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Slowing the Pace

Crossing the Accademia bridge on our penultimate day in Venice, the pavements lead to the Zattere, a peaceful little area immediatey south of the Grand Canal, the perfect stop for a morning coffee.  There are tourists here, but it is less hectic and far more relaxed; cafe tables are easy to find and there's an air of peace about the place.  Our first port of call is our final church of the trip, Santa Maria della Salute, standing at the beginning of the Grand Canal like a guard at the city gates.  In 1630, Venice suffered a terrible outbreak of the plague which killed nearly a third of the population.  When it subsided, the people of Venice vowed to build a church to Our Lady of Deliverance, a votive offering for the city's deliverance from pestilence.  A competition was held to chose the architect, with Baldassare Longhena selected to design the new church.  Construction began in 1631 and took 50 years, finishing in 1681, one year before Longhena died.  Inside, the church is surprisingly bright, surprisingly octagonal, and obviously in the Venice guidebook for visitors from many different countries, such is its popularity.  For me, however, it is the exterior that is most fascinating - its location is striking, its dome iconic, inspiring the likes of J.M.W. Turner and John Singer Sargent.

Looking from the Accademia Bridge

J.M.W. Turner's Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute

Santa Maria della Salute

The interior of Santa Maria della Salute

A quick ferry-hop to the other end of the island, we're on the search for a different kind of church.  Venice, I have heard, has a fourth-tier football team who play on the far side of the main island.  Our walk takes us past the naval college and into a world inhabited purely by the local population, far more interesting and Italian than many other parts of the city, where washing is strung up between windows, and children run around uninhibited by crowds of snap-happy holidaymakers.  The stadium itself - Stadio Pierluigi Penzo - is a blink-and-you-miss-it sort of ground, a ramshackle set of stands that makes Plainmoor look like Wembley Stadium.  Still, for the Venice football faithful, this is home, and it must all work ok - F.B.C. Unione Venezia won their division this season.

Stadio Pierluigi Penzo

Off the beaten track in Venice

Once again it is punishingly hot by lunchtime as we join the crowds lining the waterside all the way back to St Mark's.  Their presence is due to the America's Cup World Series, which has come to the city for a four day event.  I must admit I am totally ignorant when it comes to sailing, but the sight of so many tall yachts sailing around the lagoon is a mesmerising experience - their height and their speed is seriously impressive, and in the heat of the full sun, I can't help but envy those on board, spray blowing into their face, wind rushing through their hair (in truth, I'm sure it's back-breaking work to race a yacht).

Yachts in the America's Cup World Series

Back to the hotel for a cool shower, then out again to St Mark's Basilica to see if we can get late entry into the final sight on our list.  Unfortunately, we only have half-an-hour before it closes, and with the queue still disappearing into the distance, it doesn't seem worth the wait.  Tomorrow being Sunday, the Basilica is closed to tourism, and so our chance to visit St Mark's passes.  It would of course have been nice to see, but with so many other churches crossed off the list, it doesn't feel like too much of a blow, and we can still admire the architecture from the square, pick up a gelato, and head to Tarnowska's American bar for the evening, to watch the European Cup final.

St Mark's Basilica

Enjoying an evening gelato

On our final day in the city, the pace of life slows to a virtual standstill.  We've done the main tourist sights, the museums and the cultural centres, so now is the time to do one of my favourite things in a foreign city - wander.  

The day starts back on the Zattere for a chocolate brioche, before we eschew the maps and let our feet take us wherever they choose.  The back canals and squares of Venice are indeed very beautiful, and although we have no idea exactly where we are, we work out that it is actually impossible to get lost in the city - whichever way you go, you will eventually hit a large body of water.  This makes Venice the ideal city to explore even for those with no sense of direction, and with it comes a lot of freedom - you lose your fear of being lost.  In true fashion, then, I'm not really sure where exactly the following photos depict.

Breakfast on the Zattere

Getting lost on the waterfront

Snapshots of a day's wandering

A whole day of leisurely strolling done, there really is just one thing we need to do in Venice - take a gondola ride.  As we're on a budget, the full experience is out of the question (prices start at around the 80 euro mark), but gondola ferries called traghetti cross the Grand Canal for 50 cents a person, and we gingerly step aboard for our two minute ride.  Apparently it is the tradition for men to stay stood up during the crossing, but this is evidently a bad idea on the rocky vessel, so I perch on the side.  No such problem for the gondolier, who dodges the boats and steers us across the lapping canal with the skill of a professional.  It's a cheap and simple pleasure, but one that the two of us thoroughly enjoy.

