In case you haven’t seen it on the news, or gathered it from these entries, the weather over here became winter a few weeks ago, and it refuses to let up. It came into play big time for us as we embarked upon our biggest trip of all, the excursion to Venice and northern Italy.
We were set to take discount carrier Ryan Air out of John Lennon Airport in Liverpool, and it was sunny when we got there. Then it started snowing again. They put up an hour delay. They announced the gate, and we went there and got in line. And waited. And waited. And then, they canceled the flight. Then we stood in line, and waited….and finally got to the Ryan Air ticket window. We had already lost a non-refundable hotel room in Milan for that night (Wednesday), and we were booked into a hotel in Venice the following night, so when we were hearing that there were no Ryan Air flights from Liverpool to Milan until Saturday, we were concerned. Luckily, they did a flight to the airport near Venice on Thursday; unluckily, it was flying out of East Midlands, not Liverpool. We got a room across the street and determined to start again on Thursday.
The first of three trains took us from Liverpool, through Crewe (where we had started the day before), and then within spittin’ distance of our flat as we wound across the snowy middle of England. It was still snowing when we got off the bus that connected our third train to Derby (Dahh-by) to East Midlands Airport. But, believe it or not, we loaded up and took to the skies on time, and were getting onto a shuttle into Venice by dinnertime. We had no trouble finding our hotel, and were gazing out our window on to the Grand Canal before bedtime. So, of course, bedtime became dinnertime as I jumped across the street and grabbed a pizza. Guess what! The pizza was fantastic! -- excellent meal numero uno in Italy.
We got up the next day to chilly temperatures and flooded streets and doorways. The tide was exceptionally high and, as is often just the way in Venice, water was everywhere. We hung out in the room a while and relaxed (we hadn’t slept too well, though there are no cars in the city, the boats under the window sill can make quite a racket). The water receded and the wind calmed and we took to the streets. I did my best to follow the map to the Piazza San Marco (that’s what y’all would call St. Mark’s Square), but Venice is simply the biggest maze ever devised by humanity. Even with a map, it is just an absolute labyrinth. Lisa and I loved it, but – and stop me if you’ve heard this – my daughter does not like to walk for extended periods of time, and my son just quietly tolerates it then starts sympathizing with the girl in the evening debrief. We wandered quite aimlessly for a while before reaching the Piazza, but the whole city is just beautiful, so once I tuned out the whining, I had a blast. We had ducked into a dark restaurant where there was clearly a mafia meeting happening, and had a decent meal, but we found a very good place for dinner. The food was the only saving grace of Venice for the kids.
Day two was a bit more organized once we had our bearings. After the water went down again, we headed into the rain for the church where Titian’s painting of The Assumption of the Virgin Mary is the centerpiece. They wouldn’t let us take pictures inside, but check the slideshow, you’ll recognize the painting. Titian is also buried in the church, and there is a wood carving by Donatello, that depicts an emaciated John the Baptist, one of my favorite characters in history. Donatello may be one of the lesser known of the big Renaissance artists – not to mention most underrated Ninja Turtle – but he sure could whittle.
After the church, we had another spectacular meal, three courses for Papa G, and then waddled down to the Galleria di Accademia, the premier art museum in Venice. We pushed the kids past a million paintings from the Medieval and Renaissance period of Venice’s history, some simply enormous, and several by people I had heard of. There was a John the Baptist there that took the cake, full gore of his beheading, the kids thought it was something.
All this, of course, was just filler until we could eat again. We got some pictures from the Accademia Bridge with the Church of the Saluti in the background (it’s the church you picture when you think of Venice), and we took a little gondola ride across the Grand Canal for 50 cents apiece. Check that one off the list. After some down time, we headed back along one of the main drags, and ended up in a restaurant that seemed more touristy than we wanted once we sat down. However, the food was every bit as good as the rest of our meals, and probably the best spaghetti with meat sauce I’ve ever had in a restaurant. And I should know, because I’ve eaten a lot of Chef Boyardee. I got a quick jaunt back out into the streets when Lisa went back to the hotel with the kids, it was peaceful and pleasant, just like I expected Venice to be. I can’t imagine what made it feel so different than it did in the day…
We had to get up the next morning and get to the train station to head to Bergamo. We still had our tickets to go from there back to Liverpool. I’ll pick up there tomorrow to spare you the drama of our trip home…
Arrivaderci!
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