurant, we bought a bottle of prosecco from a “tardi” (as named by us) and sat by the canal to share it. The weather was still a bit damp, but it was lovely and atmospheric.

Venice was amazing. It is pretty touristy and expensive, and feels like the theme park. Also the shops here are either high-fashion, art, or full of caranival masks and other tourist tat. But it’s still ridiculously beautiful, and really clean – it seems like a lot of effort is put into maintaining it and protecting it from the visitors (and the sea!).