Aboard the traghetto

Our time in Venice comes to an end, bringing with it the usual reflections.  We've loved our week in the city - its class, its style, its art and its architecture, its food, its people, its sheer beauty.  If we were being honest, a week in the city was perhaps more than we needed, but it allowed us a couple of days to unwind and observe the city at our own relaxed pace.  This, for me, is the best way to explore Venice, as it matches the rhythm of the place, particularly outside the tourist hotspots of St Mark's and the Rialto.

Late into our final evening, the two of us end up on a bench in the shadow of the Doge's Palace, watching the remaining gondolas complete their rounds down a side canal.  It's a beautiful final evening, with a rare and magical feeling that only comes when you're in the company of the one you love, in a place that borders on fantasy.

In Fair Verona, Where We Lay Our Scene

"Two households, both alike in dignity,
     In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
     Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
     A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
 Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
     Do, with their death, bury their parents' strife. -
The fearful passage of their death-marked love,
     And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
     Is now the two hours' traffick of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend."


We arrive at Venice Santa Lucia railway station via a glorious trip up the Grand Canal, so decadent in the fresh morning air.  I remember Italian trains being something of a mystery when I inter-railed a few years ago, and it seems nothing has changed.  Locating our tickets on the self-service machine, Lizzie notices that we have the option to pick our own seats.  This is ideal, and we choose two together using the on-screen carriage guide.  This is too good to be true however, as when our tickets print, we have been placed four carriages apart.  In the end, we find two seats together and hope they're not reserved.  This works fine until our train reaches Padua, where a man gets on and asks another passenger to get out of his seat.  This passenger produces a ticket showing his is the seat opposite, occupied by a young woman.  Her ticket reveals that she is meant to be in another seat at our table, where an older man is sitting.  He in turn produces a ticket for my seat, and what feels like the eyes of the entire carriage fall onto me.  Time for a quick exit.

Our destination for the day is the city of Verona which lies about sixty miles west of the Venetian lagoon.  After a few days surrounded by water it comes as something of a shock to once again be in the company of roads, cars and buses, and we leave the station in slight confusion about where to go.  It all makes for quite the adventure, as we pound the pavements of a new and foreign city, searching for the centre, all the while knowing that we only have five hours until our train leaves to take us back again.  In the end, it's incredibly easy to navigate and in no time at all we at at Piazza Bra (a name we can all share a laugh over), a lovely open square dominated by the Roman amphitheatre,  built in AD 30, the second-largest after Rome's Colosseum.  It makes for a fascinating visit, the high-sided terraces giving a spectacular view of the arena, which in its day would have hosted the cruelest and bloodiest sports of the empire.  Nowadays it hosts something far worse - at the centre of the arena is an enormous stage, being readied for a Duran Duran concert.  Nonetheless, it isn't difficult to imagine wild beasts and gladiators, thousands of spectators enjoying a taste of Roman entertainment, at the very heart of the Empire.  Lizzie and I climb to the very top level, and stand in awe of our surroundings.

Piazza Bra

Lizzie at the arena

A pair of star-crossed lovers

Back in Piazza Bra, one cannot help but notice the local police force, Barvarian in appearance, feathers sticking out the top of their tri-corner hats.  These, I am told, are the Alpine police, which patrol from Verona in the south to the Alps in the north, and make up part of the blurred culture encompassing northern Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and southern Germany. 

Leaving Piazza Bra and heading up Via Anfiteatro, we stop for our customary gelato.  When it comes to ice cream, Lizzie is always more adventurous than me, and whilst I opt for delicious chocolates and mints, she chooses a radioactive-looking gelato called puffi.  Now, I had noted only the day before that puffi seems to be Italian for smurf (I noticed this on a cinema poster in Venice), and true to its name, puffi gelato is bright blue.  It also tastes of bubblegum, is strangely pleasant, but does not compliment any other flavour - or colour - in the entire ice cream world.  Lizzie, I congratulate you on your sense of adventure, if not on your final choice ;-)

Lizzie enjoying puffi gelato

Reaching Piazza della Erbe, we follow the gaudy yellow signs pointing to Casa di Giulietta, the house said to have been the home of Juliette Capulet.  There is actually no proof linking the house to the story, but this hasn't stopped the locals cashing in on the site, which for a few euros entitles you to stand in the balcony to pose for a photograph - a timeless souvenir, me thinks, for the tacky-minded. There isn't actually much else to see at Casa di Giulietta, and we are both underwhelmed by its crowds and its dirtiness - it seems to have become a tradition to stick chewing gum on the walls, to scratch messages into the bricks. There is much better to see in this part of Verona, not least the official shop of local football club Hellas Verona, who play in Italy's second division, and share Torquay United's colours.

