Getting Lost In Venice
On day eleven of my thirty-six day tour with Contiki, I spent the entire day in Venice with a group of mates from my group - Courtney, Courtney, Jess, Chris, David and Jamie. It was a fantastic day spent exploring the beautiful, finely aged, city of Venice in Italy.
And on the way there our tour manager Double D (Dangerous) explained that the best way to explore Venice is just to wander and get lost. And we spent the day doing just that! Venice is such a beautiful and wonderful city to wander aimlessly about in. It's the perfect place to relax and put down the map or guidebook you've been vowing to protect with your life the entire trip! There are no dead end streets - and all alleys and walkways lead somewhere. And we found many a cool spot, dock or bridge by just wandering the city and having a great time.
Arriving In Venice
At about 10 AM that morning we departed our campsite by ferry. The ride took about twenty-minutes, and was a nice prelude to our arrival. The scenery along the way consisted mostly of the lane markers for vessels heading for Venice, and the power lines to Venice coming from the mainland of Italy.
Once we arrived we headed to St. Mark's Square to check out the bell tower and odd meterological clock off to one end of the square. This was pretty cool, but much of the church (and of Venice as a whole) was under renovation and/or construction. This, needless to say, hindered our ability to explore and check out the church. But it was a wonderful to be in St. Mark's Square, a place I've seen in so many pictures and movies. I was actually there with all the crazy birds, in the beautiful city of Venice. It was a great feeling!
Glass Blowing & Lace Making
After this we headed off to an awesome glass blowers presentation. You could feel the intense orange heat streaming off the enclave as soon as you walked in. We learned about just how big the glass blowing industry is to the economy of Venice. We learned about the long history Venice has with glass blowing and how much it's been ingrained into its society over the centuries. And we learned that no professional glass blower can be employed without 15 years of glass blowing experience.
We got to see the precision and beauty of all of that training, as the glass blower made a beautiful horse from a blob of molten glass in less than one minute. It was absolutely amazing to watch!
After the glass blowing, we went to a lacemaking demonstration. We learned just how important lacemaking is to Venice. The local government even subsidizes the lacemaking shops to help keep prices low and to help the lacemakers live and earn a consistent salary. This is very important to the continued pursuit of incredible lacemaking in Venice! Some pieces in the shop took seven to ten lacemakers, more than eight months to make.
Lacemaking is very tedious work and can only be done for two to four hours in any given day because of how draining it is for the eyes, the hands and the brain. Imagine working 30 - 500 bobbies or threads to create just one beautiful piece of lace! At the end of the demonstration I ended up buying a center piece for my mom - and I'm happy to say she was very pleased with it once she got it back home!
Exploring Venice
And after all of that, we headed out to explore Venice. It's such a beautiful, quaint and finely aged city to explore by just walking around the cities many streets and side allies. All the buildings are in such a beautiful state of decay - with worn paint, doors, metal, walls, etc. But it's aged with the kind of tenderness that only seems to make the city more and more beautiful with age.
It was a great day spent exploring and having fun with some of my new friends! And by the end of the day we had explored the entire city, had an amazing meal of real "Italian style pizza" in a beautiful square, done the required and fun Gondola ride, bought purses and wallets off the local dodgies, and just had an amazing time! I highly recommend taking a day to just explore and get lost in the beauty of Venice!
- August 30th, 2006
- By Daniel Scrivner
