The Events of Saturday, March 12, 2011

                Our morning was unusually but pleasantly slow. Before our parents woke us kids up, Mom showered, and then Dad removed Mom’s stitches on the back of her neck where she had a mole removed. Then they woke us up, at around almost ten-o-clock. Abby woke up today and announced loudly that she had been dreaming in Italian. Wow! What an authentic experience for her. We made our beds and had Italian Cheerios, Italian blood oranges, and 100% Italian milk for breakfast. After breakfast, we read a page from our Christian History daily devotions book, and then watched some Internet footage on the Japanese earthquake and tsunami and, as a family, prayed for the Japanese people.

                Next, Lindsey showered, and then I endured a miserably freezing cold shower. This morning, our toilet started continually running, and somehow this caused the water heater to malfunction. So Abby’s shower was put off for later in the day.

                We relaxed and lounged around for awhile, reading and having quiet times. Next, we prepared to leave, walked down to the ‘laguna’, and hopped onto a ‘vaporetto’, one of those bus boats which so efficiently transport us to the real Venezia.

                Soon, we arrived at San Marcos to visit the Palazzo Ducale, the Duke’s Palace. Before entering, we examined the decorations on the seventh pillar from the right, which tells the story of the birth and death of a child. The intricate granite carvings showed the couple meeting, the couple falling in love, the couple marrying, the couple sleeping together, the couple with their newborn baby, the couple holding the baby’s hands, and the couple mourning the baby’s death. It was quite the interesting pillar!

                Upon entrance to the Duke’s Palace, we put our backpacks in the ‘guardaroba’ (the cloak room) and began our tour with the Golden Staircase, which led to the Duke’s apartments. We learned that the Doge had no influence or power, but that he was just a status symbol, someone who was significant and rich representing all of Venice to the world. Next came the Institutional Chambers, all beautifully decorated rooms with various purposes for serving the government. Every part of these rooms was amazing, elaborate, impressive, and opulent. From floor to ceiling, the Institutional Chambers were decked out in glory. One room’s function was not memorable, but the ceiling was. In fact it was my favorite ceiling, because it had everything in terms of decoration – vaults, statues, hand-painted frescoes. We had see each of these decorations separately, but never all amassed in a single ceiling.

                Our visit continued on to the Prisons. We explored what seemed like endless cells, walked down dark, dank, hallways, and climbed narrow stairways to even more prison cells. Somehow, we followed one arrow correctly, and then all the other arrows pointed back the other way. So we explored part of the dungeon backwards and then saw the same interesting stuff on the way back out, this time following the arrows correctly. It was fun getting somewhat lost in the scary dungeon. Rick Steve’s Guide to Italy recommends getting lost in Venice, as lost as possible. We accomplished this goal and thoroughly enjoyed it, as he promised we would.

                After the prisons, we found our way to the Bridge of Sighs, which connects two wings of the Doge’s Palace. Supposedly, a condemned man would be led over this bridge on his way to the prison, take one last look at the glory of Venice, and sigh before going into the dark depths of the dungeon. A local legend says that lovers will be assured eternal love if they kiss on a gondola at sunset under the bridge. As we looked out like so many prisoners had done, we saw people taking pictures of us, or at least of the windows we were looking through. We realized that the bridge we could see from inside the Bridge of Sighs was the bridge we had crossed every day here on our way to San Marco Piazza (St. Mark’s Square).

                Signs in the Doge’s Palace then led us to the Giant’s Staircase, before ending our formal self-guided tour. Upon completion of the ordinary tour, we decided to explore more on our own, finding, among others, a gondola out of water, which reminded Mom of an Amish buggy, and rooms full of granite columns and other decorations.

                When we finally left the Doge’s Palace, we walked along the ‘laguna’ and found a white granite bench, where we sat down for a snack-ish meal. We couldn’t decide whether it was lunch or dinner, because it was already four-o-clock. For dessert at the conclusion of our snack-ish meal, we tried some yummy Marias that we had purchased in Texas and still had not even opened. They were large, circular, cracker-looking cookies – crunchy, sweet, and very delicious. The Marias reminded us somewhat of large, stale Nilla wafers.

                Next, we crossed St. Mark’s Square to the ‘Museo Correr’, where we had been two times before. We only had the four rooms on the second story to finish, but they were approaching closing time, so they did not want to let us in. The attendant spoke Italian, French, and Spanish, but very little English. Daddy’s Spanish helped explain what we wanted, and we were permitted entry, only to find that the second story was closed. So instead, we visited the restrooms, which had been our true motive all along. Here in Venice, most public restrooms charge €1.50 for one entry. So for our entire family of six to use a public restroom once would cost our family €9, which amounts to approximately $12. For this reason, we choose to use free public restrooms whenever possible.

                Anyway, once the ‘Museo Correr’ closed, we went back to the vaporetto and rode it through the Grand Canal to the ‘Puento di Rialto’ – Rialto Bridge. We walked the narrow pedestrian-friendly streets back to the gelato shop purely by Mom’s memory. She can never forget how to get to her ice cream, even if it’s actually Italian gelato. Our second try at gelato, after repaying yesterday’s debt, was fun and delicious. We had the money this time. After finishing off our sticky and sweet desserts, we explored the shops along the Rialto Bridge.

                Then we wandered through the old buildings on the other side of the Grand Canal to Cantina Do Mori for a dinner of a shared plate of appetizers. According to Rick Steves, the way to eat dinner in Venice is the “Stand-Up Progressive Venetian Pub-Crawl Dinner”, or ‘giro d’ombra’ in Italian, sampling plates of various ‘cucchetti’ – interesting toothpick munchies. We tried a whole lot of strange stuff. We usually did not even know what it was until after we tried it, and, even then, sometimes, its identity eluded us. Besides the unknowns, we munched calamari (not fried, marinated – gross!), artichoke hearts, spinach quiche, breaded falafel, rolled ham and anchovies, and a combination of onions, anchovies and peppercini. We also enjoyed ‘crostini’ (small toasted bread with various spreads on it) and three different sandwiches – heavy on the mayonnaise – filled with crab meat, green stuff, and some sort of hard-boiled egg whites. But we’re not actually sure that any of what we ate are actually what we thought we ate. The only thing we know for sure is Daddy had a glass of red wine, and we nibbled two different cheeses.

                We were very full by the time we got back onto the vaporetto to San Marco, where we disembarked to enjoy some live orchestra music at some of the outdoor cafés. However, we soon discovered that early March is not the season for eating at an outdoor café here in Venice. It wasn’t really a huge disappointment, because, instead, we enjoyed a free show. About fifteen or so men of Indian ancestry walked up and down the square trying to sell us catapulting light-up helicopter rotors. Their demonstrations were quite impressive, as the toy went very high into the sky.

                Back on the vaporetto, we rode to Lido and walked home. Abby hoped to use the shower if the water heater was working, but it was still not working. We gathered that the water heater could not fill because the water was being used to rinse the toilet all day long, so no water was present in the water heater to be heated. We all got ready for bed, and went to bed early to be ready for an early wake-up tomorrow to leave for Valto Pino, near Assisi.

                After we went to bed, Daddy called the villa owner about the toilet, and they called a plumber for us. The plumber came at around ten, and fixed the flushing mechanism in the toilet. However, he said it would take two hours for the water to heat. Hence, our parents went to bed looking forward to hot showers tomorrow.