Casa di Giulietta

Cheering on the local football team

The picturesque Piazza della Erbe

 Beyond the pretty Piazza della Erbe lies the northern end of the city centre, punctuated by the beautiful church of Sant' Anastasia.  This is the most ancient part of the city, the church being completed around AD 1400, designed and held by the Dominicans until 1808.  The exterior is fairly uninspiring, owing to it never having been finished, but the interior is overwhelming, red and white marble adoring the columns of the nave, one of the loveliest churches of our trip.

The unfinished facade of Sant' Anastasia

The interior of Sant' Anastasia

Across the Adige river, the land rises steeply and quickly gives way to a rural landscape, the foothills of the Italian Alps.  Nestled into the bottom of the cliff is a Roman theatre, built in the late first century and now a lovely little archaeological museum.  Aside from the well-preserved theatre, the museum (which is accessible via a rickety old lift) offers an extensive collection of Roman artefacts ranging from mosaics to figurines, sculptures to columns.  In pretty little Italian courtyards, we are treated to exhibits of the museum's ongoing conservation work - hundreds of artefacts being restored for future generations.  What makes this place even more fascinating is that we have more-or-less left the tourist trail, and have the site almost exclusively to ourselves.  It's the perfect place to delve a little into the region's wonderful past, and enjoy a stunning view over the city.

Scenes from the Roman theatre and museum

A stunning view from the Roman theatre museum

Our walk back to the station follows the Adige river past the Duomo - Verona's cathedral.  The schools have obviously just finished for the day, and the roads are jammed as cars are abandoned down side streets and, apparently, cathedral carparks.  Inside, the cathedral is ornate but cosy, the interior dating from the 15th century with columns made of red Verona marble.  Chapels flank each side on the cathedral, and host paintings by a variety of Veronese artists, whilst the nave ends with the main chapel, Cappella Maggiore.

The exterior of Verona's Duomo

Verona Duomo's beautiful interior

Late in the afternoon, feet aching and with the sun still high in the sky, we find one of Verona's most well-known structures - the Castelvecchio Bridge.  The exact dates of construction are unknown, but the bridge is thought to have been built in the mid-1350s by Cangrande II della Scala (Lord of Verona), to allow him a quick escape in the event of rebellion against his cruel and tyrannical rule.  Completely destroyed by retreated German troops making their own escape in 1945, it was faithfully reconstructed in 1949, a proud achievement of the Veronese.  Legend has it that on its original inauguration, the bridge's designer presented himself to the townspeople on horseback, so he could quickly flee should the bridge crumble!

The Castelvecchio Bridge

From the Castelvecchio Bridge, it's a carefully navigated walk through the backstreets of Verona, back to the railway station.  As it happens, our train is twenty minutes late, but there is something intriguing about sitting on the platform of a foreign railways station that I rather like.  I think it's the destination board - we could hop on the express to Milan, or the long-distance service to Rome.  In the end, however, we hear Venice calling, and board our train back with some relief - our seat reservations are side-by-side.  Although we've barely had five hours to explore the city, we both love Verona.  For me it is one of the finest foreign cities I have visited, well worth a few days in any future visit to northern Italy - an absolutely lovely city.


"A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
    The sun, for sorrow, will not shew his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
      Some shall be pardoned, and some punishéd;
For never was a tale of more woe
Than that of Juliet and her Romeo." 

To the Islands!

An early start on a beautifully blue-skied day sees us boarding the vaporetto to the island of Murano.  Lying a little way north of Venice, Murano is an altogether softer affair, with a cute laziness in the air, and a more authentic feel of the real Italy.  Quite naturally, the island's glass museum makes the perfect starting point, with colourful displays reflecting the traditional industry.  Murano is clearly very proud of its glassworks, seeing it as a major export, with prices reflecting the overall quality of the pieces.  The museum's size is perhaps slightly underwhelming (we content ourselves in having been eligible for the reduced youth price), but what is on display is both interesting and beautiful.  Centre stage on the top floor is an enormous giant glass aquarium, full of colourful glass sea creatures and plants, but unfortunately under the watchful eye of the photograph police.  Elsewhere, plates, vases and beads fill the display cases, some pieces dating back to Roman times, and excavated with incredible care.

