Venice

From Venice airport, we took a city bus to the Piazzale Roma, the bus transfer zone to the main island. We had rented a B&B apartment for four nights in the Cannaregio district. The agent told us to walk in from the Piazzale to a pharmacia by the apartment, where she would meet us.

At the first bridge, we had to swat a couple of flys (street hustlers who insisted on grabbing our bags and carrying them up the bridge for 5€ each; they scurried away after repeated attempts at bag-snatching). Fortunately, these were the only 'hustler flies' we encountered on our stay. 

On reflection, it would have been better to take the vaporetto water shuttle from the Piazzale into the city, but we were not pre-savvied about the situation and our options. The walk with a couple of suitcases on cobbled streets and up and down stepped bridges, running the gauntlet of hustlers, was a little inappropriate for senior citizens in general. We managed it well, but it seemed we were pretending to be 20-somethings doing Europe on $5/day. There were many other tourists schlepping bags, so we did not stand out, except the rest seemed younger.

As we cleared the 2nd bridge, we could see the main street of our district with the pharmacia in the distance (green cross on left). Our agent was there as expected, a little grumpy because we were later than expected. There were open air produce stands down the middle of our street, a source of fresh fruit during our stay.

Our digs were on a street (alley) by the pharmacia, to the left off the main street shown above. The apartment was owned by the proprietors of the deli fronting us on the main street.

The deli folk supplied fresh milk, cheese, and bread/rolls for us each morning. They would hang a plastic bag full of goodies on the fence on our rear courtyard. Quaint and cute, if somewhat impersonal. Debby made sure to introduce ourselves to them, going in and chatting with them each day, buying cheese, wine, and other goodies.

After getting settled in, we walked about our new neighborhood.

Debby inquired at our deli regarding a good restaurant and they recommended one across the street, so we went there and had a nice meal. It seems that shop proprietor's we asked about restaurants chose to recommend their closest neighbor, a friendly support system.


Day 2

Debby's college friend Nancy was coming to Venice this morning to meet us, so we walked back to the train station to meet her at her train (she lives an hour from Venice). Debby spotted her immediately as she got off, even through a big crowd. From the train station, we took the vaporetto to Piazza San Marco. Debby took pictures along the way, including good shots of the Bridge of Sighs.

Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs, 1600)

Piazza San Marco is the tourist hub of Venice (aka the drawing room of Europe). Nancy treated us to a coffee and pastry at Caffè Florian on the Piazza, the most illustrious of Venetian coffee houses. In continuous operation since 1720, we were following in the footsteps of Goethe, Proust, Dickens, and Byron, all frequent patrons.

Nancy planned to visit her niece in Venice in the afternoon, so we began walking back toward Cannaregio. We stopped for lunch at a small sandwich shop on the way.

We walked a little more, then said our goodbyes when Nancy's direction parted from ours. Debby and I walked back to our apartment.

Ponte di Rialto (Rialto Bridge, 1591)

Directly behind our apartment location is the Jewish Ghetto of Venice. The Republic of Venice created laws in 1516 confining Jews to this quarter of the island. The Ghetto was closed at night and patrols ensured no night exits for its inhabitants.

The Ghetto laws were rescinded by Napolean. This new freedom became official when Venice became part of the Kingdom of Italy. But the Jewish quarter now had centuries of history. The five synagogues there remained the centers of Jewish life in Venice to the mid 20th century. They represented the different ethnicities of Jews in the city, which had always had different languages and different traditions.

At the start of WWII, there were an estimated 2000 Jews in Venice. They had had their civil rights eliminated in 1938. After Germany occupied Italy, they were declared enemy aliens and over 200 were sent to the camps. Now there are about 400 Jewish citizens of Venice. We were told only 70 of them now live in the old Ghetto. Debby and I walked around the Ghetto and absorbed some of the history.


Day 3

We returned to Piazza San Marco in the morning via vaporetto. Debby wanted us to see the interior of the Basilica, San Marcos di Venezia. It is highly decorated in a Byzantine style.

On the way back, Debby took some more snapshots of Venice.

Ponte dell'Accademia (1854)

Our only glitch was inexplicably leaving Debby's camera and my glasses on our lunch table. We discovered the missing gear after 10 minutes walking, so hiked back. The staff had put them away for us.

That evening we spent some time plotting our exit to the airport on our final day and realized we were literally up a creek without a paddle. Our plane was to leave at 6:30 AM, requiring us to be at the airport no later than 5AM. But we could discover no means of transport out of Venice early enough to get us there.

