Merchants of Venice

I like to imagine myself as a merchant in the early days of Venice. Overseeing the trade at the port. Watching ships sail, travelling in my boat everywhere with my own personal gondolier. Splashing with all that my trading brings me, silks, precious jewels, and what not. But this wasn’t the feeling that I had when I landed in Venice, this was the feeling I left with!!
We arrived in Venice, the afternoon of 22nd and my first glimpse wasn’t of St. Mark’s square or of the colourful houses on water. It was of a dry patch of land out of water. I could image the patch floating away any minute but it just did not look like it was interesting in floating away. Nobody would welcome it.

We went looking for our bus that would take us to the bus stand near our hotel. Our hotel was remarkably easy to find! Right down the bus stand, opposite the water bus stand, right beside the water. We were at Piazzale Roma with the Santa Lucia train station right across the water!
It looked like we were at a bustling place and we couldn’t wait to drop our bags and check it out. We decided that jet lag was for old people and we wanted to run around right this minute. We did just that. We hunted around for a place that would give us SIM cards with standard data packs and went to have our phone fitted and working with them. We had a working Internet within a few mins and of course started playing with Google maps! We were on a quest to familiar ourselves with the land we were in. We then went to check out the train station and had our first pizza! We asked for vegetarian and saw that they immediately understand and gave us vegetation pizza. Nothing lost in translation! It was such an experience to have our first pizza in Italy. Something we’ve always discussed doing! But they put eggplant in our pizza!!! Eeks! We switched off pizza for the next day so that we’re aware of which one to order next. Meanwhile, we tried out pasta at many places and decided we had a thing for the Pomodoro – tomato sauce with pasta.

In front of Santa Lucia train station

We had 2 days and 6 tours to cover. We set out on our first big day in Italy! It did not disappoint. It was magical. We switched on our Maps and walked to our first point – the Doge’s palace on St. Mark’s Square - English for Piazza San Marco. Feeling very accomplished, we found our meeting point and waited for the secret itineries tour to start. This tour had a guide tell us all the secrets of the palace, how they had prisoners there, the condition of the prisons, the prison room of Casanova before he escaped and also the story of his escape. The guide brought it all to life. The guide narrated the story of the Doges; how they came into power and their duties. Venice was a Republic. We then rushed to our second tour – the tour of St. Mark’s Cathedral. When we see Venice, it’s always the St. Mark’s square, the most prominent in this square is the Cathedral, not the Doges Palace, mind. That in itself tells us of the power of the Pope over the Doge. The tour of the cathedral was amazing, we were just looking around enthralled. It was our first cathedral visit in Italy, so you can imagine our excitement and fascination. We could however, linger around much because we have a date with the clock tower, also on St. Mark’s square! So, up until now, we were able to find the entrances and the meeting points to start our tours easily. This one wasn’t so easy. This one got us questioning our booking tours independently. Google Maps wasn’t able to help us find the meeting point. We repeatedly passed by the entrance to the Clock Tower without knowing where it was. We went below the clock tower so many times trying to find out the meeting point. Exhausted, we decided to walk around the square, our 1 last effort. Lo behold, we found the meeting point at the entrance of the museum. Who would have thought?! Relieved, we climbed up with 10 mins to spare, it was time to pat our backs on our accomplishment. Before we could recover enough we started the tour! We heard the story of the families that used to lie in the clock tower so that they could make sure things were fine and the right time was told. They were after all an integral part of the St. Mark’s square. They had no chance to get it wrong. Can you imagine sleeping under a clock? We saw the parents and kids rooms and heard the story of the how the clock used to chime at midnight. How spooky was that? But it was also very fascinating to be seeing the inside of the clock tower. All in great condition! We then went up to the top and had a great view of the St. Mark’s cathedral which was a treat! We then had gelato, walked over the Rialto Bridge, stood over it just gazing at the bustling place around us. The atmosphere is so busy with tourists rushing about in the water taxis or Ferrovia. We slowly walked back to our hotel inside small roads, so small that you can’t even label them as roads, they were more like alleys but it was charming! Walking in Venice is the one thing we absolutely enjoyed! Take a gelato and walk about. Life was so beautiful. Grab a pizza and spritz on the way; eat, drink and walk along the water. We were content. We had our magical day in Venice.

Doge's Palace courtyard

Every Doge had their own crest

The famous St. Mark's Square!

Crest of St. Marks

Day 2 brought us bright and early to the train station to meet with the Alilaguna people who would take us on a tour of the famous Islands of Venice – Murano and Burano. We started out in a ferry and it started to rain. The winds were high and the rain was harsh. We were thankfully rushed into a glass factory as soon as we got to Murano. We saw a great demo of how a glass horse is made! We were then, of course, encouraged to buy those horses and more. Oh well, which good tourist would buy at the first place they saw? We didn’t. Being good tourists, we resisted the temptation, walked about the Island and checked out many stores that sell glass showpieces and bot a souvenir at one of those places! At a price much cheaper than the glass factory! We then walked up the cathedral there and sat in it until it was time to leave. We then went to Burano which had those famous colourful houses. We took pictures until we were satisfied and walked around more. We bought some Burano biscuits since they said it was famous. It was okay, nothing to tell home about. We were able to cover each of these Islands within the hour so were quite happy we chose this tour. We were then dropped off at Torcello which was really a waste of our time. But we utilised it by having lunch! I guess that was the only thing to do and they designed it in such a way that it would coincide with our lunch time. There were many restaurants there.

Those colourful houses!

We got dropped off near the St. Mark’s square from where we walked to our next meeting point. It was still raining on and off. We were hoping that this would not rise the water levels in the city, we had a gondola ride scheduled and didn’t want the rain ruining our plans. We had the walking tour. The first significant thing our walking guide told us was that Venice was basically a swamp. She then proceeded to show us how the merchants made the swamp not only livable but also beautiful and prominent. She gave us a glimpse into the life of the merchants of Venice and Venetians. She was a native Venetian herself and told us how the locals were grumpy because we, tourists, take over their entire city and with those narrow alleys, they literally have no space to walk. They take out their grumpiness on us in case we ever, foolishly block the alleys. Rain makes it harder not to block because we walk around with our umbrellas. I did it one time and got pushed rudely out of the way. It had happened. She told us how more and more Venetians are leaving Venice to settle outside because of the increase in the cost of living, especially real estate. Venice is a made up of tiny Islands connected together with bridges. They have about 400 bridges. However, one can walk the length of Venice inside of an hour which is brilliant! We then had our gondola ride and imagined the merchants travelling on these exact waterways. We had managed to find our magic in between the rains. 

Water roads

We then had our last tour of the St. Mark’s bell tower. We took the elevator to the top to be subject to a super awesome 360 degree view of Venice and it was a breath taking! The 360 degree view was open in the sides and the cold winds were having a field day. I think I’ll always remember the feeling of those cold winds blowing when we were already drenched and that view!! 

Venice view