"Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go." – Truman Capote

 

Funny story...  in my research of Italy, I knew that we would be going to several churches.  And I also knew that you had to be dressed appropriately or they would not let you into the church.  I was prepared.  I had brought slacks and business casual shirts and that's what I put on for our first trek into the city of Venice.  And on our first day, we wanted to avoid the crowds and so we headed in at 6:00 in the morning.

By 10am, the sun and massive humidity had taken this boy who is a natural sweater, and turned him into oatmeal mush.  Standing in Piazza San Marco looking like I had jumped into the canal.  I was sopping wet!  Back to the hotel we went where I put on my second outfit for the day.  Church dress code said "no knees".  I said they had better like my knees because they were dry.  I'm wearing shorts.

First Impressions of Venice

Wow!  That's the cleanest expression I can come up with to describe this city.  Wow!  Every picture you've ever seen of Venice, every movie you've ever seen in Venice does not compare to seeing it in person.  

It's going to be difficult to adequately describe what you're going to see in our pictures.  I'm sure I cannot do justice to the beauty and awe that is this city.  But, what the hell.  Let's try.

Smartest thing we did here was to get up early and head into the heart of Venice before the masses descended upon it.  

Venice at 7am

Venice at 10am

And it got much worse during the day.  But even with the hoardes of tourists, we found that if we would just walk a block or two away from the main tourist sites we were alone pretty much.  Piazza San Marco was wall to wall people.  Two blocks away, we were in a different city. It was like we had the whole place to ourselves.

Venice is disected by the Grand Canal.  The major waterway in the city where everything works off of it.  Similar to how I-5 disects Seattle and it's the main throughfare.  When Venice was built, it was a city of wealth.  All of the richest people wanted their house there along the Grand Canal and they wanted to show off their money.  Kind of like a 14th century Donald Trump.  Except, they actually had the money they claimed.

As you travel down the canal, you're in awe of the size of these homes and the ego of some of those folks.  Many had their faces carved into statues on the outside of their home.

Of course, when you get past the opulence and see where folks like us live...  it's a little different story.

Food on Day One

We were actually pretty mellow in our choices on day one.  (Wait till you see what we ate on day two!)  We had our cappuchino.  We had gelato (OMG, to die for).  We had early afternoon drinks and Spaghetti Carbonara for dinner.

We finished our first day just as we had started it...  a ride down the Grand Canal.

Wait until you see Day Two!

A full day filled with Basilica's, gondola rides, a local artisan demonstrating her craft and a food tour where we ate outside of our comfort zones.  I'll post again in a day or two.

Good night everyone!

--Bill & Sonja