Debby complained of our predicament to our tour group, who had made the plane reservation. They were wholly unsympathetic, but did offer a $50 refund for our inconvenience and an offer to reschedule our flight for a $500 penalty fee. We chose rather to give up our last night's stay in Venice and stay near the airport instead, which worked out well for us.


Day 4

We were invited for lunch by an Italian family, friends of Debby's family, who live outside Venice. Debby's father was a physician in the Army in WWII and went back to postwar Italy as a Colonel in our occupation forces. It was during this time that Debby's parents met members of the prior generation of the Italian family; the families have been in touch since.

Our afternoon hosts live as an extended family in a large villa, one family each on the three different floors. The parents live on the ground floor, the two daughters and their families on the upper floors. The house is surrounded by soybean fields owned by the family. They are also in the heavy construction business.

We packed ourselves and left our Venice digs, bags in tow, taking the vaporetta to the Piazzale Roma, and then a city bus to the town where our host family lived. We were picked up at the bus stop and treated to a wonderful lunch and visit.

In the late afternoon, we said our goodbyes and were driven to a small B&B near the airport, owned by friends of the family. It was pleasing blend of rustic and modern, an accommodation with attractive and efficient design. We had a wonderful dinner in their attached restaurant, where raw prosciutto crudo was carved from the animal leg and other meats were grilled at a large open grille, both operations close to our table. The restaurant and inn were full even though driving past it, one wouldn't even know it was there.

We left a 4:30AM wakeup, and when we came down, the owner himself was there to make us cappuccino and to take us to the airport, less than five minutes away. We had an easy flight back to Seattle, with plane change in Amsterdam.

What a nice end to an enjoyable Anniversary celebration trip.

Birthday Celebrations in Italia

We drove to San Diego today to spend the day with Barry and Kelly, a joint birthday celebration for Barry and myself; our birthdays are 10 days apart. The day was set up by Debby and Kelly. It was originally meant to be a surprise train trip into Mexico, but that fell through. Then Kelly mentioned an Italian festival in Balboa Park and we decided to go there instead.

Kelly's big news was that she had survived the second mass layoff at her employer this year; an additional 40 attorneys and 80 staff were let go, including several that Kelly worked with. We congratulate Kelly for having established herself so well in her profession. She was also pleased that her younger brothers were established in permanent positions now in this tough economy. Barry's contract as Assistant Professor at UCI has been renewed for a third year; he will teach two Group Theory classes next fall while continuing to pursue his research.

After going for lunch at a sandwich shop near UCSD, we met friends of Kelly, from her Italian class, at the Balboa Park Organ Pavilion. We sat and chatted and then watched an a cappella performance of male voices: Il Coro degli Alpini or Alpine Soldier's Chorus. The songs were in Italian and Debby translated for me. She knew three of the songs. We also met Kelly's travel agent by chance, who has been arranging Barry and Kelly's trip to Italia in August (in conjunction with their other trip to Budapest and Prague the week before). Debby conversed with her in Italian, then spoke with some members of the Coro Alpini while purchasing their two available CDs. Debby loves to mingle with Italians and converse in their language, so it was a special day for her as well. The Italian Vice-Consul of San Diego and Consul General from Los Angeles were emcees and expressed great satisfaction at how warmly the Italian-American community of San Diego had welcomed the musical group.

After the concert, we wandered around the park exhibits for a while, visiting the Ansel Adams exhibition, but deciding not to go through the exhibit. We then ended up at the Desert and Rose gardens, before driving to Little Italy for evening snacks. At a small soup and salad place, I continued my vegetarian day with an excellent eggplant and mozzarella dish with chianti. The others fared equally well. Then we retired to a coffee and gelato shop up the street and enjoyed coffee and gelato to live music.

It was a wonderful day. Barry and Kelly presented me with gifts of wine, a bundle of firewood kindling tied with a big red bow, a math book, and a humorous card suggesting that I should barbecue myself a birthday cake. The kindling was a special gift; they were pieces of 1" boards that Barry has been breaking with hand chops and foot kicks as part of his Kung Fu training. I told him he would regret that abuse when he gets to be my age. But youth must find its own way. Debby suggested that I practice woodworking with the boards, since I have taken custody of her Dad's woodworking tools. I concur that the boards should not go to waste.

The math book is also a special gift. Barry says it is the only book he knows that has attempted to explain, in layman's terms, his field of algebraic number theory. The book is Fearless Symmetry (Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers) by Ash and Gross. I love the thoughtful gifts that I receive from B & K.

Debby expressed how the sounds of Italian all day at the park and in Little Italy had whetted her appetite for a return visit to Italia. I sense we are as good as on our way.