Murano

Artefacts from the glass museum

 We take lunch from a tiny little cafe on a canal side, revelling in the bargain prices of our €1.50 sandwiches.  It is only when we open these that we realise, this price was for half the sandwich, but the food is good and the experience enjoyable, as we sit in the shade of moored-up boats, dangling our legs over the edge so that our feet are almost touching the canal water.  A short wander later brings us to two of Murano's churches, San Pietro Martire and Santi Maria e Donato, the latter so called because the body of Saint Donato, patron saint of Murano, was brought here from Cephalonia in 1125.  The churches of Murano are less bothered by photographers and, unlike their Venetian counterparts, are free to enter, which may explain their popularity.  They certainly provide us with some shade from the sun, now beating down at the heart of the day.

Santi Maria e Donato

 On our way to the boats for the island of Burano, we happen upon a uniquely Murano garden.  The island's rather lovely Giardinoitalia - Italian garden - is made up entirely of glass, down to the flowers, leaves, stems, and creatures who inhabit it.  Lizzie's favourite (and I have to agree with her); a little green frog sitting happily on a Lilly pad.  Beyond the garden, the farce of trying to find a boat to Burano awaits.  We join a crowd (queue is far too polite a word), which fans out behind us and into the street, as one boat moors up, then leaves, and is quickly followed by another that doesn't even stop.  Forty five minutes later, and our 'once-every-twenty-minutes' boat finally arrives to take on passengers.  What ensues is something of a rugby scrum, as eager tourists scramble to get aboard.  The vessel takes on what certainly looks like an unsafe amount, but this doesn't seem to deter the ticket officials, who wave more and more travellers through the gates and onto the deck.  Eventually, there are enough passengers even for them, and our boat departs - with an extra burst of fuel - into the northern lagoon.  I can't help but feel I'm riding on the back of a crocodile that has eaten too much, for the ride is sluggish as we pass uninhabited islands, and are passed by much faster, less busy boats.  Still, if it gets us to Burano, I shan't complain, and a slow journey really helps us to appreciate the scenery - the Dolomites rise majestically in the distance, their snowy caps mingling with the wispy summer clouds that have collected above them.

The Giardinoitalia

The Dolomites rise in the distance

 Setting foot on Burano feels a bit like walking into the Godfather film.  No we are not in Sicily, but you can almost taste the family tradition and Italian culture of the island.  Burano is most famous for its colourful houses, which distinguishes it almost provocatively from the other islands.  The legend goes that each house in the row was painted in bright contrast to its neighbours, so that the island's fishermen could pick them out whilst fishing on the lagoon.  Nowadays the practice is just for fun, which may explain why those houses not facing the lagoon are also vibrantly coloured.  What also fascinates me, however, is that many houses in the same row also have very different shapes and appearance.  Blinded by the dazzling colours, this didn't become apparent to me until I took a photo in black-and-white.  Take this row of buildings by the Chiesa di San Martino; each is uniquely painted, but also uniquely shaped and styled, obviously not built as one block, but rather cobbled together one-by-one.  I love this individuality, I find it appealing and very charming.

Colourful houses on Burano

 There isn't much to do on Burano after we enjoy the architecture, devour a gelato, and visit the church of San Martino, so we hop on a much quieter boat back to Venice.  As we approach the northern end of the Venetian island, we pass San Michele, the cemetery island, where the good people of Venice have been buried for centuries.  Due to space restrictions, the average stay here is now only 60 years, after which time a person is exhumed and reburied on the Italian mainland, so this may explain the enormous number of cremation memorials, wall-after-wall, block-after-block.  What is perhaps most striking is that nearly every memorial is adorned with colourful flowers - a testament, perhaps, to the Catholic respect for the deceased.  For the living, the experience can get a little overwhelming, a tad claustrophobic, so Lizzie and I content ourselves with a half-hour wander, before being on our way.

The cemetery of San Michele

 Evening arrives in Venice and class wafts through the air as the tourist population dresses up for the stylish bars, restaurants and canal cruises of the city.  Murano and Burano have left me with a headache, but restored after a fine pizza dinner, we arrive at the nearby church of San Vidal for a Vivaldi concert.  The church is a wonderful setting for the event, and every seat is full as the orchestra take to the stage, then woo the audience with sumptuous music for nearly two hours, playing far more than the obligatory Spring.  Afterwards we all pour out into the square, heads full of the music, and slightly drunk on the whole experience that I fancy we float back to our hotel.  What a day!

An evening with Vivaldi, San Vidal