San Marco
Monday, August 08, 2005
We got up bright and early and had a scrummy breakfast at the hotel (included in the 60Euro room charge – doing this last minute accommodation thing is really working out for us) and asked if they had another room available for the night… and they did! Don’t know why they wouldn’t let us have 2 nights on the first place, I think hotels seem to keep a certain amount of rooms free until the day, then use them for exactly what we did and last minute bookings. Odd, really, but never mind. We shifted our bags quite literally across the hall and set off to the water bus stop to catch a boat down the canal to San Marco. Well, the first boat came, and was so full that not everyone waiting could get on, and we had to wait another 20 minutes for the next one. No big deal really, but Italians get very, shall we say passionate? when these things happen. Anyway, we got on to a very full boat at 10.43, and took the long, but very pretty journey down the canal. We arrived at the Square and wow! The amount of people was just incredible… There are so many stalls, mainly art ones, but also stalls selling the masquerade masks that are everywhere in the city, plus various glass wares etc. WE wandered through it all and found the pigeons. Oh my God, the pigeons. There are thousands of them in San Marco Square. This is not helped by the fact that there is any number of stalls selling pigeon food for 1 Euro. What a fantastic way to get pigeon shit all over the cities main attraction. Oh well! We cleared out of there fairly quickly, as Maarty was quite concerned about getting pigeon goop on his head and found more shops. I think I’m going to have to come to Venice again on an art buying trip once we have finished our main touring, as this city offers so much. Glass blowing is a huge industry here and you can buy so many sculptures, dishes, whatever here. We obviously don’t want to buy much now as it will most likely break, and glass s heavy to carry, but they even sell Christmas decorations! In August! Many of you will know my Christmas decoration fetish… but I held out and didn’t buy anything as I know it will probably break and I don’t want to have to cry.
The Cathedral itself was beautiful but San Marco isn’t just about the Cathedral, it’s the whole atmosphere. We ended up buying an oil on canvas (we have purchased an art tube as we realised we would come across a lot during our travels and wanted to be able carry it without damaging it) which we will get framed later on. After several hours and lots of sun, we headed back to the hotel to have a siesta (the heat is lovely, but draining) before heading back out. We browsed the shops, and bought a glass chess set (Maarty has always wanted one) and I bought a funky glass ring and pendant.
After being told by the Lonely Planet that Venice is an incredibly expensive city and to prepare to spend double here for the same things elsewhere in Italy or Europe, we have been pleasantly surprised. We even had our cheapest and yummiest meal so far in Italy, of pasta and breads (ha, ha, to all those that laugh at me whenever I have bread rolls with my pasta, that’s how they do it here!) for just 5.10 Euro for both of us! Anyway, after all this we decided to go and get a drink and sit somewhere while the sun went down. We bought Beer and Barcardi Breezers from the kiosk (you can get alcohol from anywhere in Europe) and sat on a Cathedral’s steps. After a while the guy next to us turned around and said ‘is that an Australian accent I hear?’ ‘Um, no, careful what you say, but we’ll get over it’ was our general reply and we ended up talking to him for the next couple of hours about everything under the sun. We headed home around 10pm and played chess, before going to bed. (Maarten won, by the way - well at lest we think so, we’re a little sketchy on the rules).
posted by Maarty @ 12:00 pm,
